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With all the ruckus over FNBO's email threatening to close customer online savings accounts, I went straight to the source to find out the details.

According to a rep for FNBO, no holds were placed on any accounts (even the customers who were supposed to receive the original email).

Hi Jason,

FNBO Direct issued an email message on August 10, 2007, with the subject line: Due Diligence 2nd Request. This email was designed to be sent to a small group of account holders who had not yet supplied information to us regarding their current employer, position or occupation.

Accidentally, this email message was sent to all FNBO Direct account holders.

In that message, we stated that a hold would be placed on their accounts until we received this information. This is information that we are required to obtain in accordance with the U.S. Patriot Act. In fact, no holds have been placed on any FNBO Direct accounts that received this email message.

Subsequently, we have sent an email message to our entire account holder list explaining our mistake and reassuring custo ers that no hold has been placed on their FNBO Direct accounts.

FNBO Direct regrets any concerns or inconvenience that resulted from our original email message.

The full statement can be located here:
https://www.fnbodirect.com/01d/html/en/.

While it sounds like it may have been a genuine accident, customers put a lot of trust into online banking institutions — and getting these emails isn't what many expected when they signed up for that 6% rate.