bayon123
Fine for Domestic Banking, a Nightmare on Foreign Transactions
I've held accounts with NBT Bank and its predecessors for five decades. While I've had excellent service with them on the domestic side, it has been 180 degrees opposite on anything international. Despite notifying the bank in advance, both online and in person, of upcoming foreign travel, the bank has consistently frozen my accounts once I was traveling abroad, rendering both my debit card and access to my accounts unusable. This has occurred several times. I lodged a formal complaint with a regional NBT president, who took my complaint seriously and subsequently informed me that NBT had reformed its system. Well, I went through the same motions for my latest foreign trip and guess what? Locked out of my accounts, requiring a 45-minute phone call from overseas to reverse it. Having zero trust in NBT's competence in this area, I now use another bank that caters to military personnel and retirees whenever I travel outside the country. I also use this bank when wiring money abroad due to NBT's excessive fees and slow processing. Bottom line: if you never leave the country and engage solely in domestic financial transactions, NBT is fine. If not, take your business elsewhere.