Emigrant Direct

[xMoneyMakerx]

Hi, I am new here and I had a question. O.K. I have done a search here and on google on emigrant direct but i only find people talking about them registering for an account and how you;re supposed to get two deposits and then the letter blah blah blah etc. etc. no one ever gets to the point of telling us how its going after they are already registered. Can someone PLEASE share their real experience with emigrant like what happened after the registration process was over and you have been with emigrant for a while? Any info will be greatly appreciated. THANKS!

[jmjj215]

I'm sure once it's all set up it's fine. You'd hear otherwise if it were not. Also, keep in mind you can get a bonus here from Jeffrey if you want to sign up.

[34saving]

My experiences with Emigrant have been okay AFTER the opening process. However, I will warn you that two days ago I could not get access to their site for several hours. They also lost an order for a money transfer. Not a big deal . . .it's not like they lost the money or anything, but . . . I am glad a have a little e-fund in an account I can write checks out of (or get cash).

[PennyPincher]

I opened my account with Emigrant last March, and I've been very pleased. Although I like the set up of the ING website better, the higher interest rate ED was offering attracted me.

I have not had any problems, and enjoy the nice amount that is accumulating with 4% interest. I have moved about 80% of what I had in ING to Emigrant!

~ A content customer

[Ima saver]

Is 4% the top rate from Emigrant right now? I had planned on moving quite a bit to ING after I opened it, but my local bank is paying 4.14% so I have stayed here.

[Optsol]

There are a few at 4.25 now.

http://www.bankrate.com/brm/rate/mmm...ct=33&sor t=2

[enabler]

I've had a unimpressive experience with Emigrant thus far. I'd already read up about the process here, so I felt ready to give it a go.
The initial sign-up was 2 months ago; got a general error message immediately that night. I figured I'd wait until their letter arrived and the account was fully activated before worrying too much. The letter came, the account was supposedly activated, but I see nothing but a general error message when I view my account.
Customer service has yet to answer an online message written on December 10, and the waits for phone support are interminable - I've yet to speak to an actual person, even trying at different times of day.

Now I certainly wasn't expecting stellar service, but I think their unresponsiveness is a bit extreme.

[BCompDude]

Originally Posted by enabler

I've had a unimpressive experience with Emigrant thus far. I'd already read up about the process here, so I felt ready to give it a go.
The initial sign-up was 2 months ago; got a general error message immediately that night. I figured I'd wait until their letter arrived and the account was fully activated before worrying too much. The letter came, the account was supposedly activated, but I see nothing but a general error message when I view my account.
Customer service has yet to answer an online message written on December 10, and the waits for phone support are interminable - I've yet to speak to an actual person, even trying at different times of day.

Now I certainly wasn't expecting stellar service, but I think their unresponsiveness is a bit extreme.

That is WAY extreme. Thats one reason why I stick with ING. They have always promptly helped me either email or telephone wise.

[pyotr]

I'm with enabler - I've similar experiences with Emigrant - however I have a speakerphone, so I waited out 3 separate customer service calls and timed how long it took them to answer me - it was 15min, followed by 13 minutes, followed by 25 minutes. I thought ridiculously bad wait times consider how important the topic (my money). The rep I talked with after such long wait times have never been helpful, nor did they ever give the impression that they wanted to be helpful - maybe it's a NYC thing, but I personally thought my rep always had a bad attitude and wanted me off the phone ASAP. This is what worries me about HSBC also - reports about bad customer service from outsourced reps (in India). I've since completely vacated the Emigrant account. I've always been with and will stick with ING even though their rates are not the best. I'm keeping around 50k in ING - I wouldn't sleep well at night if I had 50k in Emigrant.

[BTC]

I transferred all but $0.15 from ING to Emigrant. My experience thus far, both pre & post registration, has been positive and uneventful. Emigrant's user interface isn't as nice as ING's, but that's really of very little concern to me. Emigrant pays me more money and my transactions are processed in a considerably shorter period of time than with ING.

Having said that, I just opened an HSBC Direct account.

[CRFSaver]

I have had my account with Emigrants for about a year and it has been fairly uneventful. The interface is not nearly as nice as ING's website and I did have one transfer get lost that when I sent a message it all of a sudden showed up. I did call one time and only waited a minute or so on hold for someone to pick up.

You might consider Capital One as they pay the same rate as Emigrants and its a larger company. They will even take trust accounts for those that do estate planning. My other advice when opening these accounts is to actually print, fill out the form and send a check in versus doing it all online. This way the account gets set up just fine.

[Ima saver]

Guess I will stick with ING and my local bank, which pays 4.14 and I can just walk in the door and do transactions 6 days a week!!