County Bank patrons adjust - Fresno Bee
Others, such as Jean Larson of Clovis, planned to stick with Westamerica. She joined County Bank when it first opened and has remained pleased with its customer service. She and her granddaughter, Kristy Sherman of Clovis, didn't expect many changes.
"If someone wasn't taking over, that's what we'd be worried about," Sherman said.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. arranged to transfer control of County Bank's 39 offices to Westamerica, a move that was finalized late Friday afternoon. That's when the California Department of Financial Institutions shut down County Bank.
By Saturday morning, Westamerica staffers greeted customers at two area branches open that day: one at Shaw and Clovis avenues, and another in River Park at Blackstone and Nees avenues.
The transfer of County Bank's deposits and branches ends its troubled history. It had racked up $96 million in lawsuits due to bad real-estate loans. As of Monday, County Bank had about $1.7 billion in assets and total deposits of $1.3 billion.
Normally I would just drop off my vehicle at Michael Toyota and being a “preferred customer” they would change my oil for $29.95 plus tax ( — every oil change is quoted PLUS TAX). But when I called Michael Toyota I found out that I was no longer a preferred customer. It has nothing to do with the fact that we drove across town to Bingham last last year to lease my wife’s car. No, apparently there was an expiration date on my Preferred Customer Card and my preferred customer status expired along with everyone else’s and my service manager (which I happen to know by name) didn’t know of any coupons I could hunt down to reduce the CURRENT PRICE OF AN OIL CHANGE: $39.95.
