Horizon Bank

Horizon is a great place to bank. Our local branch in Big Rapids strives to serve it's members as well as the community. Everyone there from tellers to management makes you feel like family.

Very friendly tellers, helpful bank managers, the main doors stay open until 4 pm, except friday when its a little later. I got a great debit card arrangement with them, no cost. The other bank up the street wanted $90 a year for a debit card there, it made me switch. Very helpful with setting up my account and accessing my savings and checking needs. They get new tellers there fairly frequently, not sure if this is a positive or negative.

My personal banker Angela Aldridge makes things easy and I feel at ease. Couldn’t ask for a better bank.

Chemical Bank is my favorite bank. I've been to a few and I always received friendly helpful service.

Horizon Bank, I'd first like to thank you for the approval on the small personal loan, it was a seemless process and I especially liked how professional the young lady and gentleman I dealt with in the branch location were. I was made to feel important, everything was well explained, and I left feeling both valued and appreciated.

Why the lower review score?
Your "my rewards" program in my opinion may be one of the best customer incentive programs I have ever seen, offering so many discounts and perks you would be crazy not to spend the $15.00 month to hold the platinum status, and have access to the features. One of those features is access to small loans. I decided to take advantage of that perk as I have a much larger one already through you.

Due to some unauthorized charges to a card from a different financial institution, the payment of $75.00 was made about two weeks behind what the intended date needed to be. This happened because I was waiting for the fraudulent charges to be investigated with Discover Bank and the hold to be released.
Due to this you took it upon yourself to cancel my reward status with you, but then proceeded to ACH charge 2 months of fees causing over $70.00 plus dollars in overdraft charges. (I had stopped funding the account and using the account because I was upset with how this was handled so there was not a balance ethere for the funds to be pulled)

In recap, you cancel my benefits with zero notice, then proceed to charge me 2 months of fees and $70.00 in additional charges when you yourself terminated the program. I call the office and they say the manager is unable to refund those because I did not give "My Rewards" enough due notice of cancellation before the charges were sent for completion... Does this make any sense to you? HORIZON canceled it, I had no idea! how can I give notice if something I am not aware of? Secondly, that would make at least some sort of sense for the first charge but the second charge was 31 days later how is that not enough time??

Let's share the blame here. I certainly could have withdrawn $75 from somewhere walked into the bank and made sure that that payment was made, however after speaking to you about the situation I held confidence that Horizon understood the payment was coming and the extenuating circumstances surrounding why payment was a little past due, mind you I've never been late on any payment with them before including the larger personal loan.

Affect /Result /Outcome

This to me feels like a money hungry move and sets a terrible presidence for your brand. Fees could have easily been
waived but you chose the fees over customer relations. As a result the checking account and savings accoint are being closed, I will complete the loan with you as promised and Horizon will lose another customer with an established payment history and good credit.

My recommendation

I am not able to at this point and time recommend using this bank for anything other than applying for a larger loan. I suggest you stay away from the "My Rewards" program even with the exceptional incentives that they do offer. There seems to be a breakdown in communication between the "my rewards" and branch operations departments causing unnecessary confusion and frustration to the customers.

I would also suggest to make sure your account is funded and watch it closely if you have any ACH or automatic payments set up to be pulled from any associated account with Horizon Bank as they are QUICK to nail you with a fee.

Overall, your going to get smiling faces and great customer service at the branches and they do try and go above and beyond. If it were not for the unresolved issue I would strongly recommend this bank, for those looking for a little more flexibility I suggest a bank with a grace period before hammering a customer with fees that should not have been placed. Your going to get what you expect from a bank at Horizon, but don't set your expectations to high when it comes to their money.

Chemical Bank, Big Rapids. I went into the bank on Memorial Day week end. I needed change for a $100 bill. I had traveled from Alabama for the local military festivities and was caught short on small bills. They immediately refused to cash the bill even though I had my Military ID, Drivers licence, and Dept of Defense ID. I asked to see the manager. The arrogant manager located 15 feet away refused to see me and had the lowly teller do the dirty work. The teller then accused me of money laundering...MONEY LAUNDERING!!! WHAT! 37 years with DOD and DA; 20 years as a field grade Army Officer. All that history and on Memorial Day to boot. What bank acts like this and then accuses me of being a criminal. I found the bank has a bad rep in general in the area as I told many people of the incident. Nice way to treat a vet. Go elsewhere.

Don't use this branch office I recommend the one on Perry or any other location. Drive thru is short. Nothing can be done at drive thru except withdrawals or deposits I guess the other branches are different. Love the other branches favorite is Perry street location