Let me express my opinion about the bank according to my 1-week experience with it:

OPENING ONLINE:

Opening an account online is like a piece of cake. You can also choose the initial funding via ACH. A nice representative called me a couple of days after account opening to confirm me of the account for the ACH. This really makes me feel that they care about their customers (at least their new customers). And I felt really good about it.

LATER WHEN YOU ARE THEIR CUSTOMER:

If you want to talk to them by phone (1-866-285-1856), things will be terrible. I was automatically put on hold for 4 hours and I gave up. It didn't happen to me today only, but for 2 days already. My take is that there are just a few reps to take care of callers (maybe no phone reps at all!). So do not count on having a chance to talk to them in person. However, after the regular business hour, they picked up the phone quice quickly (within 5 minutes). I wanted to further fund my account via ACH. But then all the rep could help was online banking. He couldn't even access an ACH form (for future funding) and asked me to call during regular business hour. I then asked him if I could just mail a personal check there and how I would do it. He said he couldn'y access this information either and, again, asked me to call back during the regular hour. Afterhour reps seem useless for me.
I also sent an e-mail asking them about the ACH 2 days ago but haven't received any reply yet.

MY CONCLUSION:

My conclusion is that the $25 bonus is good, and the 3.75% (as of 9/14/2005) is very good! But you really have to be self-sufficient with your accounts and online banking as, from my experience, CSRs are impossible to reach (phone and e-mail). I'm going to start counting how long it will take for me to be able to put more money into the account. Right now my $47k is sitting in Netbank MM with only 3.0? % APR (instead of Emigrantdirect for 3.5% APR). So effectively I'm losing money everyday. I'm totally disappointed of how hard it is to put more money into my account. Forget about MoneyHQ -- it costs money to use it. Why can't it be free? Or is this the way they make money? -- Making it hard to deposit money into the account so that people will have to use MoneyHQ?

Thank you for your suggestion. Today I actually discovered in a pile of paperwork on my desk a direct number that one of the representative used to give me (that person called me directly at home a few days ago because he thought I was having problem logging in). I asked him to fax the ACH form to me, and now I have it He answered the phone within a second or two so today I was quite impressed with the fast response. So my recommendation is that if you happen to have a direct number to one of the CSRs, please use it -- he/she will be just a few seconds away!

the withdrawal clause issn't really isn't such a big deal -- just save one of your 4 starter checks, and then if they ever give you trouble about withdrawals, just write yourself a huge check.

Agree that lots of other fine print is quite annoyin'

I posted this in another thread, but now finding this thread, It makes sense to repost here.

I have some personal feedback on MybankingDirect rates and operation. I opened their "Earn More" savings account late Sept '05. I fell for their rate hook: 3.75% APY at least until DEC. The highest at the time. To say the least, their operations are slow and cumbersome. There are a few reasons why I would not ever go back to doing business with them:

1. You have to open an account with a written notice (or check). This is the information age! The time it took for my authorization letter to get there, have them process it, and then do the ACH transfer took 15 business days. (that's more than half a month of no incuring interest!)

2. To link my savings account to another bank took 3 days longer than I expected.

3. Every ACH transfer has a fee. Except deposits, (thank God, that would of been crazy if they charged you to give them your money).

4. The only way to get money back without fees is thru their bill pay service on website. Which is limited to only 6 bill pays per month, (fees after the 6th), and you are limited $5000 per day, $10,000 per month.

5. The $5000 limit per day applies to deposits as well.

6. Deposits/tranfers always take more than 3 Business days to process. And for the day they process it, it leaves one account and doesn't appear in My Banking direct account till the next morning. So for a short period, your money is in limbo, not appearing in any account.

7. For a short period, my promised rate of 3.75% APY was only 2.5% even though I opened my account way above the necessary balance needed to merit the 3.75%.

8. Customer service sucks. Very hard to get in touch with someone by phone and super long wait times. I live in California. They are in NY. They close customer service at 5pm EST.

Beyond that, they pretty much deliver what they promise. I'm not saying they are going to rip you off, or they are criminal bankers. But if you seek good, timely, and accurate service, you will not be satisfied with them.

I realized that high rates isn't always key now. You could lose much of your return on bad and slow service. (and much stress and headache). I will have to leave at least $1000 in my My Banking Direct account for 180 days as to not incur and early termination fee or maintenance fee, and will be moving the rest of the balance to Emigrant or Presidential. Of course, I will do my due diligence and find out about their services first.

-Dario

I am a little disappointed that they have not yet cashed the initial $5k deposit check. It has been 2 full weeks (using their prepaid envelop)

When I first applied Aug 16 '05, they opened a checking at 2.4% versus the MM savings. I asked them to convert the account, and it took a while. I got a letter dated 9/6 saying "welcome" EARN> More Money Direct etc. Still when I logged on it showed the 2.4% rate and had the same account #. So I figured as soon as I send the check the acount rate will be straightned out. For this purpose I thought a check, with all the info on it like the rate and the bonus would fair better than an ACH in insuring they did not keep the rate at 2.4%. So it looks like it takes them about 2 weeks to do anything. Dependent on my experience with an open account, it is likely that may close it after the 180 days.

Looks like the last routing number worked (NYCB), but I found a 'NYCB-MyBankingDirect'...226071004

The $25 bonus is dead now!