Salem Five Reviews 7

Huh, Just did a 30 year mortgage with Salem Five. Came back 3 months later to do a HELOC and got set up with a guy named Tom. Awful service and experience. We the customers feel like we’re inconvenient to them. They are vague as heck on their email correspondence. They don’t leave phone contacts on their email. Their emails lack professional detail. They are unresponsive until the last day I gave them an email explaining my point of view. Very,very unprofessional. Go elsewhere!

SalemFive takes DAYS to do what other banks can do in less than 10 seconds. End result can cost you $$$ in losses or more, like it has for me.
Transferring $ from one online account to another at the same bank takes seconds, EXCEPT at SalemFive. One agent told me it would be done by "end of day" then another told me "1 to 2 business days". As I result I have already lost over $100 in interest due to SalemFive.

After relocating to Salem, I made the decision to support a local bank, but that turned out to be a regrettable choice. This bank is far from being consumer-friendly, and I have serious doubts about the competence of their business banking and mortgage divisions.

An incident that particularly stood out was when they refused to accept a company check for deposit simply because I didn't have a corporate account with them. This had never been an issue with any of my previous banks.

I then decided to refinance my mortgage with them, and it was initially approved pending an appraisal. However, they later went back on their word because I had changed the name of one of my companies.

It's now clear to me why the majority of their reviews are two stars or less.

They claimed they sent me an email 6 months ago to submit some kind of verification. Just one email in six months to alert me to something I apparently needed in order to keep my account active. You would think if a bank wanted my business they would have better communication and notifications. So out of the blue they cancelled my account and sent me a check. I called in, twice, and both times had the most curt snob of a customer service rep one could get. Would not recommend this bank regardless of their interest rate. There are many other banks to choose from. No one needs to be treated this badly for the "privilege" of saving your money with them.

I bank with Salem Five through their app and everything works great, including remote deposit. They have one of the highest rates on their high yield savings account at 4.61% as of this writing.

CD autorenewed because I did not contact them within the 10 day window - I don't remember the notification they said they sent. but the big bite is that although they are offering new customers 5.5% for this type of CD, my rate renewed at 0.5%!! I decided that I don't want to deal with a bank that treats existing customers like this and closed the CD despite the huge penalty - will make it back in less than a year at these rates.

Worst online banking experience I've encountered in my life.
So here's the situation: I am chasing higher yields that are being offered by other banks. I started pulling my money out of their account and using the standard ACH transfer to a higher yielding account I just opened. The lamest transfer limits I have ever encountered are $5,000 at a time! Most other banks allow $25,000+ at a time.
So I said fine, whatever, and started setting up a daily transfer to move my money over multiple days. I got through two days and my account was locked. Is it conceivable that someone might want to send $10,000 instead of just $5,000?? Unbelievable. So I had to call these guys up and wait on hold for 30 minutes to unlock my account. I asked about the transfer limits and they said that they they limit outbound transfers for 'security' but will respect other banks outbound limits, so I decided to use a pull transaction instead of a push transaction from my other bank. 1 got through, but then the account was locked AGAIN.

They wanted me to jump through a bunch of extra hoops to prove that I own the account that it is being transferred to (uhh yeah, isn't that what the "trial deposits" are for?). I told them that its a new account and don't have a statement to show them. They then requested that I have my other bank to write a letter on my behalf. Seriously? How about no. What a hassle.

So then after a week had passed by and my $10,000 that was pulled from my account but not passed onto my other bank didn't show up I had to call them again to ask what was going on. The first customer service rep said that it was sent and I said, no way, its not in my account. After a lengthy hold period they explained that they wanted me to send them the info and I explained that it was a new account so didn't have a statement.

They proceeded to hold hostage my $10,000 hostage not earning interest for two weeks until I called to complain and just told them to return the funds they aren't sending.

I seriously hope a bank run takes this bank out because they do not deserve your business.