A bank for truckers.
Established: 1998, as an Industrial Loan Corporation (ILC)
Homepage: http://www.tabbank.com
Corporate office: Located in Ogden, Utah, adjacent to the Flying J corporate building.
The biggest problem that faced truckers or any sort of traveler was finding a place to store their cash. No one bank has a complete monopoly in the United States, contrary to popular belief. Truckers travel the Interstates and the highways, and these roads don't necessarily go through every large city, nor is there one bank with locations clear across the country and specifically at Interstate exits. But gas stations are at every Interstate exit... so the owners of Flying J started TAB to give financial services to truckers.
A trucker no longer had to find a place to park their rig just to go to a bank, nor did they have to wait until they were at their residence to get to their local bank. Probably a good thing too, imagine diesel trucks driving down main street just to go to a bank... or up to the drive-up teller... A trucker isn't at home more than a couple weeks at a time, and for the most part is on the road. He or she needs to be able to access their funds while traveling, and one of the best banks in the country for a trucker is TAB. There are hundreds of Flying J's around the country, and every trucker has to fuel their truck with hundreds of diesel gallons any way, so why not make two stops in one? Or better yet, why not do it all over the phone!
Features:
- 24/7 customer service. (It is open 365 days of the year, truckers drive every day...)
- Any debit or credit card through TAB gets cash price at any Flying J gas station, along with free showers and cups of coffee, and frequent fueler points that can be spent at the Flying J restaurant and website.
- Money can be deposited into TAB through the purchase of a Flying J gift card. Calling into TAB and reading off the gift card number will result in an instant transfer of funds.
- Deposits over the phone.
- You can talk to your bank at 3am right before you fuel, because you like to drive at night when there is less traffic!
- Pretty much does anything any other bank does.
- Checking/Savings Accounts, ACH's, Bank Wires, Bank Services, Credit Cards, FDIC Insured, etc.
- OOBA, Owner Operated Business Accounts: Fleet owners can setup one account with all their drivers on it with a card that pulls from company resources with limits for each individual driver.
Negative facts:
- One physical location of the company, in Ogden, Utah. Flying J's act as an affiliate, and do not take responsibility for any customer service in regards to TAB.
- If you don't fuel at Flying J, you probably wouldn't bank with TAB. The good news is that Flying J is the number one retailer of diesel fuel in North America though.
- Personal checks or non-guaranteed funds must be mailed in to the physical location, and depending on the amount of the check may be put on hold upto three business days (Less than $1,000), and upto an additional seven business days (More than $5,000).
- Its a bank, not a credit union.
- ATM fees are standard, any TAB owned ATM at a Flying J will charge $1.00 every time accessed.
- Although there are no transaction or deposit fees, there are fees practically everywhere else. $2.00 to send an ACH, $15.00 to send a wire, $2.00 60 day dormancy fees...
- No suckers to give out to the kids when you go through the driveup, lol.
I'm an employee of TAB currently in the customer service part of things, ie the call center. The idea behind TAB is pretty neat, but its a young company expanding fast that needs a lot more management attention than its getting to keep employees happy. Low management promises many pay raises but unethically denies them at any possible opportunity, probably like any corporation I'm sure, but when it's your job to take a hundred phone calls from sometimes disgruntled and vulgar truckers, you'd think you could at least give that quarter raise you promised. I recommend the bank for a trucker, but don't apply to be a customer service employee.
See also: TCH Transportation Clearing House, the sister company of TAB.