Emigrant Direct Saving Account Review
Update: Want $10 For Opening An Account? Check out my Emigrant Direct Opening Bonus.
So I ended up opening an American Dream Savings Account at Emigrant Savings Bank, or Emigrant Direct. My experience? Well, let’s start with the application process:
1) First you apply online, giving your usual personal information, and answering some credit related questions, such as where you lived previously or what loans you have out. For those of you that keep track, this is a “soft” credit inquiry which should not hurt your credit score. You’ll need the routing number and account number of the checking account you want to link with this savings account.
2) Emigrant Direct then sends two small deposits to your checking account, which take about 2-3 business days to show up. You then have to click on a link in an e-mail they send you, and go online to verify the two deposits. After that, they will take out your initial deposit from your funding account in addition to the few cents that they gave you. I found that funny.
3) Then, they finally snail mail you a single page letter with your Account Number. This takes up to a week, as it comes from New York. If you live closer I’m guessing it’s faster. You then go online again, and type in your Account Number along with five secret questions in case you forgot your password. Five? I don’t even know if I can remember all my answers. And your login and password have to have two letters and two numbers, which made me have to use a different login than I usually use. Bummer.
4) Finally, you can log in and see the money that you saw disappear a week ago (This is why you should start with a small deposit). All in all, I think the security is a bit over the top, but I suppose that is acceptable these days. I only transferred $50 to start, but as I feel more comfortable I will probably use this account more versus other banks as long as the interest rate is high. No minimum balance means it better stay high, or I will move the money away!
The interface is very sparse but functional, like ING Direct. After 1-3 business days you can start to initiate more transfers to and from your linked checking account (Look for a link called “External Transfers” on the left, it will show up after a few days. If not, call them) These also take 2-3 business days. There is a five business day holding period before you can withdrawal your deposits (10 days for the initial deposit). You can also link one more checking account by mailing in a check (also like ING). Pretty straightforward, Emigrant also offers CDs but the rates aren’t very competitive.
Want to open an account? Don’t miss my $10 Emigrant Direct Signup Bonus!
Want more info? Check out my Emigrant Direct Information Page, with stuff like routing numbers and customer service information.
Got ING Direct already? See this link on how to link your existing ING account to your Emigrant Direct account.
Find more in Banking, Deals & Offers | 1/22/05, 9:58am | Trackback
January 23rd, 2005 at 7:48 am
I also opened an account recently, and encountered the exact same issues as you. I’m in Michigan and it took about a week. I’m still trying to figure out how to to transfer money though. Better check that FAQ.
January 25th, 2005 at 5:48 pm
How long has it been since you signed in with your account number? After a couple days, you should see a link show up called “External Transfers” below “Accounts” and “Statements”. If you don’t see it in a week I’d call Emigrant Direct.
January 27th, 2005 at 5:43 am
After 3 days, the link for external transfers showed up. I read a rumor on a blog somewhere that the 3.0% is only if you get a 1 year CD but I have yet to confirm this.
February 2nd, 2005 at 7:20 am
arjo…i read that too, but it is incorrect…that poster was looking at the fine print under the cd rates…he should not have scrolled down so fast and read the fine print for the savings account instead…
i just verified my checking account…i’m switching out funds from my netbank money market account…now i’m patiently waiting…3% risk-free is just unreal…especially in a secular-bear market…
February 2nd, 2005 at 11:27 am
Just got my statement, I like how they make it a .pdf file for you, instead of having to use a PDF printer driver.
I also tried a large transfer to Emigrent, which I initiated on Sunday. As of Tuesday, both the debit from my checking and the deposit at emigrantdirect.com showed up online at the respective bank sites. Very nice.
I like to initiate transfers on Sunday, in order to minimize the float time in between banks when I’m not earning interest.
February 3rd, 2005 at 2:37 am
jonathan…that’s great to hear about the .pdf file…i was expecting to miss that feature from my netbank account…that way i just save it to disk rather than print it out…good to hear emigrant does the same thing…
February 7th, 2005 at 1:21 pm
I am having the same opening problems, I did not keep the acct letter, now they need to send me a new one.
February 17th, 2005 at 9:52 am
If you live in a state other than NY (say in Michigan like Arjo), when you get your 1099-INT with interest earned from your Emigrant account in NY, will you have to file a NY state tax return even if you had no other NY income? OR since this is an “internet” account, will you owe taxes only in your own home state?
February 17th, 2005 at 5:31 pm
Hi Dave,
It only matters where YOU are living. It’s just like any other interest income you get, so no worries! (Otherwise, I’d be filling out tax returns from now until 4/15!)
March 1st, 2005 at 5:35 am
I just closed my new account with EmigrantDirect due to the following reason (excerpted from my email to them):
“I have been unable to access my account since I opened
it despite repeated phone calls to your customer
NO-SERVICE desk. I have spoken with Daphne, Ingrid,
Sonya, a supervisor, and several other people to no
avail. I received my welcome letter, went through the
sign up link, chose a userID and password. When I
tried to access my account, I was unable to sign in.
I called your Customer NO-SERVICE number repeatedly
and was told either a) they would have me working
within 1/2 hour OR b) the problem had been referred to
the Help Desk for resolution. While this was going
on, I had transferred $10,000 to my checking account (from ING Direct) in
anticipation of being able to deposit into your bank.
The $10k has sat in my checking, not making any
interest, for over a week while waiting for you to
grant me the simple access to my account! Thank God I
only transferred $10 to open the account. No one
appeared to be interested in helping me solve the
problem … they just kept saying “the Help Desk is
working on a resolution”.
I have other online savings and checking accounts and
have for years. However, I have never encountered
such poor service and horrible problem resolution as
you have provided. I will be sure to let everyone I
know (and I talk to a number of people about
investments regularly) that if they deposit their
funds with you, they may never get access.”
I, too, was excited about the 3% but I could not believe the problems I had … and to not be able to access my funds!!!
March 3rd, 2005 at 2:02 am
stumbled on this site while searching for other users feedback on emigrant direct… since the ads on yahoo.
3% is higher than ING’s current 2.6% so although it may take longer to get the account setup, I figure I’ll open one with no initial deposit anyway.
for some reason though, after I finish the “soft credit” checking, verifying who I am.. it says my application can not be processed right now. I cant tell if the servers are having problems, or I entered an answer to the questions wrong. (which I dont think I did)
its rather silly that you’ll need to wait so long for a letter to be mail to you just for your account number.. for an online money market account thats trying to follow up to ING’s ’success’, I wonder why they cant just email it.. or show it to you during application process.
looks like I’ll wait around a bit more to see if they improve their implementations. I have no doubt the 3% is for real, but if you dont have access to your accounts or funds then whats the point?
March 10th, 2005 at 2:33 pm
I opened an account at emigrant-direct and everything went as advertised. It took a week to get the account number by mail but had no problem when opening the account. I was with ing direct and switched to emigrant-direct because of the higher interest rate. It is a small amount of interest but emigrant compounds daily and ing monthly. does anyone here remember when ing updated their software and it did a double debit on any amount transfered. lots of people were bouncing checks. if you transfreed say $200 it would transfer $400.
March 12th, 2005 at 12:09 pm
interesting … just stumbled on your blog while I was looking for Emigrant Savings Bank stock symbol (if there is one … does anyone know?). they are the parent of emigrantdirect.com which offers the 3.0% rate. I’ve been (in this order) a NetBank customer (past tense), INGDirect (currently) and EmigrantDirect (recently added). Concur that Emigrant is slow on the set-up, but once it was finally complete I executed a 2nd transfer in which went fine. The 3.0% rate is for real and they are legit.
March 14th, 2005 at 3:15 pm
I just got an email saying they were raising the rate to 3.25%!! I was all set to transfer 50K into the account, but after jp’s post, I am getting a little apprehensive. Has anyone had similar problems with the site?
March 19th, 2005 at 3:33 pm
I recently opened an Emigrant account and have successfully moved money in and out of the account. My opinion: The mechanisms for opening an Emigrant account and moving money are inordinately slow and clumsy. Customer Service has been courteous, but in many cases not very helpful. E-mail responses to questions have been slow and canned. The big plus is the 3.25% interest, I’m keeping the account and hoping the mechanical bugs will bw worked out.
April 1st, 2005 at 5:36 am
Does any one know if emigrant also offers multiple savings account under a common USERID
likw ingdirect does?
April 8th, 2005 at 1:12 pm
Hi,
I started my Emigrant-Direct account with $20, had to wait until they gave me the transfer option, then put in another $500. A few weeks ago I definitely could not log on. The password retrieval system was apparantly not working either. Well after trying a few days I decided not to worry and then wait. Today I tried it again and everything is working fine!
Just thought I would share,
Jon
April 17th, 2005 at 10:53 pm
RE: those who are saying that cant understand why you’re so heavily into cash–after what the stock market did last week you are starting to look like a genius! After all the $$ I lost in the market last week that 3.25% at Emigrant or the Savings Bonds are starting to look like Heaven.
You were ahead of the curve on this one!
Spock
June 8th, 2005 at 7:19 am
In comparing the Emigrant 3.25% savings acct and the Presidential 3.5% savings acct, can anyone comment on the compounding frequency which is another difference between these 2 accounts?
Presidential compounds interest monthly, and Emigrant compounds daily.
What is the net monthly difference in interest earned on these accts on say $10k?
July 11th, 2005 at 12:38 am
This seems like a it’s written by a PR firm.
Are you paid any fees by Emigrant Direct for writing/maintaining this blog?
July 11th, 2005 at 9:37 am
Haha, I wish! No, I’m not paid anything at all. In fact, I’m moving all of my money today out of Emigrant to my Presidential Premier Savings account now earning 3.75%. If Emigrant beats that significantly, I’ll move it back.
August 4th, 2005 at 6:10 am
i listen to a talk radio station here in nc. clark howard was talking one day about interest on your money and i checked my wachovia account that i’d had for years. i was only getting .025% on a many K savings that i never touched. i immediately opend my account wit 20k to start. if clark howard says do it. DO IT. he says emigrant is the way to go today.
August 10th, 2005 at 3:47 pm
Now at 3.5%.
August 17th, 2005 at 12:54 pm
I am getting screwed with overdraft charges from wamu. Last week I checked my account until my paycheck came in, and it did come while I still had money in the account. Then overdafts appeared two days later, but dated BEFORE my paycheck came in, like retroactively, and I got charged overdraft fees. This has happened several times until I figured out the charges are applied AFTER my paycheck came in, but dated BEFORE, therefore creating an overdraft situation after the fact.
Am I getting screwed or what ???
Then I found your blog. I have $5K sitting in a savings that bears no interests.
I’ll be looking at Presidential tonight!
Thanks for your blog, very instructive.
September 12th, 2005 at 8:11 pm
This from somebody with a first hand bad experience: stay away from EmigrantDirect.
First of all, the initial setup takes forever and involves numerous steps. Ensuring security is nice, but with today’s technology this can be done much less painfully. Second, the online account is very poorly designed and awful to use. Third, any transaction takes forever (or much longer than INGDirect, where I also have accounts). Most importantly, the customer service is about as bad as I’ve ever seen with a bank.
In my opinion, at yield merely 0.2% higher than INGDirect, it’s not worth the effort to switch. If you have not set up an online direct saving account, you’ll be making a wise decision to stay away from an bad experience you may come to regret later on.
September 27th, 2005 at 11:11 am
Hey, Pi31415, now they have 0.6% difference. Would you like to make another statement?
September 28th, 2005 at 10:00 am
The Account Disclosures agreement says this about compounding interest: “Interest will be compounded on a daily basis and credited to your Account on the last business day of the month. The balance on which interest is computed for your Account is determined by the daily balance method, which applies a daily periodic rate to the balance in the Account.” I interpret that to mean that the interest you effectively earn is no different than if it were compounded monthly at a higher rate. Since they don’t deposit the interest you earned until the end of the month, it doesn’t matter if it’s “compounded” by the month or by the day or by the minute (as long as the rate is appropriately different: if APY is 4%, then monthly rate would be ~.33% and daily rate would be ~.011%) because your account balance only increases monthly. The interest is truly compounded at whatever rate they deposit money to the account — so I wouldn’t get excited about them saying “the interest is compounded daily.” What do you guys think?
November 10th, 2005 at 8:57 am
Well at the moment Emigrant is offering .5% more intrest rate than ING. The next question you have to address is how much you want put with Emigrant. I have had only problem with Emigrant. I have been promsed things by Emigrant that has not happened, so blant lied too. I have call them 3 times, this last time I have been on hold for 30 min. I have emailed them several times with no respones. Although if I have a problem with ING, I can call them up and they will be on the phone within a few minuntes. I highly recomend emigrant if you like not being able to get you money from them or transfer money into them, headaches and spending hours on the phone. If you do not like that then ING is the best so far for online banks. Plus you may want look at you tax rate, it may be better fot the lower rate, where mine is better at the higher rate, I can get the problem resolved. I am seriously considering closing my accout with Emigrant and opening a 2nd account with ING.
December 2nd, 2005 at 9:17 am
emigrant direct have TERRIBLE customer service.
They never reply my emails. Have to wait for a long time to get someone to answer the damn phone. They always said they’re working on it, but NOTHING has been done. As the guy above said (they have Customer NO-Service), if I read his post earlier, I wouldn’t open the account. Also, the usability of their web site is poor.
I never have these kind of problems with other banks.
Think twice before you open an account with them.
January 21st, 2006 at 2:16 am
I have had an account with Emigrant since Ocotober 2005 and have had absolutely NO problems what so ever! I opened the account with $25 and appreciated the extra security measures. I transfered $10,000 into the account and have been adding to it every since, and still no problems. Must just be you guys! Oh yeah, and the interest is up to 4% now!
January 28th, 2006 at 9:30 am
I see Ing has the Winter savings acct 4.75% would I be getting a whole lot of interest on say $10k for 2 1/2 months ? Can someone give me the formula to calc interest ? Thanks
March 18th, 2006 at 5:00 pm
Hi,
I am prospective entrant in the field of EmigrantDirect. Before opening an account with Emigrant Direct I would like to have suggestions from all of you folks.
Is this bank more reliable then the brick and mortar bank like Bank of America, etc. The high interest rate is attracting me to open the account in this bank.
I would like the input that what makes positive aspect to open the bank account with Emigrant Direct?
Is money safe with it?
Well interest now is 4.25%
Suggest….
July 27th, 2006 at 6:59 pm
Emigrant Direct are absolutely terrible. Their customer service is non existent. On numerous occasions today I was told a representative would call me back regarding a transfer issue. Not a chance. It is like dealing with a bunch of clueless people. I would not recommend this so called bank to anyone. I will go back to ING, even if it has lower interest.
March 29th, 2007 at 6:59 am
I’ve had an account with Emigrant since Dec 2005. I’ve not had a single problem with them. Actually, I’ve recommended them to about 5 people who have also had no problems with them. One of those people was my grandma who just got her first computer. My money is there to stay
March 12th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
I opened my Emigrant American Dreams Savings Account 3 months ago using a small transfer from my checking. I found the customer Service excellent. I’ve called several times for different problems and found them very friendly and helpful. The problems were that I answered the security questions incorrectly and they locked my account and I could’nt access it. I had to call them and they unlocked it immediately. I’m happy with them so far and reccommend them to anyone.