… i.e. “the computer says no”

A complete impasse.

Where do suppose I opened one? Yep Charles Schwab. Will my money remain in a 2.65% ING account or go to the 3.01% Schwab account?

Rest in Peace EO.

1. No pre-paid envelopes to mail in deposits.
2. No checks, though I use them infrequently.
3. They won’t take money orders or rebate checks as deposits.
4. Require a “local” account that is linked.

Instead, I have opened a checking account at Charles Schwab Bank and have, so far, been inpressed. Not only do they pay higher interest, they have free checks (carbon or regular), pre-paid envelopes and their bill pay system is identical to NetBank, so it was an easy transition. And they will take rebate checks, which I have about 20-30 per year.

Thanks.

To all those readers out there–Anyone considering opening an EO account may want to wait until this is resolved.

I received an e-mail from ING yesterday at 4pm informing me that they had obtained my credit score from a consumer reporting agency and had decided to close my Electric Orange account and reduced my overdraft line of credit to $0.I was, however invited to re-apply after a 30 day wait. I called the customer service line to protest advising them that I had been a long term customer since 2003, had used my overdraft only three times and had paid it back promptly, even before the payment was due. I also reminded the representative that I had a regular deposit which was coming directly from my paycheck, all to no avail. They had made a decision and had no intention of reversing it, despite the fact that their major pitch in advertising the Electric Orange account was that they would not, in their own words, “Ding your credit with an inquiry”.

The representative placed me on hold to speak further with a manager, and left me there. I hung up and redialed as I decided to close all of my accounts with ING. I got another representative who explained that the institution had recently decided to exercise its right under the disclosure agreement and run credit checks across the board. I assume they decided that they had openened themselves up to a great deal of financial risk by giving everyone who opened an account an open ended $165 line of credit. I pity the individual who came up with that idea. In hindsight, I suppose I was naive in thinking that a bank as large and profitable as ING could be successful offering such an “unsecured” product. Needless to say, I have decided that this across the board decision, along with the 3-4 business day delay in moving money between linked accounts, and the additional delay in crediting “good” funds received from an electronic deposit, is a little more than I am willing to put up with as a good customer.

I have closed my ING accounts and transferred my money to an institution that treats its customers with a little more respect and courtesy than what they afforded me in this situation. I doubt that my little piece of business will make much of a dent in their profitable operation, but I feel an obligation to let everyone know about what I consider to be a dirty, underhanded trick.

Trent: While Electric Orange is a nifty idea, it has the killer flaw of having a debit card attached to it. This makes the account unusable for any other purpose. At some point, your debit card will be scammed, and while ING may cover the bad charges, you may have problems with those persons/organizations who had failed payments because your OLOC wasn’t enough to cover the scammers spending. It is always a bad idea to have a debit card on the same account you pay household bills with. I have separate accounts for my debit cards, one I’ve had for a while, and EO is new for redundancy.

Sorry Electric Orange…

We just signed up for the Electric Orange checking, and will be keeping our B of A checking account for the reasons that folks have noted above.

I’m looking forward to seeing some interest income rack up on our checking account now. We try to keep one month’s basic expenses in checking (very accessible…the rest has been in ING Savings), above our monthly budget, so it’ll be nice to have that money working a little harder for us.

Pete

It pays interest on checking also, from 3-5% depending on your balance, and right now is doing 6% for your first three months.

It too offers an overdraft line of credit. Mine’s $250, this may vary.

It doesn’t have an ATM network, but you can use any ATM and they will reimburse you the transaction fee (Up to $6/month). So that’s generally 3 cash withdrawals free per month which may not work for some, but I rarely pull out cash so it’s fine for me. Of course you can always just get cash back on debit purchases to avoid this.

So far I’ve been really satisfied with them. Again, just an alternative for those who want checks.

The only drawback is that you need $1500 to open, but I just pulled this out of my savings account and have let it sit in this account during the 6% period. Note that it does NOT require you to KEEP a minimum balance though.

I so need a check next weekend, so I ordered it last week, but it hasn’t arrived yet. Next time, I will probably transfer the money into my Bank of America account and write a check the old-fashioned way.

Even with this downside, I think it’s great that my checking account earns 4%, gives me a debit card, and easy access to ATMs.