raining ktula » bank

Doing some good

ktula — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 20:20:33 +0000

One of my banks, which has not asked for any handout from the US government (the Dutch government did grant ING Direct’s parent company ING a 10 billion Euro lifeline to prevent a run on the bank back in October), is actually doing some good during the holiday season. According to the Associated Press, ING Direct is waiving the January mortgage payment for 500 of its mortgage customers, for a total amount of $861,513.25.

Oh no, not again

ktula — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 06:05:41 +0000

What are the chances of your checking account bank being forced out of business and the bank that you choose to replace it goes out of business as well in almost exactly a year later? My choice of banks so far has not been good. Last year, my online checking account bank Netbank was forced out of business by the FDIC. I transferred all my asset from Netbank to WaMu, a local bank in Seattle. It was a pain in the ass to get everything set up again on WaMu. I had to update my former employer’s HR so that they know where to send the next paycheck. I also had to set up all my online bill payment.

I just found out a few hours ago that WaMu, where i currently have my checking account, has just been shutdown by the FDIC. The subprime defaults has claimed its second victim that is related to me. WaMu’s assets have been acquired by JP Morgan. It is very likely that i will soon have a JP Morgan checking account and i will have to redo all my online bill payment again. This sucks!

Update
I have just received an email from WaMu with the subject “WaMu News: The holidays start today”. The email claimed that they “have plenty of ways to kick your holiday savings into gear.” Eh..no they don’t!

Email from WaMu received at 0013 on 9/26.

When it rains, it pours

ktula — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 09:23:38 +0000

Two weeks ago, a mistake either on my credit card issuer’s part or my part resulted in my checking account being in red for the first time in my life. I had set up the monthly auto-payment for my credit card on my old Netbank checking account. As some of you may know, Netbank was shutdown by FDIC late last year and its assets was acquired by ING Direct. ING Direct’s strength is its savings business. Its checking account business is just barely usable. So i decided to switch all my online bill payment, including the credit card autopayment to my local bank. In order to switch from one checking account to another for that particular credit card, i not only had to update the credit card website, i had to sign and return some document acknowledging the autopayment. In fact, for some reason, the credit card issuer never received the first document i mailed. So i ended up sending them a second one.

It was for this sole reason that i thought the autopayment would not take effect until March. In February, i bought a brand new Mac Pro using this credit card, incurring a hefty bill for that particular statement. Thinking that the autopayment would not be engaged until the next statement, i did an online bill payment from my checking account. Several days later when i checked my account balance, to my horror, it was in red! Apparently, that credit card’s autopayment took the same amount of money from my checking account, not realizing that i had already paid several days earlier. I was furious. My local bank charged me $32 for overdraft fee and because another online bill payment was made after my account went red, it charged me another $32 for return check fee. After contacting the credit card issuer, i was told the quickest way for the money to be redeposited back into my checking account was to contact my bank and have them cancel this payment as a “unauthorized” transaction.

My local bank told me that i would have to sign an affidavit in order for them to cancel the transaction and it normally would take between 5 to 7 business days. So i waited. 5 business days later, nothing. 7 business days later, nothing. It was not until i contacted the bank again that i found out it does not take 5 – 7 business days for this to clear up. The “5 – 7 business days” was the minimum days it would take them to mail me the affidavit. After i sign and return the affidavit, it would take them several more business days before they could cancel the transaction. I was infuriated. Why would it take 5 – 7 business days for my bank, which is head quartered locally in Seattle, to mail me the affidavit? At this moment, i was pretty worried that i won’t have enough money in my bank for my monthly mortgage payment.

It was of no use trying to convince my credit card issuer to electronically return the extra payment that they took from my bank account. Apparently, they can easily take money out of my account but the only way they could get the money back to me was via snail mail. Not willing to wait any longer for the affidavit from my bank, i asked for check to be mailed to me.

Last Friday was pay day. Also on the same day, i got my tax refund. On the same day, i received a bonus check from my previous employer in the mail. So in the matter of one day, my bank account balance went from close to zero to “fully loaded”. When it rains, it pours

My bank goes kaputt

ktula — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 06:14:44 +0000

“Feds shut down NetBank after big subprime defaults”

That’s really not a headline one would want to read about his bank heading into the weekend. Unfortunately, it’s true. The Feds have pulled the plug on NetBank.

The interesting thing is ING Direct, where i have my savings account, will be acquiring the federally insured deposits, including mine, from NetBank. So because of NetBank going kaputt, by Monday, both my savings and checking accounts will be under the same bank!

Here’s FDIC’s notice on the shutdown of NetBank.