e-loan | Online Savings Blog

Why I Closed My E-Loan Online Savings Account
11.11.08 | Online Savings Accounts | 1 Comment | by junger

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Yesterday, I closed my E-Loan online savings account.

I'd been thinking about doing it for awhile now, but finally made the request and have moved all of my money to ING Direct.

I've been fed up with E-Loan's need for control, lack of customer service, and crappy introductory rates.

Despite being one of the most promising online savings accounts when it first came out, E-Loan couldn't compete on a customer-friendly level with other online banks.

Not telling your customers when the rate changes is cheap.

Not allowing your customers to move their money to more than one bank every 4 months is controlling.

Not letting new savers get the same rates as those with biggers coffers is discouraging.

Even though they offer a lower rate, ING Direct lets you do whatever you want with your money.

Remember: it's your money. Don't let someone else control it.

That's why I closed my E-Loan account.
E-Loan APYs Plummet, They Don't Tell Anyone
10.17.08 | Online Savings Accounts | 3 Comments | by junger

E-Loan, who burst onto the online savings scene with a 5.50% APY account, has dropped its rates dramatically — and didn't tell anyone about it.

The regular online savings account, which had been at 3.01% APY, is now down to 2.76% for balances above $10,000. Accounts with $5,000 to $9,999 will be receiving a 2.51% APY.

The worst of all? Accounts under $5,000 will be getting a 1.00% APY.

With that kind of crappy rate, you should definitely be moving your money if you're just starting out.

Why Can't They Let Us Know?

One of my biggest gripes with online banks — and especially E-Loan — is that they don't bother to tell you when the rates go down (they've done it before).

When the rates are rising, they'll certainly let you know. But when they're dropping, you need to constantly be looking out for changes.

It looks like E-Loan adjusted their rates sometime between Sept. 17 and Sept. 20. On 9/20, Interesting Money first reported the rate drop (and also expressed annoyance at E-Loan's lack of communication).

On 9/17, we blogged about E-Loan's new Savings Plus account and the online savings account was still at 3.01% APY.
E-Loan Intros Savings Plus High-Yield Online Account
09.17.08 | Online Savings Accounts | 0 Comments | by junger

E-Loan, which at one point had the highest online savings account, has introduced a new product: the Savings Plus account.

Offering a tiered APY, the Savings Plus Account requires monthly deposits of at least $100.

Accounts that do not have at least $100 deposited for more than 60 days will be converted into a standard online savings account, according to the terms of service.

Here's the breakdown on the tiered APYs:

Current users of E-Loan's online savings account can convert to a Savings Plus account.

Existing E-LOAN Savings Accounts can easily be converted to Savings Plus. Just log in, click "Transfer Funds" and set up a recurring deposit of at least $100 a month and type in Promo Code RREC08.

There are no fees with the account, but a $5,000 minimum is needed to open.

E-Loan's online savings account is currently offering a 3.01% APY.
E-Loan OSA Extends External Account Change to 60 Days
02.06.08 | Online Savings Accounts | 0 Comments | by junger

E-Loan has extended the amount of time you're allowed to change your linked external account, stretching it from every 30 days to once every 60 days.

This is one of the worst features of an otherwise good online savings account.

E-Loan only allows you have to have only external bank account linked to their OSA for deposits and transfers. It would be a slight pain if you had to change it every time you wanted to transfer money around (or rate chase.)

But you can't. You only can change your external account once every (now) 60 days.

Believe it or not, it used to be worse. The policy used to allow you to change it four times per year — 4 times! — and was adjusted to every 30 days last year.

Obviously, they want to keep your money as long as possible and prevent easy rate chasing, but they won't say that.

The official reasoning?

In order to ensure our customers' funds remain secure, we are extending the time period between changes to your external linked account from 30 days to 60 days from the account open date or the last external account change.

Part of that "security" means you can't pull money from an external account, and you can't even use Wesabe (which doesn't log in to your account) to download your data.

Nevertheless, the savings account pays a 3.75% APY — one of the highest available — so I still have money there.

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