ING Direct vs Emigrant Direct Bank

[eddiehcruz]

i attended a suze orman book signing in west hollywood, calif recently. suze recommended emigrant direct twice in her presentation, gave the website address and said that it was paying the highest rate in the country. that's good enough for me. i am a little disappointed so far that it takes so long to set it up. i did my initial deposit on monday (mar 28). as of today (friday, april 1), i have received no notification that the deposits have been received nor am i able to log on to the emigrant website. i was told that they would "snail mail" me the acknowledgement. since i am west coast, i'm sure that i can expect it by may or june. as a plus, the csr told me that they would have 24 hour customer service (a real plus for people in other time zones). i don't recall ing as being so difficult but, i'll still put my money where it gains the most interest as long as it's fdic insured and has a decent customer service dept.

[globetrotter]

Other than the sign-up process, has anyone had trouble with Emigrant? Has anyone had to contact their customer service for some other reason? If someone has, I'd like to know why you needed to and how you would rate it.

[obi_positive]

Just checked ING Direct site to see their rate went up to 3%. I just got my activation letter from Emigrant today and debating whether to hold off transferring some funds. I love it when competition helps the consumer.

[PRICEPLUS]

I'm staying at ING for the time being.

[Armywife]

Originally Posted by obi_positive

Just checked ING Direct site to see their rate went up to 3%. I just got my activation letter from Emigrant today and debating whether to hold off transferring some funds. I love it when competition helps the consumer.

I agree with Obi 100%. The more ING sees their customer base migrating over to higher rates, the quicker the response... hopefully we'll see 4 by December? (One can dream, can't one?

[eddiehcruz]

even though ing is up to 3%, i'm still putting my money with emigrant as soon as i get confirmation. if enough of us do this, the rates will be competitive across the board.

[34saving]

Okay. I finally bit the bullet and did the sign-up thing for ED . . . alone (see previous entries if you want the story). Everything seemed fine. Now I have an account, it has my initial $50 (thank goodness it doesn't have more) in it, and I can view it. One problem - After 3 days of having it open I have NO IDEA how I'm supposed to transfer money in and out. There are no buttons, no explanations, and none of the help buttons work. I didn't think I was particularly internet stupid (never had any problems with ING) . . . has anybody had an experience like this?

[34saving]

I guess I answered my own question. Today I logged on an new links allowing transfers appeared . . . wow . . . still a fan of ING I think.

[goodtosave]

Emigrant Direct website is outsourced to Metavante. The website is not as user friendly as ING Direct.

But they have better rates and next day transfer so I can live with their website for now.

[terry1156]

I know that Emigrant doesn't offer a sign-up bonus now. Did Emigrant ever offer a sign-up bonus at one time?

[mehmeh]

i heard online that Emigrant had some sort of signup reward going on but I forget what... supposedly if u put it all together it was higher than ING.. saw it at Epinions actually

on another note, I was curious if anyone knew if the Greenpoint 'Free Checking' account (the lowest of them w/ no interest!) was compatible w/ these internet banks. I read that if the checks carried the line "Deposit through" (something "through") on them, then the said checking account could not be electronically connected w/ the NON-brick and mortar banks. Greenpoint bank was recently bought by Northfork bank. If someone is using Greenpoint and has connected their checking w/ these world internet banks, it would make me feel a lot safer and i wouldn't be opening a checking account for nothing. hope i posted this in the right place, sorry for the noobish quetions. thanks =)

[mehmeh]

the question is regarding ING in particular*ING+Greenpoint Bank = ok?

[terry1156]

OK - this is sort of off the subject, but is it just me or do others think that Emigrant Direct is a terrible name for a bank? I think one of the major problems I had with signing up with them at first was that their name was so awful I wasn't sure I could trust them.

[eddiehcruz]

come to think of it, emigrant direct is not exactly catchy. "ing" is, like you can "ing" something. today, april 11 (exactly 2 weeks after i started the process), i finally received the acknowledgement letter in the mail!

Now that i'm on the emigrant website, i understand what a previous writer meant when he said that it's hard to know what to do to transfer the money over!

Does emigrant management know how sloppy this looks compared to ing?

i started out optimistic about this, but am now a little sour.

[34saving]

I don't really care for the name, but I accept it because it goes back a long way and times were different then. I have a harder time with the abbreviation! I kept having thoughts of Bob Dole's Viagra commercials!

[2moretrees]

Can someone explain to me how much money I would need to place into Emigrant to make the extra interest worthwhile?

[goodtosave]

I guess it depends on what worthwhile means to you. It's different to each person.

Using APY.
It's 0.25 difference a year for $100 at today's rates.
It's 2.50 difference a year for $1000 at today's rates.

You can do the math.

Keep in mind also that Emigrant Direct allows you to access your funds the next business day if you are requesting the transfer on a business day before 3:30EST.

ING Direct requires two business days to get your funds.

With ING Direct, you also lose a day's of interest because ING Direct would withdraw your funds on the next business day but the deposit hits your checking the 2nd business day.

And ING Direct does the same thing when you transfer your funds from checking account to ING Direct Savings.

Bottomline is that you lose one day's interest every time you do a transaction with ING Direct.

[eddiehcruz]

I just transferred $62k on sunday, april 17 from ing, transfer to take place on april 18. when i looked up on ing website, i noticed that my bal was down to $27!, but my wells fargo acct doesn't show the transfer yet. what you said is definitely true! sonebody mentioned to me that you can go to an ing direct "cafe" available in some cities (like sta monica bl in los angeles) to withdraw your money in case of a riot or earthquake, i guess. ing rep said that this is not true!
i can't turn back now as the extra .25% will make up for the days' worth of interest that i have lost with that thieving ing bank. i like very much what you say about the one day transfer with emigrant. way to go, emigrant!

[eddiehcruz]

actually i'm losing 2 days of interest by transferring money from ing to emigrant. i'm going to leave 3 cents in my ing account just to piss them off.

[genchan]

Originally Posted by eddiehcruz

actually i'm losing 2 days of interest by transferring money from ing to emigrant. i'm going to leave 3 cents in my ing account just to piss them off.

Ummmm, if you are so worried about 2 days of interest why are you even putting your money in Emigrant? <A HREF="http://www.resourcebankonline.com">Resource Bank</A> pays 3.31%