Comments on: E-Trade Bank Online Savings Account Review

By: Dissatisfied customer

Dissatisfied customer — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 16:49:49 +0000

E-Trade is obviously one of the many banks floundering. They are on of the credit card companies that have raised interest rates on those customers who have exemplary credit and payment history. Their customer service USED to be very good, but now it’s completely incompetent. They can’t even properly process automatic payments, and have changed their system to justify the rate increase to those who have had an excellent payment history with them.

I have closed all of my accounts with E-Trade, and I will never do business with them again. There is plenty of competition for them, so it’s not difficult to find a more competent banking institution to do business with.

I recently had my interest rate hiked to 19.99%, after being an exemplary customer (their own words), from 9.15%. I applied for, and received, at my local Credit Union, the same type of card (Platinum) with the same credit limit, and my interest rate, FIXED, is 7.99%. The perk for me is that I can deal locally with them, and they know me by name, and recognize me when I walk through their doors. Unlike the faceless morons representing E-Trade. Their customer service representatives are incompetent and many are even antagonistic and combative.

I advise anyone to stay as far away from E-Trade as you can. Remember when they were the ones out there touting 5.05% interest Savings Accounts? That should have been clue one they were unstable. The higher the risk to your money, the higher the interest rate. Now, they are at .60%, the lowest of ALL online savings accounts.

By: Mortakye

Mortakye — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 05:29:09 +0000

Excellent review. Have both savings and brokerage a/c. Like the functionality and speed of transfer. Wish they were still as competitive on interest rate.

By: Deron

Deron — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 23:51:07 +0000

I have had a savings account w/ etrade bank for a while with no problems. Then, I decided to switch to use etrade bank for my checking account. Within 2 weeks of opening my account (I hadn’t even received my checks yet or paid one single bill or anything yet — so I distributed my account number no where except on my work’s secure system to set up direct deposit) an e-check for $200 paid “from” someone else’s name and address hit my account. Calling customer service takes me around and around in circles. I had to fill out and get notarized an affidavit of forgery — even though no one forged my name or address or signature — they didn’t even pretend to be me! Plus they required that I file a police report, which I did and forwarded both to etrade. They’ve been sitting in their mailroom for days now. In the mean time, I don’t have my money back, and won’t get it until at least 10 days after they decide to open and process the mail I sent them. And it’s very clear the e-check has SOMEONE ELSE’S NAME AND ADDRESS ON IT but they can do nothing — it’s their policy. No response when I keep telling them MY policy is that they don’t give my money to people who don’t even pretend to be me. I’m closing ALL of my etrade accounts and never doing business with them again. Beware.

By: bismarck uwakwe

bismarck uwakwe — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:01:46 +0000

I am intrested to open an online savings accuont with e-tradebank.com
thanks
yours faithfully
bismarck uwakwe

By: Dude

Dude — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 15:56:25 +0000

Etrade Bank is paying .60% and my local credit union is paying 2.0%.
I left a few bucks in the Etrade account to keep it open.
It could be useful if they ever decide to raise the rate.

By: Laura

Laura — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 02:29:48 +0000

I got an E*Trade account about a year ago when the Savings was at 3.3%. It is now down to .60% which my local bank is at .90%. I am looking into seriously changing accounts. The only reason I switched here is because of the interest I was making on my savings and now that I am making less I am not interested in keeping the accounts. I haven’t had any issues with customer service but I am looking to make the most of my money, especially in this economy! I really wish they would just raise the rates back up, at least to be comparable to what I am getting locally.

By: Joe

Joe — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:56:31 +0000

I had $10k debt at high interest, and decided to transfer it to my lower rate e-trade credit card, but, my credit limit was $5k. I called and applied for an increase to $10k and a balance transfer to the card. They said it would take a few days. I got a letter in the mail a week later saying that the increase was accepted.
Then I got a letter saying that they reserve the right to limit the amount of balance transfers and simply closed the credit card account.
My FICO is over 800. They didn’t transfer anything. Screw you E-trade.

By: Billy Akerman

Billy Akerman — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:38:20 +0000

Back in November, I stated that E-trades money market rate was 3%, but only a month later did that all change. Just like a financial institution, they use teaser rates to get you and then change everything shortly afterward.

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:23:19 +0000

I have been with ETrade since ‘98 and have really liked it when they linked banking with trading but lately ETrade has gone down hill. There was the issue of trying to cancel a bill pay a week in advance, they messed it up and wanted to charge me and I still had to FAX, yes fax in paper work. Then recently I tried to make a VISA payment to a regular company that I have made payments with before but because the other payments were around $100 and this one was $400 they said it was out of my spending habit and needed verification. So a company claiming to be from VISA Fraud called (robo call) asking for my CC number. I hung up and called Etrade. They said it was most likely a scam but the calls keep coming all day. So I called the company and they said that they do work for Etrade and I should call Etrade. So I called Etrade back and after asking them 10 times if they were sure this company was not ligit they finally said “oh yeah we do do business that way”. Didn’t sit right with me so I’ll be leaving.

By: Zeemale

Zeemale — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 21:36:13 +0000

I’ve had E-trade accounts for years. Online service has always been solid. The online transfers (in and out) are easy and fast.

I have a hi-yield complete savings account that I transfer money into each week. I recently received notice that the interest rate was dropped to 0.95
% – so it’s more like a normal (lame) bank savings acct., not higher yield account. I’m probably going for an Orange Account next.

By: Blau

Blau — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 23:28:07 +0000

Etrade is a piece of crap! I have a brokerage account with them. They charge you $40 for ‘inactivity’ if you don’t constantly trade and shuffle money from left to right.
I tried unsuccessfuly to set up wire transfers from etrade to another account from the web. They needed several weeks to do ‘test transfers’ from etrade to the other account, to be sure the wire transfer actually works (like they are launching a rocket or something) – it never worked!
To get a checkbook from them you actually have to send them by snail-mail a copy of your driver’s license for some reason. They say it’s ’security purposes’, but I don’t believe it – I think it is to make it more difficult for people to withdraw money, to create a barrier. Even closing down the account is an adventure. The people they have on the phone are not helpful at all. Stay away from Etrade…

By: D E Downard

D E Downard — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 22:16:11 +0000

While in the Philippines, where my wife and I reside part time, I tried to transfer money, but not one of the identity confirmation questions made sense to me, so I couldn’t answer them. As a result, they froze both of my accounts and when I tried again a day or two later, I was told that I would have to call some sort of specialist (can’t remember what term they used _ wasn’t keeping notes). On Saturday when I called the no. I was given, I was told that they would not be answering the phone until Monday. When I called again on Monday, a guy who’s “English” I could barely understand at times gave me some impossible to understand instructions, including telling me that I would have to send him a fax with a bunch of I. D. details within something like two hours to free my accounts. When I told him that it was late at night where I was (Barangay Lower Talay), and I had no idea where I could find a fax machine to use, he responded by telling me OK, I’ll hold off until 9:00, but you must send the fax at exactly 9:00. I tried to determine which time zone he was referring to, but he didn’t seem to understand what I was saying, so, realizing I was waging a losing battle, I hung up. My advice to etrade: get “experts” that understand and speak English and who know what a time zone is.

By: JS

JS — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 01:20:15 +0000

Hmmm.

I still can get to the 3.01% page, but only sometimes. Refresh the page and it reverts to the 2.50% page.

Only can get to 3.01% using Firefox on my Linux machine. IE on Windows get 2.50%.
Unfortunately, click through to start the sign-up process on Firefox fails.

So not getting very far… :-(

By: Cap

Cap — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 11:43:11 +0000

thats strange. maybe etrade had a mix up with the sign-up page you saw.. or it was a browser cached version? I checked and it shows 2.50% APY… would be nice to get that extra 0.51% though ;)

By: JS

JS — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 05:41:14 +0000

I meant.. 0.51% difference.

By: JS

JS — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 05:40:34 +0000

Wild.

Clicking the ETrade ad above that says ‘2.50% Savings’ gets to an ETrade account of ‘Max Rate Savings’ of 3.01% but simplying going yourself to ETrade.com shows a saving account of 2.50%.

0.49% difference. Not bad.

By: Harry manning

Harry manning — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 18:37:28 +0000

I think the description fits the Etrade of the past because this days its always bringing up some question page when you try to navigate to another page and that waste a lot of time that’s why i stopped using the account.

By: Boo

Boo — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 19:21:14 +0000

I have had E-Trade securities accounts in the past and was satisfied. However, I have read several accounts in recent months that the company may be in poor financial condition. Certainly FDIC deposits are protected and I do not wish to be a fear monger, but feel that people should do their own investigation and include this aspect in their comparisons.

By: Billy Akerman

Billy Akerman — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 21:23:13 +0000

Thanks for the info. My present money market gives 3%, but I need to keep $10,000 to get that rate. If it falls below (at times it will), the rate falls to 1.85%. I just got off the phone with E-trade and everything checks out. I will be moving my money there.

By: none

none — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 00:02:54 +0000

Thank you Cap. Am looking to Fidelity mostly because of that 1.5% cash-back. The ATM fee refunds are also nice. Would also like to consolidate my local checking accounts into one big Fidelity account, for simplicity.

What I’m missing is a review of the Fidelity app process and web site.