Berkshire Bank

The manager at the Westfield, MA branch should be fired immediately. He is the rudest, most obnoxious man I've ever spoken to. He speaks over you in a hurry, never answers your questions, and is one of the biggest jerks I've ever encountered in my life. When I found out he was the manager, I couldn't believe it. I left the bank because of him. How is this guy still working there? Do they enjoy having a terrible, and I mean terrible reputation?

Opened accounts online. It's been a week now and my money market account is nowhere to be found. The money was taken from my transfer bank. Despite several calls and emails, there's still nothing there. They are friendly but no results. I wish I had looked at ratings before I opened the accounts.

Stay away from this bank—they will withdraw multiples of $37 from your account even after promising not to accept transactions with insufficient funds. Worst bank ever—save yourself the hassle. Crooks.

Usually, this location has very good customer service. When you show up, they treat you like gold; you drop off your deposit and then you are off. Today, a man working behind the counter had a quite aggressive and rude posture when I said, "I'd like to make a deposit." He said, "Okay," and just stared at me with an aggressive and quite rude look and demeanor. The teller tossed me a slip and told me to fill it out. I said, "Okay, usually, you guys do that. What do I do?" He said, "Yeah, that's because 'she' pampers you when you make deposits." How rude and demeaning to the other employees. I asked the younger lady who works there how she was doing, and based on her response, which was polite, I could sense something was off. As I left, the quite rude and irritated employee was sitting outside in his car, smoking a cigarette, with again, a rude and aggravated look. I wanted to withdraw my money and leave. In fact, I will do that this week and close the account. Thank you to the very kind and good customer service employees that usually run the counter. The younger lady with the longer curly hair who is super helpful is why I continue being a customer at Berkshire Bank. But after today, nothing will stop me from closing my account due to the rude male behind the counter. I will withhold names for identity protection purposes. Truly, having been a professional working adult for over 25 years, I have never encountered this kind of bad customer service from one person at a bank, not in any part of the world.

Awful. My card was hacked for the fourth time in 5 months, only this time they didn't alert me when the scammers tried to send $1.00 through twice. They waited until they put through $552.00 then $382.00. I called as soon as I got the alert and they have my money on hold until they investigate to see if I was in Nebraska when I called and went to my CT branch within 20 minutes. They don't protect your card and then they have the audacity to take a week to return your money that they did not take safeguards to protect. I loved Savings Institute. Berkshire are not good. Charter Oak, here we come. You should be ashamed. Do not use this bank! Our accounts were with Savings Institute for 20 years before this takeover and now it's nothing but problems and no customer service at the corporate level. None.

What a deceitful bank. They advertise a $300 bonus for setting up a new account with direct deposit. When the online "pinwheel" system for establishing the direct deposit with Social Security failed to work, I arranged the direct deposit directly with Social Security. Now the bank refuses to pay the $300 bonus because I didn't use their malfunctioning online "pinwheel" system that continually displays an error message.

So my debit card was hacked. The Saturday (2/1/2025) manager at the Pittsfield, MA, Elm Street branch wanted me to return my card. No. I'll wait until a new one is printed. "You will have to wait until Monday; there's nothing we can do for you today." The window cashier was good. However, the unpleasant manager ruined my day with her harsh remarks. Bad advice from the manager was uncalled for.

I was scammed out of $620 by a health insurance company that charged me twice. Berkshire Bank was not willing to work with me at all. They didn't even bother to call the company to take care of the situation and refused to put the money back into my account. I will never use this bank again and I wouldn't recommend this bank to anybody.

My card number and all my information were stolen even though I had the card. First, no one at my actual bank could bother to help me; they told me to call the eight hundred number, who then jerked me around for days before they actually put some of the money back, telling me it may only be temporary while they figured out it was theft, just like I said. They still haven't returned all the fees to me and refused to remove a double fee they charged to my account for something else. The inexperienced kid working there told me they are cutting back on refunding money for their questionable fees that they are being sued over. They used to have the friendliest tellers; I haven't seen them there recently, and seeing that was the only good thing they had going. Now they have nothing: ridiculous fees, no real interest on your money, and an indifferent young employee too lazy to even look at your account. It's the model of today's world.

I would prefer not to give them any stars at all. I traveled to England with a couple hundred dollars in cash and my bank card to spend some time with a dying friend. I used my card to buy some food at the market and the card was not accepted.

I was able to call the branch that I work with in New Hartford, New York, to explain my situation. They told me because I had not informed them of my travels, they canceled my card and there was nothing they could do to help me. So here I am, with a dying friend overseas, with no money... Thank you very much, Berkshire Bank; they would do nothing to help me! Absolutely nothing... They turned me over to their 1-800 representatives. Thankfully, I was with his family and they took care of me. I was absolutely humiliated... What a despicable institution this bank is. They should be avoided. They are really of no use to anyone... I mean, who needs that?

Worst bank to deal with. Don't expect to talk to them on the phone; it won't be a pleasant experience, especially with Branch Manager Christine Wylie in Hebron, CT. She should be disciplined. I would like Nitin Mhatre to call me to discuss her insulting customers. I will write a detailed review soon.

All of the negative reviews are spot on and I wish I had seen them before I opened an account. My brother wrote me a check to cover some expenses on a shared property. Without informing me, the incompetent fraud department returned the check and canceled my debit card. At no point did anyone from Berkshire Bank contact me to inform me of this action. So here I am thinking that my bills are being auto-paid, and my internet and utilities are all going unpaid. No one at customer service could explain why these actions were taken. My brother had plenty of funds in his account. We have the same last name, and I have been a customer in good standing for over two years! One customer service rep accused me of being a counterfeiter! They offered me no solutions other than visiting a branch to sort the matter out. It's so odd for me to read that the security team at Berkshire Bank has allowed so much fraud on other people's accounts when they treated family members collaborating to pay bills like criminals! The first chance I get, I will be closing my account.

Worst bank ever!!! I'm a senior and a vet, they offered a $200 bonus if you direct deposit and make seven transactions. It's been 2 months and still no money in my account.
I also wanted to transfer almost 12k from Canada. They said it would take 14 days, after 10 days they canceled my transfer. They said they don't do that. Check out the other reviews this bank is the worst bank, go to Chase Bank they treat you much better. They did my money transfer in less than 24 hours. I must have had a dozen Banks over the years and this is the worst bank that I've ever had stay away from them they'll just screw you!!!

Absolute worst bank ever! Any scammer can take money out of your account without any consequences. Security is missing in action. No protection for your money.

BEWARE OF THIS BANK

I am a small business owner and had two reckless incidents where checks were stolen from my business. They scanned my wife's signature and put it on two checks totaling $30,000. The signatures were totally crooked and you could tell they were scanned. The individual went to two different branches and the checks were cashed. Obviously, there had to be a teller involved in the crime. The bank made good on it, but going forward, there was a note in my account that any check written over $500, the owner was to be called.

Now we had a second incident. A title clerk was embezzling checks using a phone scanner, over $49,000 went through. I sat with the bank manager, went over my account and showed her the checks that were forged, and then asked her how their fraud department did not catch on to this. Also, I requested a printout confirming they were supposed to call me on anything over $500. She complied. I said, "Please have your security officer call me as well." "They're busy. They will call you in a couple of days," she replied.

She then informed me that the executive of the security department decided not to make good on the money that was embezzled. It was plain as day. It’s their fault for letting these checks go through. I insisted that I needed the security executive to call me. "She is out for the week. Please have her call me Monday immediately. I would like to know why the decision has been made not to make good on this after the branch was supposed to be calling me."

As of right now, the bank has not made good. I have to take them to court and spend money to get $49,000 back that was embezzled, due to their fraud department and the branch's recklessness for not catching on to all of this. If you are a business owner, please take heed of this because you would have to close your doors if you lost this much money.

The security department has yet to call me. Please, if you own any business, do not engage with this bank - it's dangerous. They hire people constantly who don't thoroughly understand their job. I implore you, if you value your money, this is not the place to go.

I am still out $49,000 of my hard-earned money and this bank is insured for such losses. I've been a customer for 15 years - don't ever think a bank takes care of you. Banks don't care; you're just a number. It’s not like the '60s and '50s anymore, where a handshake meant something at a bank.

Stay away from this bank, far away, or I guarantee you will be losing money.

Thank you, Berkshire Bank, for hurting my children and my business over your negligence in safeguarding people's money. Beware, beware, beware.

I also plan to call the local newspaper and the local Spectrum news over this.