NJ tells on banks

New Jersey consumers nearly cracked the top 10 by volume of complaints filed with the federal government against their banks, according to a new study by the non-profit New Jersey Public Interest Group.
Whiny Vermont had the highest complaint ratio, and New York – the “ahh-fuhged-aboud-it” state – ranked 45th. New Jersey, the bad-luck-boardwalks state, posted a complaint-to-deposit ratio that ranked 11th.
Those garnering the greatest number of gripes in New Jersey were deposit slip heavyweights Wells Fargo, TD Bank and Bank of America, in that order.
Nationally, the most complained about were Wells, Bank of America and Chase, in that order.
TD Bank, which acquired Commerce Bank five years ago for $8.5 billion so it could be “America’s Most Convenient Bank,” had the seventh highest complaint ratio in the country with 4.8 complaints per billion dollars in deposits.
Not to be ignored, Valley National Bank, based in Wayne, had the fourth highest complaint ratio in the country in the category “making/receiving payments, sending money.”
The study released Tuesday included banks with more than $10 billion in assets and was based on data collected by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was created by Congress in 2010 to rein in financial services rip-offs and abuses.