I’ve found a few http://www.topcheckingaccounts.com and at http://www.bankrate.com but that Bankrate has become a bit of mess.

The only downside to these accounts, is that none of these banks/brokerages have local or nationwide branches. So you’ll probably have to have one of these online checking accounts in conjuntion with a local/nationwide bank. Once it’s open though you can setup direct deposit and start earning interest and have cash readily available.

-Sam

ING only care about ING. run run run and pray if you ever have fraud on your account.

I MADE A MISTAKE.

NETBANK and ING DIRECT are merging. When I followed ING DIRECTs prompts, they led me to open a savings account. I did not read all the statements clearly. After my $11,000 was transferred from NETBANK, I logged in to ING DIRECT and attempted to access my funds. When I could not access my money, I called them and was told there is a 10 business day hold on my money — 10 days!!!. 12 days when you add the weekend. Is anyone aware of such a thing as a 12 day hold for any transaction in todays world???

Anyway, I spoke to a supervisor, and they attempted to stop the transfer on 30 Nov. Even though ING owns NETBANK, they were not successful. Now I have to wait until 12 December to access my money.

The customer service people are nice, and they somewhat tried to help. However, they are not enabled to help in this case. Policy overrides logic. Policy overrides customer satisfaction. Policy causes the money you put in a savings to be locked up for 10 business days.

Maybe the web page could have been designed to inform me totally that there was a better way.

I suppose now, on 12 December I will take my money and go elsewhere because of this experience. Too bad, because I think that ING DIRECT has some features I like.

By the way, their Bill Pay is not as good as Bank of America (BOA). BOA lets you set up automatic bill payment to pay a bill in full (versus the minimum amount).

I found via http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf56354852.tip.html that HSBC and Emigrant Direct compete with them.

To be somewhat fair, once your account is established, the delay for transfers is 2 business days. Still, this delay not acceptable to me, and I am in search of other products out there.

I did not receive any notice from them until late yesterday evening. So now, I am stuck going to my creditors to explain why my payments did not go through on time.

it did not help that the notification they sent to me told me that this was “in my best interest”.

If you have any question about your credit-worthiness, I would choose another bank.

When I’ve needed money out of these accounts, all I’ve done is go to their website and transfer the money into my checking account. Depending what time of day I request the transfer, it is either transferred that day or no later than the next day.

My brick and motor bank was giving me .25% interest on my money market account. ING pays 5.25%!!!!

Back in September 2001 I opened an account with $10K. Within 2 months I added another $10K to the account. Then I tried to get my money out 18 months later and for over 3 months ING DIRECT kept sending me in the postal mail system a notice saying “Invalid Account Number”. Even though I called them numerous times to correct the problem, ING Direct continued to site the “Invalid Account Number” excuse and sent rejects via mail even though ING DIRECT had both my work and home numbers (both with answering systems attached). The folks at 1-888-ING-0272 were of no help. Mostly excuses and more excuses but they never solved the problem.

I had to write them two checks for one dollar to finally get my needed money. The first check resulted in the account number being updated according to the letter but when I requested the transfer I got the “Invalid Account Number” excuse again. The whole thing took a second check for a dollar (with a letter from my new lawyer) before they got me my money 6 months after I needed it. (We lost the house because I could not get the down payment out of ING DIRECT from my account.)

Then in 2004 I emptied the account down to $40.00. I changed my will to include the ING DIRECT account as a gift to my granddaughter when she turns 65, she is 8 now and was 5 then. I left the account in my name so that I was responsible for the taxes on interest until my death. Then I proceeded to forget about the account and talk anyone I hear talking about ING DIRECT out of doing business with ING DIRECT. I think I was mostly successful in my attempts.

This month I received a letter from ING DIRECT out of the blue. Since September 2005 ING DIRECT stopped sending me quarterly statements.. In the letter ING DIRECT states account was closed. The statement says “Since your Orange Savings Account has had little to no activity it looks like we weren’t able to help you save. As a result we closed your account.” Yet on the same statement the “Year to date interest” is $1.10 at an “Annual Percentage Interest Yield” of 4.47%. So it has had activity through 3 quarters of the year.

So now an 8 year old girl lost her future account. The almost $50.00 was transferred to my checking account and now I have to go back to the lawyer to remove the account from my will. Yet THEY NEVER GAVE ANY WARNING or ATTEMPTED TO CONTACT ME before closing this account. I’d have easily transferred as much as necessary to keep it open. And I have a great credit score so I know they could not have decided to can me due to bad credit rating.

ING DIRECT has no concern for you as a customer, they just want your $25.00 to start and then more. But if you don’t keep adding to it ING DIRECT will just throw you out without any warning at all.

My advice to one and all, STAY AWAY FROM ING DIRECT!!! Go to any other on line bank and you will be much better off.

I felt totally blindsided by this email from ING and it’s strange that they don’t really value their customers. When things were benefitting them, I was a great customer but when I needed my own money, they disposed of me.

Now I have to change my direct deposit (I’m with bank of america) and tell my kids that their savings accounts are being closed.