Which one would YOU choose? Emigrant or Amboy Direct?

I have had emigrantdirect account now for about a month and a half because i wanted to take advantage of their high interest rate currently at 4.8% Before i had ING. Well my uncle was in ING but switched to AMBOY Direct because of their 5.05% IR. So he told me about it and im feeling quite jealous. Well my problem is i want a high interest rate right? So should i sign up for AMBOY direct or should i just stick with Emigrant Direct??????


Help LOL

[robby]

Re: Which one would YOU choose? Emigrant or Amboy Direct?

How much money do you have in the account? If it is only a few thousand, it isn't going to make that much of a difference, but if it is a large amount, it might. You can do the calculations to see whether it is worth the hassle

[poundwise]

Re: Which one would YOU choose? Emigrant or Amboy Direct?


If I already had an Emigrant Direct account and liked it otherwise, I wouldn't move it to Amboy for the difference in APY, especially since Emigrant has historically kept up the leaders (or has been the leader) in yield for these types of accounts.

If I didn't have an account and was opening a new one, I'd probably go with Amboy. The question to me, at that point, then becomes, 'Why not?.'

[wyett3]

Re: Which one would YOU choose? Emigrant or Amboy Direct?

I tried Amboy to see if they would work for me; they're not real great. I'll be pulling out all but around $25 to keep tabs on them. An, IMHO, obtuse interface/display built for an accountant, links to only 1 account, no transfers between multiple Amboy Direct accounts to get around the "links to only 1 account", & no release on your frozen online banking after 24 hrs when you've boggled your password 3x in a row - you have to call in. So I'll go back to ED; they're supposed to be bumping their rate up too.

[brecklin]

Re: Which one would YOU choose? Emigrant or Amboy Direct?

remember that Emigrant is rising there rate to 5.15%APY on the 28th

[KevMorris]

Re: Which one would YOU choose? Emigrant or Amboy Direct?

I signed up for Amboy's 5.05% offer, which was the very highest of the online banks at the time. Great rate, but terrible web site.

The web site you actually conduct your business on is primitive to say the least. It certainly doesn't look like it was designed by a professional. Also, you can only link to one checking account, and you can only transfer funds in or out of that account. Period.

Also, you cannot set up an automatic deposit scheme. One of the things I was going to do after opening this account was set up an automatic deposit every payday, so funds would be taken before I had a chance to see them. Sorry, can't do it. And you don't find this out until you've already signed up.

I emailed their customer service, and they said they could set one up for me if I emailed them the details. Yeah, I can just see how fun that will be when I want to change or stop it.

So my plan for now is to keep my Ing Direct account open, and set it up to do automatic deposits, and then maybe once every few months, transfer that to my checking and then to Amboy Direct for the higher interest rate. If some other online bank comes up with a better rate and Amboy doesn't match, then I'm outta there!

Great Rates, but the banking options and web site experience suck!

[brecklin]

Re: Which one would YOU choose? Emigrant or Amboy Direct?

^^you should look into Emigrant or HSBC

[wyett3]

Re: Which one would YOU choose? Emigrant or Amboy Direct?

My employer can do an up to a 7-way split on payroll direct deposit. Amboy has a routing number and you have the account number; I'd check with my employer rather than using a bank's "automatic savings plan" (I believe that's what ING called it before I dumped them).