Dan Rusnock has been a FirstMerit bank customer for 21 years.
He first opened his account at a branch in Green. In recent years, he and his wife have been banking at the Manchester Road branch in the Portage Lakes area.
So Rusnock was surprised when he received notification recently that his FirstMerit account would be transferred to First Commonwealth Bank on Dec. 2.
The letter told Rusnock that his account would be included in the list of customers of the Whipple Avenue branch and sold to the new owner.
In order to gain federal approval for Huntington Bank’s acquisition of FirstMerit, which was completed in August, FirstMerit was required to divest or sell 13 of its branches in Stark and Ashtabula counties.
First Commonwealth Financial Corp., headquartered in Indiana, Pa., bought the branches, saying it fit into their model for growth in the state. The bank said it intended to retain all 80 employees at the branches.
First Commonwealth has a corporate banking center in the Cleveland area and mortgage offices in Stow and in Dublin, outside Columbus.
The acquisitions will make First Commonwealth Bank the largest community bank in the Canton area based on deposits and the third largest overall in that market behind the combined Huntington/FirstMerit and second-place JPMorgan.
But Rusnock has never been inside the Stark County branch that FirstMerit told him it considered his home branch. He said he and his wife have perhaps used an ATM there four times in 21 years.
He called a branch manager and was told there was nothing that could be done. He was also told there were some people as far away as Cleveland who were included on the list.
“I told the manager, ‘so you’re telling me I have to go open an account I already have and close the one I already have and then I’m going to have to change every bill that is automatically withdrawn?” Rusnock asked.
Bank officials were required to do a one-year look back on transactions at the affected 13 branches from March of this year and find customers who had a majority of transactions at those branches, Huntington spokesman Brent Wilder said. The customers’ accounts were assigned to the branches sold to First Commonwealth.
Wilder said there appears to be a small number of inadvertent errors in accounts scheduled for transfer, such as the Rusnocks’. After learning about the Rusnocks’ situation, the bank has removed their name from the transferred list and they can convert to a Huntington account when that transition occurs at a later date.
“We truly believe the customer concerns are isolated. We want to address them properly. If customers believe the majority of their transactions were not at a divesting location, we would encourage them to contact customer service and be clear about their concern,” Wilder said.
When customers are transferred during bank purchases, the affected customers have the right to bank with whatever institution they want, Wilder said. However, Huntington does not want to discourage people from banking with First Commonwealth since that was part of the required transaction, he said.
First Commonwealth spokeswoman Amy Jeffords deferred questions to Wilder.
After finding out Friday that his account will not be transferred, Rusnock said he was satisfied but disappointed he had to call a reporter to get the bank to change its mind.
Rita Blaurock of Barberton also appears to have been erroneously included on the First Commonwealth transfer list. She’s so upset that she won’t stay with FirstMerit or Huntington.
Blaurock and her husband have banked at a Barberton FirstMerit branch for 19 years. Every Friday, her husband goes into the branch. But Blaurock works as a consultant for an organization at its Canton office and occasionally deposits her own checks into her account when she makes deposits for the organization at the 30th Street FirstMerit location.
But it’s not a majority of her bank transactions, which also include a loan, mortgage and investments at her Barberton branch, she said.
Blaurock was told by a branch manager and another higher-level manager that nothing could be done. She is not interested in converting to Huntington after the experience.
She has already opened a new account at a Barberton branch of Chase. “To treat somebody that’s been a member since 1997 like that, even though you sell the bank, that is very poor taste,” she said.
She said she needs time to transfer automatic deposits such as Social Security, pension checks and also automatic withdrawals.
“I’m 74 years old. It’s 30 miles from my home to come to the [Canton] bank,” she said. “I thought you could use a bank anywhere.”
Betty Lin-Fisher can be reached at 330-996-3724 or blinfisher@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow her @blinfisherABJ on Twitter or www.facebook.com/BettyLinFisherABJ and see all her stories at www.ohio.com/betty