Is Fifth Third Bank a Good Bank?

Are you wondering whether Fifth Third Bank is a good bank for you? Do you want to know a bit more about them before you open an account? If so, you aren’t alone. To help you with this we’ve compiled some reviews and ratings for Fifth Third Bank so that you can make an informed decision about every aspect of their services. 

About Fifth Third Bank

Fifth Third Bank is a regional provider in many Southern and Central States, but which brings with it monthly fees for those who don’t meet certain requirements such as maintaining an average balance in their account.

Services Offered by Fifth Third Bank

Based out of Ohio, this bank offers a strong network of branches across 10 different states with access to over 50,000 ATMs and certain savings when you first sign up. 

Fifth Third Bank offers the quintessential checking account, savings accounts, and CDs of most big banks.

Goal Setter Savings

The savings account is a barebones account that earns the same three out of five stars from NerdWallet. They only pay interest on balances up to $50,000, and the interest you get is 0.01%, so it’s nothing to write home about anyway. Unfortunately they also have a monthly fee for their savings accounts with a lot of restrictions. You have to pay a $5 fee every month which is only waived if you keep at least $500 in the account, or have a military banking account.

Essential Checking

The essential checking account has a monthly fee of $11 which can be reduced or waived if you maintain certain deposit or spending requirements, such as having at least $1,500 in your account. This checking account does not earn any interest but you do get access to over 50,000 ATMs across the country.

Fifth Third Bank CD

The CD has a minimum deposit of only $500 but the return rate is quite low, 1 year interest rate being 0.10%, three years being 0.15%, and five years reaching only 0.20%.

Ratings

Fifth Third Bank has received an overall rating of 3.0 out of 5 stars from NerdWallet in large part because of the fees associated with checking accounts and the expensive overdraft fees. With lower interest rates for your savings and CD accounts compared to other banks, you also have to contend with the fact that the overdraft fees. 

Customer Service Reviews

A similar trend among National level banks is seen with Fifth Third Bank where issues dealt with in person, every day exchanges with tellers at local branches are perfectly fine. But when you try to deal with something more complicated the customer service degrades drastically. They are very stringent and don’t have any flexibility when it comes to removing fees even if they were the ones at fault, or canceling scheduled payments.

One customer stated, “Was a customer for 40 years. Always was a promoter of bank. Have recently had a short period of time when my auto deposit apparently dropped below the bank’s limit and was charged a fee for having not enough money in the bank, which was still over $1000. Fortunately for me this only lasted for 1 month, and I had a very large deposit to make. Speaking to customer service the fee would not be removed. That was final straw.”

Many customers complain as well about the endless security loop that they end up and when trying to handle anything over the phone with customer service. There are many questions asked and multiple dead ends as well as loops that require things like pins or verification signatures and if you don’t have them you get routed somewhere else to obtain them but then you were told you have to be routed again, and again, and again without any success in resolving your problems.

Customer Complaints About Fifth Third Bank

The overdraft fees are among one of the biggest complaints lodged against Fifth Third Bank according to Consumer Affairs, especially by people who have had an account error such as a fraudulent charge. This overdraft fee is $37 and they can charge your account up to 5 times per day. So for people who may have miscalculated by 10 cents or people who have had fraudulent activity on their account, the complaints have to do with how quickly the excess fees add up and they are required to pay them in order to prevent them from accumulating even though they didn’t make the mistake.

Representatives are only available during specific hours but you can also get support on Twitter so not having 24 hours support can prove problematic when something happens in the middle of the night. Again, the overdraft fees comprise the largest set of complaints against the company especially with the overdraft protection that customers can choose to set up. This overdraft protection works the same as any other in that if you accidentally overdraw the account you can link it to another account which covers the cost but it charges you $12 per transfer.

Additionally, consumers have complained that Fifth Third Bank doesn’t seem to have comprehensive information available all at once but rather you get information piecemeal. Many consumers have lodged complaints against the company for having misleading information or deceptive practices with regard to unexpected fees, correspondence, and sincere issues getting any legitimate answers or solutions from customer service when things go wrong.

What to do if you have a complaint

If you have a complaint against Fifth Third Bank, and you aren’t getting a solution to your problem, we can help.