opmnxtc said:thanks. which bureau? The pull was from Equifax when I did a CD with them last last year, Had heard they stopped doing pulls but according to Banking at Bank Deals they are still doing them AmTrustDirect Raises e-Money Market Account Rate to 5.26%
AmTrustDirect just raised the rate of its e-Money Market account from 5.15% to 5.26% APY. The APY applies to balances of $1 and higher. There are no minimum balance requirements, however, there is a minimum initial deposit requirement of $1,000. This is a new savings account that I first reported on in an August. It seems to have many nice features such as ACH transfer capability. Some of the drawbacks include no ATM card or check writing. Also, there may be a hard credit pull. Refer to my August post for more information about this account.
There was also a minor CD rate change at AmTrustDirect. The 12-month rate went from 5.68% to 5.60% APY. Other rates remain the same. Their longer term CD rates had already fallen from 5.68% to 5.50% over the last few weeks which was similar to the rate drops seen at many other banks. In July I was told that they ended the practice of pulling hard credit pulls for CD applications. However, a reader just informed me that there was a hard credit pull made on his Equifax credit report after he had opened a CD. So you should probably assume that a hard credit pull will be done. I'm looking into this to see if that is the official policy.
Opened account a few days ago. They never took out funds yet. Guess it will take a few days before I hear back from them. Havent heard anything back nor seen my money taken out.
Ohio Savings Bank is a very reputable big money bank so I am not worried. AmTrust is BIG down in Florida and has huge assets. It also owns branches elsewhere with both the AmTrust and Ohio Savings name.
ajulius said:Opened account a few days ago. They never took out funds yet. Guess it will take a few days before I hear back from them. Havent heard anything back nor seen my money taken out.
Ohio Savings Bank is a very reputable big money bank so I am not worried. AmTrust is BIG down in Florida and has huge assets. It also owns branches elsewhere with both the AmTrust and Ohio Savings name. I applied on Friday. Credit Pull was dated saturday. ACH pull is showing temp on my Citi e-savings as of today (this is a def + compared to Amboy and Emigrant - it is fully allowed to do ACH with savings accounts). Sounds like they are pretty quick at it.
I guess I'll have to wait for my letter from them with login info.
I got an email today thanking me for signing up for net banking. I didn't have my userid yet, so I gave them a call with the # in the email.
The rep said they have been absolutally overwhelmed with the signups from this new promo, that it was larger than anyone ever expected it to be. Guess there is some power in rate chasers.
Anyways, she said my login won't work til Friday at the earliest, and most likely not until Monday because they are so far behind, but she went ahead and told me my login anyways, so of course I tried it right away (and it works). UserID:<9 digit ssn> Password:<last 4 of social><5 digit zipcode>
The account shows up as "checking", but it does show my initial deposit, however it shows it as being on hold for some reason (not avilable yet, doesn't actually say hold, but avil bal is $0 and Current Bal is $1000).
They use the same billpay system UFB uses (with "Money HQ" account aggregation), but they use it for account balances as well.
BIG NOTE: BECAUSE IT SHOWS AS CHECKING, IT IS LETTING ME USE BILL PAY! I can't actually send a billpay yet, as I have $0 avilable balance, but i was able to add billers and start to make a payment.
the rep told me the initial deposit can have up to 7 business days hold. for future deposits, out of state checks can have 2-3 days, and ACH transfers have no hold.
The global brain works quite nicely since all of us are thinking the same things.
UFBDirect is 5.27% while the Las Vegas bank went down to 5.20%.
AmtrustDirect is a VERY stable bank and even for .01 difference I would still choose it over UFBDirect and AmtrustDirect could be higher over the yield curve as well for the year. We all made a wise choice with AmtrustDirect over the others.
Are we limited to 6 billpays because it is a money market account?
Also what is weird is I was supposed to get a validation email and I never got it yet. Will see if it hits my mailbox otherwise I will call up the bank.
ajulius said:Are we limited to 6 billpays because it is a money market account? I'd assume so - they don't even advertise the billpay for the e-money market, only for their B&M moneymarket, where it says you are limited to 6 debits a month (or something of that nature).
Maybe its just a screwup that they created the accounts as checking? Who knows. If it sticks this could be a great account to have, though.
ajulius said:Just got the validation email. Seems like it was delayed. I didn't try. I prefer Yodlee. I've tried UFB's MoneyHQ and didn't care for it at all.
Well, ajulius, guess it's time to dump your HSBC account, now that you found someone to give you an extra .21% of APY
Me, i will stay with my nice 5% at WAMU.....not a rate chaser like some of you FW fanatics....as long as WAMU stays "in range" (and i am sure they will)....it's just not worth fussing over....but, to each his own!
craig10x said:Well, ajulius, guess it's time to dump your HSBC account, now that you found someone to give you an extra .21% of APY
Me, i will stay with my nice 5% at WAMU.....not a rate chaser like some of you FW fanatics....as long as WAMU stays "in range" (and i am sure they will)....it's just not worth fussing over....but, to each his own!
As much as I mock him for rate-chasing, when its new money I don't really see any reason not to (since I have no Wamu, Citi, nor HSBC ATM/branch local).
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