First Bank Taraval St, San Francisco

I received very poor customer service at both this location and the Main Branch in San Francisco on Montgomery St. from Tracy Li and Bobby Wu (the managers at both branches) Both my mother and I are long-time customers of this bank of 15+ years, but after my experiences on 2/22/2022 and 2/23/2022, I will definitely be closing my account. To make a very long story short, my mother is bedbound and I came to California to assist her with some personal matters. She had a high-dollar check ($12,000) that I deposited in her account on her behalf on 2/22/2022. I did so, and after some back and forth, Mr. Wu gave me a run sheet showing that $5,500 would be available the next day and the remainder would be available on 3/1/2022 (after initially telling the entire check would need to be held for four days, which is NOT First Bank's policy). My mom wrote me a personal check from her First Bank account for $5,400 to cash on 2/23/2022 --less than the amount of the available funds--and when I went to cash it, providing them with both my ID and my debit card they initially refused to do, saying the funds were not available, when that was clearly not the case. I was at the branch for nearly 1 1/2 hour trying to get this resolved. Bobby and Tracy communicated with each other on the phone in Mandarin, so I would not know what they were saying. Also, Tracy invited me to leave, saying she would call me back the next day. Even after speaking to my mother on the phone to "verify," that she gave me the check, Tracy still refused to cash it.Not once did they give me valid reason why the check could not be cashed and I had to let her know that she is not authorized to deny me funds at her own discretion. What makes it so bad is that my mother was a teller at the Main Branch for approximately 15 years (she left in 2016) and when she called customer service, they told her the policy had not changed and that $5,000 is available on the next business day when high-amount checks are deposited (and are cleared)! Tracy was especially condescending and tried to insist that she had no obligation to cash my check and treated me, a long-time customer, as a nuisance. Before this event, I was very happy with my First Bank account and even kept it open when I moved to Washington several years ago (where there are no branches). Not now; once I clear put my remaining transactions, they will no longer get my business.

Quiet bank, knowledgeable and friendly bankers.