Community Chat

[Havarti]

I have a question I am curious about regarding online-only banking.  If they don't respond to you electronically or by phone what do you do?  There is no local physical place to walk in and insist your issue be addressed, so can't they just tie up your funds by ignoring you if there is a problem?  The thought of that worries me and I would honestly like to know from people who use this method what the reality is for situations like this one.  TIA

[novamc1]

@Havarti 

Any reputable bank should and probably  will respond to you when you contact them.  They don't want to get in trouble with the government financial regulators by ignoring you or abusing your funds.

That's a simplistic way of saying not to worry about your funds being illegally "tied up".

I've had worse luck at some very large national and regional l banks when walking into their branches and dealing with people who are really low-level, low-paid and not-very-experienced employees. 

I've met with some horribly incompetent "vice presidents" of those banks at local branch offices.......they always  seem to need  help from their headquarters staff on the phone if my issue is anything more complicated than cashing a check or depositing money.  (That's a teller's job, anyway.)

I've had a lot of experience with many different banks over the years, and the online banks are either just as good or better than small branch office of a large nationally-known bank down the street.  

Plus, online personnel are available to talk  online or on the phone for more daily hours than most local branches.

Just my opinion and my experience.

[scatcat]

E Trade on line has competitive rates as well 

[Nuttmeg]

@Havarti

You may want to open small account and see how it works.

Most of our banking business is online anyway. 

[Mz iMac]

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@scatcat wrote:

E Trade on line has competitive rates as well 

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They also have excellent "telephone customer service reps" which is 100% based in the USofA.  They are available 24/7/365.

E*Trade will also snail mail your forms if you wish.  Discuss/clarify your wishes/account(s) over the phone in great detail until YOU understand before any transactions are done.  They will CYA all phone convo in writing by snail mailing if you wish to have a "paper trail."

[Allegheny]

We have our B&M credit union, but also about two years back to decided to try on line saving with Citizens Access.  At that time their saving and CD interest was much higher than B&M.  As @novamc1 mentioned newly offered rates are going down, but we are still happy with our existing CD rate and saving interest rate.

We still have accounts at our credit union also.

And yes I was nervous at first.  We can transfer funds back and forth from our credit union and vice versa.  We haven't tried taking a direct withdrawal from the savings account, but we did let one of the CD's mature and just put that money go into the saving's account.

Now if you need to get a withdrawl out of the savings' quickly I'm not sure how that works as there is no physical location to go to.  I have to read up on that. 

[Snowpuppy]

I had AMEX for a few years and had no issues. Super easy to move funds electronically and good CS.

That said, they began to limit the number of transactions per month to I think 4 per month. And that's when I moved on.

[itsmetoo]

We have used online only banks for many, many years for high interest accounts because their interest rate is so much better than most brick and mortars. To name a few Synchrony, Discover and Ally are banks highly rated on bankrate.com and are FDIC insured.  You can always talk to someone on the phone. Bankrate.com will rate the banks, you can check their FDIC insurance and you can check to see who has the best interest rates.  I have also used banks I'd not heard of before as long as they are FDIC insured with no problem whatsoever.  Sometimes banks are only in certain parts of the country and that's why maybe I haven't heard of them.  Interest rates are pretty bad right now though everywhere but the online only banks are usually better.  I am NOT giving advice or telling you what you should do, just telling you my experience.

[deeva]

I've had an online savings account since 2004. When I opened the account the interest rate was 5.5%, boy, have times changed.

Never had any problems transferring money and they are FDIC insured.

[novamc1]

@Allegheny 

You said:

<<Now if you need to get a withdrawl out of the savings' quickly I'm not sure how that works as there is no physical location to go to. I have to read up on that. >>

Two othings you can do.......

(1) At the same bank, you can set up a checking account, or even a money-market account that allows check-writing acess.  You could then transfer money from a matured CD or any other type of savings account directly into that account and should have quick access to it.  

(2) Establish links between your accounts at various banks, so money can be transferred from one bank to another in a matter of moments.   This is usually referred to as an ACH transfer).

If the amount being transferred is large, it's better to get a bank person on the phone and get info about how soon that money can be used by you. Certain types of accounts and certain banks have liimits on how much can be withdrawn and accessible at one time.

Banks also may have limits on how much money can be withdrawn by you in an online transaction--such as $5,000 or so.   You need to spend some time on the phone getting larger transactions authorized  and executed by a live person.

It might be worth the effort to open and maintain  accounts at more than one bank and to  link  them, even if you think you dont' need another bank and might seldom be transferring money.

That's my experience, anyway, for what it's worth.