Bank of the West Veterans Blvd, Redwood City

This is a great bank... it's that simple. It's great because the staff truly wants to help their customers. I visited the branch a week ago for the first time to deposit an insurance refund check. The teller, Jennifer Robles, was super friendly and very competent. I reached for my driver's license... oops... I had forgotten to bring my wallet. No problem. Jennifer confirmed my ID through records on file and finished the transaction lickety split. Today, I visited the Redwood City branch, again. As trustee for my mom's estate, I stopped by to close out her account. As luck would have it, Jennifer was my teller, again. This was only the second time I had been inside this branch and she remembered me. There was a glitch with a utility charge on the account, but Jennifer quickly enlisted the help of branch manager, Heherson "John" Balico to solve the problem. He surmised that a utility payment had been charged twice in error and he credited the second charge back to the account. It was such a relief to have a banking professional trying to help me instead of shrugging and saying there was nothing the bank could do. John impressed me as being someone who is genuine and who is committed to doing the best job for each customer he meets. Well, it was time to go back to Jennifer. She prepared a cashier's check to close out my mom's account... no charge. The entire time spent inside the branch was a super positive experience. Banks are largely the same. There's not a whole lot of difference in their services, but what makes a difference is the people working inside the bank. If you live in or near Redwood City, I recommend you take a look at Bank of the West. Jennifer, John and the rest of the staff will treat you right.

terrible, terrible customer service. I was given an 800 number to find out income tax info. When my call was finally answered the clerk said he would transfer my call "immediately" because his computer just crashed. Likely story. It's now 43 minutes and I'm still on hold.

For reference I HATE banks, I use a credit union whenever possible. but As far as banks go these guys are the as good as I have ever seen. BofA and Wells both have screwed me over for various fees. So far BOW has been good to me.