| 5 star: | (11) | |
| 4 star: | (13) | |
| 3 star: | (8) | |
| 2 star: | (21) | |
| 1 star: | (114) |
I just figured out how much of my interest income UFB denied me by quietly lowering the rate on my "high yield" savings account in a rising interest rate environment while the Fed and other banks continued to raise rates. I parked the downpayment for a home here and in August 2023 they lowered rates -.5 to -.75% while they offered the highest rates to new customers. The high yield account I opened was switched to a legacy version. If you called up and complained they would switch your legacy account to the latest high yield account. Do yourself a favor and bank elsewhere. I found a document online that may be the start of a class action suit. It explains the predatory practices the bank used. Consumers who believed they were investing their savings in UFB’s variable, “highest-yielding savings account,” in fact had invested in accounts that UFB would only be the its “highest-yielding savings account” for a trivial, arbitrary, and undisclosed periods. While interest rates rose the number of accounts grew from 8,000 to 83,000 per Axos Banks Annual report. Imagine how much interest customers lost! UFB customers were induced into opening savings accounts that UFB represented were the “highest yielding savings accounts we offer” UFB then executed a “bait and switch”—creating new accounts with slightly different names offering higher interest rates to new customers, without informing existing accountholders. Rather than increasing the interest rates earned on its earlier accounts, UFB reclassified them as “legacy accounts” and froze or decreased their Annual Percentage Yields. The CEO of parent company Axos Bank also has a storied past and makes multiple millions for running the bank and has lent to Trump.
Will likely get updated sometime today. First salvo in rate cuts. I will be moving my $$$ into a CD. Been a great run of high rates on a liquid product
Five days ago I signed up online for a savings account -- or I should say I started the process. I received an email every day reminding me to finish my application. Each time I logged in it told me that my application was being reviewed and I'd be contacted. Yesterday I received an email saying I needed to call in and have my identity verified. I did that, answered the typical questions. Today I get another email saying to log in and provide more information. When I log in I get a message that my application is under review. This is ridiculous. I hope the software they use to keep track of my money is better than what they use for the application process!
I attempted to setup an account, based on all the YouTube videos and excellent NerdWallet review... after putting in my email, password, a username, etc. it froze. I called Customer services 2x, and attempted to reset my pw online. they can't find the application, so I figured it's best to choose different bank.
Just as others on this site have mentioned (as recently as April 2024), transfers are inexplicably failing here, and the bank offers nothing to solve it!
Last week, I scheduled an important transfer to pay off bills. I've been doing this monthly with success. On Friday, I learned that the transfer failed.
I called customer support for answers. They said it failed due to a 'technical difficulty'. They even said that all transfers failed that day. What?!
This of course meant that my payments all became late, my account was overdrawn, and fees started piling up. I asked customer service if they would be willing to cover these fees. They eventually offered me: $10. Which is not even close to what I'll end up paying due to this debacle.
Needless to say, I began withdrawing all funds this week and aim to close the account on Friday.
Avoid at all costs, folks.
To say this bank serves customers is a bit incorrect. I signed up for an account, which, by itself, took 2 days to accomplish. 2 days!!! Then, after I was "accepted" I tried to add money to my new checking and savings account. Great. Except that every time I tried to do so, and could successfully link my current brick-and-mortar- based bank, it would put through an infinite loop of correctly identifying my bank, and my current deposits in that bank, yet, it would not let me move any money from that bank into my new accounts at UFB Direct. The process kept putting me back to the beginning of asking me to identify my bank, and over and over it went. I called and spoke with a CSR, who was not very helpful. Not to mention almost completely unable to speak fluent English! Oh, she walked me through the same process that I had just gone through, and, when it didn't work, suggested that "I wait a few hours and try it again." REALLY??!! Just for giggles and grins, I did wait a few hours and tried again, and guess what? I had the exact same experience as before! While UFB has an attractive package for an online checking and savings account bundle, and a nice rate for a high-yield savings account, in the end, they don't seem to be very customer friendly.
Interest rate competitive, Customer Service response time decent and website layout is fine, but like other reviewers have stated, saving with this bank bites. Deposit and withdrawal processing times are lengthy and rates drop without notice while a higher rate is advertised to new customers. You can get the latest rate by converting your account every so often. I thought if the rate varies, it will automatically adjust up or down, but my yield dropped without any notification while a much higher rate was available all along, and I had been getting a much lower rate for almost the last six months. Very bad system to have to keep monitoring for a change in rates, only to then have to request to convert the account to a new one offering the latest higher rate. This is unfair for some customers to be getting higher rates because they noticed it sooner and others who don’t constantly monitor their accounts or get busy and forget to be getting a much lower rate when the higher one is available to everyone. There is a lot of inequality with this system, and therefore, hate dealing with this company. Will be taking my funds elsewhere because six-figure amount accruing almost one percent interest less for several months just because you have to play games to keep checking and contacting CS is not right. All institutions don’t do this and others automatically adjust when interest rates increase, as I have another account somewhere else that works this way. But the way UFB does it creates extra work and increases margin of lost earnings potential. Hope everyone takes their money to a better place and this company goes out of business.
Worst customer service ever. Uncoordinated and conflicting customer communications. Run, don't walk, away from these folks.
At this link, you can read about how UFB is the "featured bank" in an article about scammy scummy banks who try to deceive their own customers. Yep, UFB is the Scummy Star.
https://www.wsj.com/personal-finance/savings/when-high-yield-savings-accounts-come-with-an-asterisk-781f28e5?mod=savings_news_article_pos4
And at this link, you can read about a customer driven class action lawsuit against UFB for being the untrustworthy cons that they are. Enjoy.
https://www.classaction.org/news/ufb-direct-hit-with-lawsuit-over-allegedly-deceptive-advertising-of-highest-yield-savings-accounts
Like really... you can't trust this bank.
And many of the CSRs are absolutely useless.
Definitely NOT worth it.
I was floored today to find out that UFB failed to help me out when a transfer request made a week ago was cancelled on their end due to an admitted "technical error". Due to the transfer being cancelled and then reinitiated by me, I will become overdrawn tomorrow. Easy fix would be for them to do a wire transfer, same day today, to my bank. But no, they said I can do that myself and pay the fee. I asked that they waive the fee but they refused. Unbelievable and incomprehensible lack of customer service. I would never patronize such a company that won't waive a measly $35 fee for a good customer. Just closed all accounts and won't be back. I recommend you stay away from this company.
I've kept an eye on the names and rate changes and made certain my account was getting the new, best rate. I've been happy.
A couple weeks ago I couldn't log in, finally called and somehow the CS gal got me in. I can't log in again, and phone calls (they say 24 hr service) gets an announcement that the lines are busy. It's 9:30 pm their time. All busy? Maybe tomorrow will be better, but I can't afford locked up funds and will be moving them.
Signed up, opened an account, but read their policy closer and it is too open ended relating to the liquidity level of account. I tried getting answers, lost my account, now I’m denied an account? Overall horrible experience.
UFB withdrew the followings from my account and has not provide me with any proof nor documents showing why they did:
08/24 Legal Process 04395816 $100.00
09/07 Savings Withdrawal $1,484.82
I am seeking to have them reimburse these charges - total of $1584.82.
Regards, Tin
I have an American Express Savings as well as UFB, just in case. I’m not sure what all the hub-bub is about as my dealings with UFB have been unquestionably stellar while enjoying excellent returns and seamless transfers, both in and out. Honestly, I cannot imagine why anyone's experience would be any different.
Over a year ago we opened an account (HYSA) with UFB. We've been moderately impressed until recently.
First, our initial rate of 5.25% slid to 4.5% without notice even though their published rate was still 5.25%. When we called for a correction they admitted they made a mistake and the account should have been earning 5.25%, but did not offer to fix the mistake other than move the rate back up to 5.25%.
We have also moved monies into and out of UFB during this time and it has been acceptable, until recently.
When we attempted to move a significant amount out for a CD at another banking institution - and not replace those monies at UFB (but still keeping it open), our account was frozen. We received a msg indicating UFB felt it was a fraud risk (it isn't, we have other monies at this bank and have never had any problems).
So... now we are having difficulty accessing ANY of our monies with UFB. It is as if they are attempting to hold on to our monies to earn more money off of our money - without letting us have access to our own money to move it where we can earn a higher rate.
So.... we will be taking our business elsewhere.
When you put your money into a bank, you should be able to reasonably access it - especially if it is in a Savings or Checking account!
I opened a money market account back in May of last year and got the advertised APY for at least some time. Recently I discovered that I'm getting 0.75% less than the currently advertised rate and I have absolutely no idea when I was downgraded as I received no message about it.
While 4.50% APY is still a competitive rate, it's not what I thought I signed up for. I assumed I would have a variable rate, to be sure, but that it would match whatever was currently advertised and not be lower. With this loss of trust I'm looking to pull my money and go elsewhere.
I needed to move some of my savings to a different account. However, my application got declined. So I decided to call the bank, thinking that I might have missed some information. I hoped that it would be a quick fix, and I could transfer a healthy sum of money into the account. However, I was disappointed with the customer service representative's poor communication skills. Her accent was so thick that it was next to impossible to understand what she was trying to tell me. She provided worthless information, and I finally gave up on trying to understand her. I concluded that maybe my money wasn't meant to be with UFB."
Do not open an account with this garbage bank. I opened the savings account with 25.00. Then ufb bank locked my account with my money in it then asks for kinds of almost impossible requirements to get it unlocked. I think i lost my 25.00. Lucky i did not opened with 1000.00.
This "bank" is scary...it seems like a shill corporation. 12 days after opening a money market, they still can't seem to accept my money...and now I'm thinking that may be a good thing but I may be getting ahead of myself.
1st I initiated a mobile deposit via my laptop to fund the account. 1st attempt it said my image was too large to upload (it was just the check with like a 1" border around it), so then I used my phone's "scan" feature and that took a perfect image of just the check and i was told the upload was successful. A day or 2 later I get an email saying it failed b/c the image was not readable... I'm looking at the pic I still had stored on my computer thinking, it couldn't be clearer if it was the actual check. So I call up their customer service to see if they do ACH transfers (why was this not listed as an option when i set up my account?) . The CSR says it is and tries to walk me through saying select Capital One....I tell her I don't bank with Capital One, but she tells me to do it anyway, even though my bank had popped up when I typed it in. Anyway, I managed to link 2 accounts to UFB and the 2 mini deposits went through fine and my accounts were linked. I initiated the $5k transfer and received an email confirmation. The next day, another email saying it had failed with no reason given. I could see from my account the accounts were successfully connected, the deposit/withdrawal mini test went through, i had sufficient funds in the other account. So again, I call up customer service and I am told, to disregard the email saying it was cancelled, it was a technical glitch. The gentleman in India can see that it is in process, don't worry. Phew! Except several days later, it still hasn't transferred and I can see no record of it being in process on my account. There is also no records of the various emails sent to me on the account. I chat with a rep who tells me the deposit was cancelled b/c of the glitch. So a few days ago it was supposedly still in process after telling me it was cancelled but now it has totally disappeared and there is no record of it on my account? How can I trust this bank to manage the larger sums I was planning on transferring if they lose money like this? For the record, I do tons of ACH transfers and have never had an issue. This bank is a joke. I'm trying to close my account, but was told by the CSR message person that my request "would be transferred to the appropriate department" and would take 23-48 hours. Anyone want to bet that won't go through either? Fingers crossed my ACH deposit for $5k won't magically rise from the dead. What a waste of my time and extra stress. Don't be lured in by their high interest rates...it's not worth it.
I decided to sign up after seeing the appealing articles about various interests. In the end, I am happy I couldn't open the account. Their system sends daily emails about missing documents. When I logged in, it kept showing a message: "Your application is under review. You do not need to upload anything else. A banker will call you within two business days." No one called me, and the three times I called them, the representative hung up the call just a few seconds after I started talking. As I said, it took me a few days to realize I didn't want to deposit my money in such a terrible place, and I am glad I was unable to.
The 5.25% high yield account sounds exciting and the bank is reviewed very well by financial news outlets, but don't do it.
The customer service is terrible and the UI of the site itself is very clunky. They've, without reason, sent random emails threatening to lock me out or close my account.
I've since moved my money to a trustworthy account and advise that you don't get yourself into business with these amateurs.
Be careful of their bait and switch. I signed up for a savings plan called "Preferred" Savings at over 5% APY. Months ago, my rate dropped to 4.5%. On 1.10.24, I checked their website, and their savings plan is at 5.25%, but it's called "Secure" Savings. Get this: they don't even offer a "Preferred" savings plan on their website anymore. When I contacted support, they said they would move me to the Secure plan at 5.25%.
Here's what I suspect they are doing. They entice you with a high-interest rate, then they eventually lower it. To entice more signups, they create a new savings plan with a high-interest rate. Tricky! I've decided to move my money elsewhere. Plus, their reviews are horrible - not worth it.
I requested a money transfer from my UFB Direct account to an account at another bank. I received an email saying the transfer failed with no reason given. Because the transfer failed, I initiated a transfer from the other bank. When I asked UFB Direct about the failed transfer, I was told to give it more time and that the transfer was in process. How can a transfer go from failed to in process? They also didn't give a reason for the failure. If I cannot rely on UFB Direct to do a simple transfer, I will take my business elsewhere. I've never had a transfer fail at any other bank. I'm also very uncomfortable at a transaction going from failed to in process again. To me, failed is a final state, not an interim state.
Without notifying me, UFB reduced the interest rate on my “Preferred” savings account at the same time they launched the new “Secure” savings account product. I had to check their website to see the new advertised rate, and they upgraded my account from Preferred to Secure after I contacted them about the problem.
After contacting them through a secure message, they told me unceremoniously that they are totally unable to notify me when they screw around with my interest rate, and it's up to me to contact them requesting an upgrade.
I am now looking for a new bank that does not reduce my interest rate simply because they “launch new products,” forcing me to go through the rigmarole of contacting them to change my account type after wasting time with an inferior interest rate that I was not notified of.
Hi there savvy savers and investors avoid UFB Direct High Yield Savings as the customer service is beyond abysmal. Called the customer service center and got someone who was clearly incompetent at their job and blamed me for giving them a wrong name for my account -- extremely bizarre and beyond ridiculous and extremely unprofessional.
Go with Raisin for high yield savings and save time, the unnecessary hassel, and most of all a better APR!!
They periodically lower interest rates for existing accounts while continuing to advertise the same or higher interest rates. They try to justify this by changing the name of the name of new account but there is no material difference between accounts other to mislead clients about interest rates.
I have been banking with UFB for almost a year, and I have been very happy with them so far. They pay very high interest rates on their savings and money market accounts, and they are one of the few banks that pay high interest that will accept accounts for an irrevocable trust. My only complaint is that when interest rates go up, they offer higher rates for new customers, but they don't automatically raise the rates of existing accounts. So you need to occasionally check to see if they raised their rates, and if they did, you need to call them and have them switch your accounts to the new account.
It feels like UFB is a scam, It was easy to set up an account, and easy to transfer in the first deposit from another bank, but immediately after that went through it kicked me out into a login loop. Calling customer support was uselless, first time they said they would send a code, which didnt work, 2nd time the support said they do maintenance on the weekends so cant use it on the weekends which is insane, 3rd time they sent another code and promised it would never happen again, 4th time they just purely hung up on me. So here I sit with them stealing my deposit, and no way for me to get my money back.
As a technologist, it is very clear to see that some bureaucrat at AXOS Bank has figured out that if you cobble together multiple pieces of third party software and very cheap Indian customer service, you can attract customers to a barely legal bank. I was attracted to UFB to be able to use their checking account. This quickly became a money market account overnight with a minimum $5,000 daily balance. How did that happen?
After signing up for the bank and having my wife added to the account I set up all the bill pays which were horrendously difficult because the third party software Yodlee that they use to connect accounts is at best barely usable. So far so good. Then my wife logged in with her account credentials and found out she had no access to any of the bill pays. After trying to resolve with the Indian customer service who kept saying "send us a screenshot," she gave up and tried multiple things which somehow set off a fraud flag at the bank. Now the problems really started.
I received an email saying fraud had been detected and the account was taken offline. I called customer service immediately because I had bills scheduled to be paid. After getting a runaround they finally said we will send an email to see if we can resolve the problem. That was the first indication of how screwed up the system is. The customer service department can't do anything other than send an email to somebody, the wizard of Oz? Who can actually do things?. My account as well as my bill pays were frozen for 2 business days until I finally screamed at customer service that I wanted to access my money and my bill pays. Their answer was all the accounts have been closed and will have to have you reapply to get your accounts back. Reapply? Are you kidding me? I have tried every way possible to reach someone at axos Bank who was responsible for setting up this fiasco because I can't believe that somebody at a legitimate bank knows about this and is doing nothing to correct it. I have finally called axos Bank directly and ask them to get a contact for someone and management responsible for this fiasco . The concept of setting up a totally digital bank using third party software cobbled together and an outsourced customer service organization who seem very polite, but totally incapable of doing anything is horrible.
So far I have stayed with this bank because the interest rates are so attractive but but even after sending letters to the CFB I got no indication that anything is going to change. If I see them starting to reduce my rates I'll be gone in a flash. Talk about the need for regulation. Here it is. Call AXOS direct at 1.888.502.2977. I called this number and told them I want to call back from someone and management and I'm waiting for it to see if it comes.
They continue to change their product offerings and lower your interest rate with no notification. I will be moving all my money
How could an electronic transfer get lost? A $4K transfer from an external account to UFB Savings. Their customer support response was "it's a technical issue" but assured me the transfer was still in progress. There nothing on my account indicating that. It hasn't been deducted on the external account. When asked why - crickets....
Transferring all funds out of that account and closing ASAP.
As others have commented, it’s alarming that UFB/Axos conducts business as described in many posts here and can continue to do so.
A recent reviewer mentioned s/he would be contacting the FTC: I suggest each of us submit complaints to every applicable regulatory agency: FTC, OCC…others?
I’d like to discuss a group complaint too: complaining individually seems to have had no impact.
If you contacted the FTC, would you let us know about results?
And same question, if you responded to one of the Axos apologies posted in some reviews. (How can they post those “apologies” with a straight face?!
.
Put an 11 day hold on a deposit connected to a Chase account after the UFB website connected by an interbank depository.
They're just making money on my money.
I will move the funds and close the account as soon as the hold is removed.
Another greedy bank
Don’t be fooled by the positive reviews on major websites like Business Insider or Fortune. These reviews were likely either paid off by UFB Direct to give positive reviews or they are just plain ignorant of the major problems at UFB Direct. Although UFB Direct may not be a total scam, their behavior exhibits very closely to it. Unexpected freezes on accounts which renders money inaccessible, careless customer support with empty promises to fix the problem, and glitches that prevent the transfer to and from external accounts are among the worst experiences to be ever had at a bank and they all happen here at UFB Direct.
How UFB Direct has made it this far with it being advertised as a reputable bank is mysterious. Upon an initial look at UFB Direct, one can view seemingly positive reviews from even reputable websites that are normally helpful with making financial decisions, such as NerdWallet and others. Even Apple’s App Store gives UFB Direct a positive 4.9 stars out of five as of this writing. Perusing more closely between the lines, however, reveals scores of negative reviews complaining of absolute nerve wracking and horrid experiences that reflect the true incompetence of UFB Direct.
The absolute worst and most fear-inducing problem with UFB Bank is their combination of poor customer service and a glitchy app and website. I personally have multiple business accounts and personal accounts across different financial institutions as I am a business owner. I manage funds responsibly and everything was seemingly going fine with my external accounts at UFB Direct until about five months later, my account suddenly froze up and I could not make external transfers. I contacted customer support and they told me that my account was “restricted” because I needed to show that one of my external accounts was under my name. I have never had such a problem with any other financial institution and I have had no problem adding my other external accounts. It is a wonder why this one account was somehow perceived as an account under someone other than myself. So I did what was asked and submitted a paper statement from the institution of concern showing that I was indeed the holder of the external account and it was under my name. But once I submitted my statement to UFB Direct through their secure messaging system, I received no response at all. Some of the other messages that I even sent before about related issues, like about problems with adding an entirely different external account that I have, was even randomly deleted by customer support instead of at least acknowledging the problem. It was during these issues that I felt something was really off about UFB Direct. Are they trying to freeze my account without purpose as if to try to defraud me? Are they attempting to randomly freeze customers’ accounts to see if they can just take money for themselves while falsely dismissing accounts as fraud? I also began heavily perusing the negative reviews of UFB Direct to see if I could relate to them. Others with similar experiences as mine on the website of Deposit Accounts use the words “scammy” and “criminal” to describe UFB Direct and I understand why. I began to really worry about my funds in what I initially thought was a decent financial institution.
After contacting customer support multiple times, I repeatedly was told that I would receive a response within a timeframe such as “in the next three hours” or “in the next 24 hours.” Nothing ever appeared in my secure message inbox like they told me there would even as days went by. I additionally verified at the end of the phone call with customer support asking how I would be contacted and although I was told I would receive a message, I never received any response whatsoever—no secure message, no phone call, nothing. After contacting customer support for perhaps almost ten times with the goal of fixing the technical glitch that was preventing me from making external transfers via ACH, I decided that I was to move all my money out of UFB Direct as fast as I could somehow. After multiple failures with customer support to fix basic problems with functions that are normally routine and easy tasks done at any other competent and decent bank, I decided to just wire all my money away from UFB Direct—and for good. I’m lucky that the function to wire funds actually worked. If wiring did not work, I don’t know what I would do with such bad customer support.
Discussions of the problems over the phone with UFB Direct’s customer support felt very uncomfortable. Customer support lacked real empathy and used poor communication. When I called about one of my external accounts not being able to be added, my request was ignored and I was instead just told to verify my name under an entirely different external account that was not being discussed about at the moment. I am told that my other account needs to be verified, but I just wanted to see if I can avoid that issue by just adding a different account instead. It was only after I called customer support again that I was this time informed that the reason I needed to verify one of my accounts was because my account was restricted. If I was told my account was restricted the first time I called, I would at least have been able to go right to resolving that issue without delay. But instead, I find myself having to call customer support multiple times just to get an answer and when I am told that my issues would be addressed, they never are.
To make matters worse, the email communications from UFB Direct are just plain false and misleading. For example, I once received an email stating that my APY would increase to a higher rate. Weeks later, however, I found that the APY on my account had not changed from the original rate which I first had upon opening my account. Either there are glitches and bugs littered everywhere or UFB Direct is intentionally avoiding an increase in the APY rate to save money on their end. I later found that UFB Direct will not automatically increase your APY rate (in spite of their emails saying otherwise) and will instead require you to contact them to upgrade your account to the latest APY. There is this added complication of having to contact UFB Direct to upgrade your account while simultaneously your account might freeze up or glitch out. Meanwhile, UFB Direct’s shoddy customer service will ignore your problems.
I never felt so nervous about how my money was being cared for until I opened an account at UFB Direct. The higher APY being marketed by this bank comes at a cost and the cost is a very incompetent bank that very much feels like a scam, where the bank is seemingly waiting to see how long they can restrict your account and hold onto your money until you give up. After this horrendous experience with this institution, I plan to heed much more to negative reviews. Consider the overwhelmingly negative reviews from other reviewers like mine to be a warning to never enter UFB Direct. I initially came to UFB Direct for all the positive reviews it received from reputable financial oriented websites, but now I am much more skeptical of these reviews and I instead listen to the negative reviews from ordinary customers like you and I who are not being paid to make a positive review. I now also feel discouraged from ever using another online bank like UFB Direct to set up a high yield savings account because the higher APY they advertise can come with real, unnerving drawbacks.
Deposit at your own risk! I depostied my money into this bank, but cannot get it out. Customer service keeps telling me to use "move money" feature, but no feature or tab exists. They state they will respond in 2-4 business days, but I have waited over a week, no replies. I have to call them every time. Serivce is in India with no connections to US. I have requested to close the account twice now, I filed a report with CFPB.
I tried to login to my account on my phone and day after day, kept saying, you cannot login in because of system updates. I finally tried to login on computer and was told that my account was frozen as a result of someone trying to debit money out of my account.
This transaction occurred two weeks ago and no one bothered to reach out to me. I then had to create a new account and then I have to call to have accounts transferred to my new account that was set up over the phone. they told me they would credit me back the stolen funds but I have to wait and see about that.
Sort of scary that the bank is open 24/7 for telephone calls based out in India.
In December 2022, I established an account with UFB Direct. They raised the interest rate several times, as they advertised, but these increases were not applied to my existing account. I believe I may have lost a significant amount of money when the interest rate was raised to the current APY of 5.25%.
I had been under the impression that I would receive the current 5.25% APY rate, as advertised, until I received a call from AXOS Bank today regarding a transfer. During the conversation, the representative informed me that I was actually receiving only a 4.21% APY rate.
As a result of this discrepancy, I am in the process of filing a complaint with the FTC.
Thank you.
Stay Away! They take your money and then dont let you access it! UNETHICAL and FRAUDULENT company. STAY FAR AWAY! Terrible customer service too!
Do not use UFB Direct, unless you like a dis-honest slime-ball banking experience. Several months ago I opened a money market and a savings account each with the FDIC max insured amounts because they had a very good rate. Then 2 months later, after the Fed raised rates again, they lowered both rates by more than half a percent WITHOUT notice. I know that every bank has boilerplate disclosure about being able to change rates at any time without notice, but none of them do! I have accounts at 4 other banks and none of them lowered rates after the Fed raised rates……and they all give me notice when a rate changes (up or down). So I withdrew my money. Then I get a call from them asking why I withdrew my money, I told them and they offered to pay me a new higher rate if I would stay. NO WAY…..they would likely just lower it again without notice in another month or two. To top it off…my money was with them for 3/4 of last month and because I withdrew it they did not pay me any interest at all for last month. I would not deal with these guys at all…..there are other banks or brokerages that are not deceptive and treat their customers much better.
Like others saying here they will eliminate or change account names, and if u had an account example (platinum savings), they will change that to ( saving advantage) for example and will drop the APY on the old name.
is easy to switch to the new account by sending an email but still u will expect them to automatic change u or notify u, but again they will not.
that is why I'm giving them 4 stars
Opened both High Yield Money Market and High Yield Savings using 2 buttons on their main website.
The MM button on the left says:"UFB High Yield Money Market Maximize your saving potential. Earn up to 5.25% APY*!" Once transfer completed into both I noticed that there is no interest posted on the MM account, only on the Savings. Talking to an agent on the chat, she says that the MM account is really a checking account (?) and only after a few direct questions she confirmed that there is no interest earned on it. It seems to be that while they advertise both MM and savings as high yield, once the opening accounts process is done, the High Yield ends up as a 0 interest checking!
Update: A manager level agent reached out to me, apologized for the "confusion" and offered to convert the 0% Money Market (actually checking) account to the real MM acount, also answered all the related questions in a clear and helpful way. I am upping the rating now
Opens a saving account at 5.25% in March 23. Deposited ~$40K over next few months. Noticed in June 23 the monthly interest payments declined. Now Sept 23 paying 4.5%. They still are offering 5.25% to new customers. I did not expect rate to last forever but I hoped for more.
Customer service is a little slow. Bank does not handle international currency exchange but best to use other specialist institutions for that purpose.
May switch to another bank sometime.
Tried to set up a new account online & with phone support. I have yet to complete it after over a week. Complete incompetence of staff, poor site programming/IT design and support with very slow back-office processing. They also use support in India which suggested I cancel my application since they were of no help and did not have ability to contact US support or elevate. I had accounts with this bank in the past which they show on their system. I will probably walk away from this.
Happened to check my account and my interest rate dropped half a point with no notice. No way to know yet for sure how long ago but it's probably a whole month at a significantly lower rate than I signed up for. Meanwhile Fed rates have gone up.
The only recent communication I've had from UFB is that I can open a new account at a 5.25 interest rate. How scummy can you be to send out an ad for a higher rate but not let your existing customers know you're bilking them. Just a scam.
Taking my business elsewhere. Lots of good rates out there.
I was aware of the banks practice of not giving existing customers the increased interest rate. As soon as I saw the last increase (one day after the announcement), I called customer service and asked for the increase. I was told no problem. Knowing full well the bank's questionable business practices, I did not check until today. It was never changed. It's my own fault for not following up. Lesson learned.
Verified Bank Customer
I'm deeply disappointed AXOS Bank (the "Bank") has benefited from the use of my money and I have been robbed by a loss of interest earned. On 8/10/2023, the Bank had decided to create a new account (i.e., High Yield Savings). However, the Bank didn't inform me (in advance) of this new account. Rather, the Bank had enjoyed earning the difference in what it would've otherwise paid to its customers. Hence, the Bank's overall savings are substantial by not telling its customers. Does the Bank not have my contact information (mobile # and/or via an email blast - of course they do!) to let me know, in advance, the Bank is creating a new type of account wherein customers can enjoy a higher rate of interest? Would this not have been good customer service to earn the loyalty from its customers, who are the very bedrock of the Bank's future growth? Instead, the Bank throws me a $35 bone in lieu of what I could have earned on my $162,400+ . I'm planning to moving my money, as a result.
preferred savings, priority savings, high yield savings, and on and on and on. Its very scammy to keep changing the savings account name to the latest rate and then dropping the rates of the old accounts. I had a quarter million in my account and when they dropped the rate I drained it to zero and moved to another bank. They called me up and offered to change my account over to the highest rate if I moved my funds back. How about NO? F around and find out. And do I really want to wait 5 days for your ACH to process? That’s also scammy when every other bank processes in 1 day. And they want me to move my funds back before they change the rate. Buh bye!
Do not, do not, do not.
I opened a high yield savings account and I went ahead and scheduled initial external transfers from two of my other savings accounts to UFB.
The schedule date was pushed out 2 days (not counting non-biz days Sat and Sun) The next day i went and made another transfer and that scheduled date was pushed out for 1 day, again not counting Sat. and Sun. No one can tell me or give me a reasonable answer as to the reason why the following happened:
Thursday- Scheduled an external money transfer into my UFB account on Thursday morning. The schedule date to initiate the transfer was grayed out until the following Monday. I called in as to why and was told that it was because i had just opened my account and that tomorrow, Friday, i would be able to schedule same-day external transfers.
Okay, it made a bit of sense.
Friday morning - I go to schedule another external transfer from a different bank, everything is linked no problem. I went ahead and started my "money move" and again the "scheduled" date is grayed out until the following Monday.
I call in and this arrogant fella is ARGUING with me. Telling me that ACH transfers can taken up to 5 days to fund. Huh? I am asking about the schedule date to initiate my transfer automatically being pushed out two days on Thursday (if we include non-business days) to Monday and the transfer made on Friday morning being pushed out one day also to Monday...
Four different people gave me four different answers nine of which made sense. When I asked to speak to a supervisor this arrogant being placed me on hold initially for 10 minutes "scheduling" a supervisor call back. Came back on the line and told me that if I just understood what he explained.... blah blah blah. I was livid. My request was since I have gotten four different answers o want a supervisor to validate the correct one. He went back another 10 minutes cane back with more BS and finally supposedly scheduled a supervisor call back since I did receive a confirmation number.
I went back into my UFB account and deleted the two external transfers until someone can give me a straight answer to why If I go into the system to schedule an external transfer why it grays out the current day and pushes out the scheduled date 23 to 48 hours.... according to another report.
Be careful there is a lot of arrogant entitled customer service reps out there these days. My money well, give me courteous knowledgeable service.
Btw- as a curiosity after I cancelled the two external transfers I went in as if I was going to schedule another. The SChedule date this time pushed out two days. IF I SCHEDULE A TRANSFER FOR TODAY IT SHOULD INITIATE THE TRANSFER FOR TODAY. OR AM I NOT SEEING THINGS CLEAELY, NOT ONE OR TWO DAYS OUT.
ILL UPDATE THE REVIEW IF AND WHEN A SUPERVISOR DOES CALL.
I have to stop recommending this bank to my friends because of the extremely poor customer service each and every time.
Nothing is easy, half the time they tell me to submit a secure message and I will get an answer in 48-72 hours. Why is there a customer service number then? What do those phone reps actually do?
Everytime they change rates, you have to call and tell them to switch accounts. They don’t up the rates on the existing account, they have to move you into a new product type. Why do I have the feeling when rates drop, I will not have to call them. ??
If you don’t mind being aggravated at every turn. This bank might be for you. With the except of the rate, this bank is truly a hot mess to deal with.
Created Account, added an external account, but for some reason, I can't transfer funds from my external account to fund my new UFB account. Customer service is non-existent. I'll go elsewhere.....
Other than the rate change dance that you have to do to keep the most current rate, my experience has been positive so far. As others have noted, deposits take a full 5 days to be posted which means they get some free $ to use and that likely subsidizes the competitive rates they offer. Some banks automatically raise your rate, some don't. Once you realize that, you can monitor it closely to make sure you are at the top rate. Recently they dropped rates from 5.02% to 4.81% but my rate stayed at 5.02% until they raised it to 5.06% and now 5.25% with just a message sent to their CS folks. They responded within an hour and my rate should change within 2 business days. If you want a bank that is quicker at a lot of things, Get a Discover account. They offer a bonus, credit your account deposits quickly and start paying interest on the day the deposit is initiated from the sending institution. For example, I scheduled a transfer for August 16, 2023 and Discover acknowledge it on the same day. They will start paying interest as of today as well. Their withdrawals are also very quick. The downside is that they pay a bit less at 4.30% APY which is almost a full point below UFB Direct. This review will be updated as needed to address concerns or problems but as I said: so far, so good...
For the 2nd time in 5 months, they simply changed the name of their offering on their website while lowering the rate of my existing account. All of this was done without any notification so they assume no one checks closely and therefore will avoid paying the higher rate.
In the process of filing a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as this is clearly a deceptive practice. Go elsewhere and get away from these people.
Overall they provide competitive rates but you have to keep checking your account to make sure they don't change the rates on you. They will change the rate with no warning and you have to email them to get a better rate (the one advertised on their website). In the end they're providing a lower rate than they market because your rate keeps changing down (never up like Citi Bank for instance who adjusts their rate up or down and warn you) and it takes them a couple of days to update your account once you ask them for a higher rate. Also all my transfers take at least one week so my money is sitting in Lala land for a while earning no interest. If you add those two things you realize quickly that you're not effectively getting the rate they advertise you when you open the account.
I opened an account with little difficulty. Getting it funded took a week.
Pros: Among the highest yields available, Support by chat works well, decent App, *ATM Card* (ATM withdrawals only) Easy to read agreements.
Cons: Needs attention to obtain higher rates.
Rates went up twice and I used their online chat to ask and immediately receive the rate increase. I wish there was an easier way to find out when they raise rates.
I researched whether banks normally raise rates automatically. Some bigger players do, but many don't. Some require you to open a new account. ufb does it by request on the same account.
I couldn't find this advertised for banks I researched, much less at any bank offering >4.50% on free accounts with no minimum balance with an ATM Card.
I deposit by bank transfer. After a 2-day turnaround of the account verification deposit by my other banks; transferring money into UFB at first took 5 days but mine are now stabilized to about 2 business days.
I tested transferring money out which also took 2 days. I tested a deposit by mailed check which took 10 days. I did not test wire transfer since it costs $30 at my other financial institutions.
Never had any problems with internal or external transfers, missing funds or delays, but as many others have noted:
1) UFB will NEVER automatically increase your interest rate to match their latest offering.
2) UFB *will* decrease your current rate without warning.
They reportedly respond and adjust your rate quickly upon request, but I don't want to have to login every day just to check my (and their latest) rate. I'm tired of this childish game. I don't keep a lot of cash here, but moving it all out now
Was hung up by two different reps… I was just trying to verify my balance on my card…. They are the worst
I don't usually give reviews. However, I want you all to know that I truly thought my money was gone. I finally got it back after a week of fear and sadness. They kept sending me messages "your transfer has failed". I called and the rep said he did not have a record of the transfer attempt and to "just try again". Long story short, they finally sent it to me after I sent it to my 3rd linked bank account. I could never get it by initiating the transfer from my outside bank, I could get no answer as to "why" the attempts failed. I had to link from within UFB. I spent about a week thinking I may have lost my money. Pick another bank! They are really bad. I closed my account.
Do NOT give them your money. I don’t know how any of this is legal. They don’t let you withdraw your money—they STEAL.
Do yourself a favor and go somewhere else and don’t let the high rates fool you. Or find out find for yourself.
Being that I was a UFB customer I was alarmed at some of the bad reviews of this bank, especially those reviews which suggested it was difficult to withdraw funds. So this week I tested things by withdrawing 1K from my account, and this was completed within 2 days with no issues.
Many here have commented on the long time it takes for deposited funds to be secured in one's account. Yes, it really does take 5 working days, and this is true for all deposits I've made. So if you make a deposit to UFB, it will be cleared immediately after that 5th working day.
Opened my account with no problem. Used it successfully for a few months but now that I actually need my money, I don't have access to my money. They have canceled my transfers and won't let me schedule new transfers. Calls to customer service keep going overseas, they can't fix the problem but have to "forward the request" to their US customer service. Problem is, this process is taking forever.
You may be lucky and never have anything go wrong, but my advice is, stay away from this bank and don't keep any money you might need anytime soon. You may not be able to transfer your money out when you do need it.
Will be closing my account once this problem is sorted out. Hopefully it does not take another week, it's already taken one week with no solution.
They rejected my application for a savings account and will not tell me why. This is just insane, worked hard all my life and want to find a good interest rate for my nest egg. I guess nobody cares to take a moment to talk to their potential customer to tell them why they have been rejected.
I get it, I am not important enough for them to be bothered by me. I am moving on, sorry UFB, your loss.
I signed up for a high yield savings account a few months ago, as their advertised APY was very competitive, and they don't have a minimum balance for getting the aforementioned rate. Like many others, I was initially thrown by how it took upwards of around 10 days for my first ACH transfer of funds to clear and count as available in the account.
Thankfully, they DO allow Zelle transfers. I tested that out, and found that got funds into my account with 48 hours or so. MUCH better. So that makes things workable—the limits on Zelle could become an issue down the line, but for now, the bank is doing what I need it to do.
Earlier this week, I discovered that my account product ("Preferred Savings" is what I think it was, at 4.81%) had been retired, and UFB was now advertising a new product instead called "Priority Savings" giving 5.06% APY. My account remained unchanged, in both name and rate. I expected this to happen eventually, as I've seen complaints about this.
Thankfully, I'm glad to report that after a short phone call, they "upgraded" my account, without so much as a blink. This was pleasing.
Yes, it's a little bit annoying that they won't just raise the rates for all prior customers if/when they decide to up their advertised APY for new customers. And sure, I have no doubt that rates could be dropped at any point in the future (when the Fed starts reducing rates at some point). But the fact of the matter is that this IS a business they're running here. If you want it, call up and ask for it. That's that. Of course, if they EVER were to give me a hard time about the "upgrade," well ... away I will go. But in the meantime, this bank is doing what I expect it to do—no more, no less.
I applied for a 5.06% APY savings account two days ago. Immediately after applying I got an email saying the application is approved and a link prompting me to login. Attempting to login with my already created account (the account I created during the application process) resulted in UFB not being able to find my account. I used the chat method to chat with a real person. They said my account is active, but under maintenance hence why I couldn’t login. I waited until yesterday when I got home from work, and was able to login and see the account. Success! But not so fast- looking at the account details while logged in shows 0% APY. So I get on chat again. The support person says that my account actually has a 5.06% APY, and that the web UI will update to reflect this within 24-48 hours. Okay, this morning I wake up and attempt to login and see if the APY is fixed. Once again I cannot login. The system just returns random error messages when putting in my credentials. I use a password manager with the password and username saved so it’s definitely the right one. Luckily I haven’t given this incompetent company any of my money yet. I think I’ll dodge the bullet and just let the account close.
It’s been 10 business days and still my money hasn’t showed up. So far not so good. 100k just sitting somewhere, just not where it should be.
I thought a money market account is like a savings account, not a CD where the rate remains steady for a specified amount of time. Why are we required to call the bank everytime to get the new rate when it goes up? None of my other bank accounts do this. All other banks change the rate automatically up or down. This is very frustrating.
Every time that I flirt with the idea of transferring more money into this bank, I'm reminded to not bother. My initial deposit of 125K was floated for ten days from my credit union without paying a penny of interest.
Now been waiting two weeks for micro deposits to show up at an external bank. Was planning on transferring another six figures but that is not going to happen. Even my external bank, Sallie Mae had reservations about this bank. Received a call from their security department to arrange a three-way conference call with UFB Direct (Axos) and we landed in New Delhi or Bangalor talking to one of these morons who tried to turn three simple questions for verification into a 20 minute let's be friends conversation.
Here we go, again (posted 8/12/2023)
After only a few weeks
UFB Priority Savings and MMA = DEAD !
NEW offering
UFB High Yield Money Market
UFB High Yield Savings
Earn up to 5.25% APY
Either request your current account be upgraded
or open a new account
Deposited a check without a printed date, refused. Called Customer service, and they answered and told me about the mistake. Did it again a check for $10, and worked. I connected my bank and transferred $20, then transferred back $10, then deposited 25k. Now because of all the alert that I read here, I transfer back $10k. I'll report if I have issues, but so far so good.
EDIT: (2023-07-19) The $10k withdrawal worked as expected, and today I see my money on my other bank account. I guess it took about 3-6 days. That said, or it is me to be lucky, or all the other reviewer had wrong expectations. Comments?
Called them before funding and they answered within about 7 minutes. Sent wire yesterday and it is in my account this morning. Sorry so many seem to have a bad experience, but looks like most are just from impatience; hard to sort out the real problems from the complainers. People are so critical. I don't plan on drawing money soon so thought I should write now as to my experience. My best to each of you.
This company is criminal. While it was easy to set up an account, once they have your money, it's nearly impossible to get at it or transfer out. Transfer out transactions routinely get cancelled with no explanation why or no notification provided. Help Desk, if you can reach anyone and understand what they are saying, effectively has no idea what they are doing. Email requests are not responded to or not adequately answered after weeks. No connectivity with Quicken.
Extremely poor experience and major mistake on my part. If you see a good review, consider it a scam review.
They make it impossible to close an account. EVO is the most worthless chat just keeps saying that it can’t find my account. I’m logged in I ask for customer support but all I get is a machine. I call their 888 number which takes me to a foreign support hotline. I had a hard time understanding the lady on the phone but in the end even their phone support isn’t able to close my account. What do I have to do beside go in circles around their EVO chat and worthless phone support. I just want to be done with UFB.
I wish I would have seen this sooner. Please run from this bank!
A few months ago, I opened savings accounts with CIT Bank, Marcus, UFB Direct and Capital One. Most of these banks have lower reviews and I'm glad I did not rely on those reviews, especially UFB's very low rating on this site. First off, most of these online banks are regularly featured on sites that share with you the offerings of different banks. Do your own research and look at the bank stat or their parent organization's health. I made transfers for my initial deposits with all these banks and did not have any issues. I have done bi-weekly transfers with UFB and and it goes smoothly each time.
I'm not sure if I've just had the best of luck with the four accounts I opened with the four different banks but I just don't understand all the negative reviews. Some just silly like the transfer limits, transfer times, etc. Most info are available online and if not, ask before opening your account. Also, online banking does not mean faster banking. And if you want a live person and constant/immediate access to your money, go to a Chase branch and earn 0.1% on your money.
UFB Direct has competitive rates and I've had nothing but positive experiences with them. I've had to call a few times with questions and each time, the wait was not long and I was provided with great service. Hopefully, they are being proactive and have been addressing some of the valid consumer complaints. The great thing for consumers is that there's a large number of banks to choose from. As for me, I'm very satisfied with UFB Direct and will continue to grow my account with them.
I opened a savings acc with them back in January because of all the good press on financial blogs/websites. The thing is though, this is the Hotel California. I can add as much money as I want but I cannot move it out. For one, their high tech process does not allow me to simply enter another bank's routing and checking account number like other lowly banks. The system forces me to log into my external accounts to link them and move the money. Except it does not work. At all. I tried this with both my beloved local credit union and an online brokerage account. I got a wide variety of nonsensical error messages. I actually got really quick response via messages but talking to someone about it was the worse customer service experience I have ever had. I was told that I had to get authorization from the other institution, which is nonsense. Other institutions don't care where I want to move my money because it is my money. The second time I was hung up on with no callback. I did not call them back either. Finally, I asked this super convenient online bank to send me a debit card so I could withdraw money physically from an ATM. I can do that $300 at a time, so yay me. I am glad I realized how shoddy their operation is and stopped adding money before I got too much stuck there. My next step will be to close this account. Wish me luck.
I can't transfer money online through UFB Direct, and they have been horrible about actually taking any steps to resolve the issue. I would not choose this bank if I were you.
Oh, this "bank" is as crooked as a barrel of snakes. They want to limit you as to how much of your own money you can withdraw each month. Then when you tell them you want to close the account, suddenly they "No speakee Anglais." It was necessary to file a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a US federal agency. Boy! The Feds sure jerked a knot in their tail. In about 2 weeks after filing my complaint online (consumerfinance.gov) I had my money in hand. Hurray for the CFPB! I'll never complain of the federal bureaucracy again. Run from this UFB bank, don't walk. GET YOUR MONEY OUT WHILE YOU CAN!
Here's how they roll. You open an account with their highest rate. Then as rates increase (as is happening currently) the abandon your "product", and create new "products" with higher rates. If you aren't on top of it, you won't get their new higher rates. You have to call them, they have to "change" your accounts to the new product and then you'll get the better rate. That's IF the phones are working. I tried for days and their system was down. Then they refuse to backdate the rate and, shocker, there's no one else to talk to at the bank. And yes, they are VERY overseas. They are shady as hell. So I will be moving my money elsewhere.
I have been using online banks for about 8 years now. There is not one bank that is perfect. I have been with UFB direct for about 2 months and I have become quite fond of this bank. Every online bank will have little glitches now and then. At first I was very worried that I would not have access to my money but that has since proved to be wrong. I have made many withdrawals that, if made early in the morning, are posted as available funds to one of my external checking accounts the same day. I have recently tried out Savebetter but I don’t like the system, it’s just not for me. Today I initiated one of my other online banks to be linked up with UFB, and immediately received a text from UFB making sure it was me, I like that. Secure messaging at any online bank can take a day or two, sometimes more. Be patient, play by their rules and ask questions, they will answer you, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly but you will be answered. There is not one bank online or brick and mortar that does not have complaints. We are all nervous during these uncertain times. Oh and about their customer service phone calls, be patient and listen carefully ! I have not experienced any rudeness whatsoever with UFB like I have with other banks that I discontinued using.
I joined when the listed APY was 5.02% and according to my account details even though it's gone down to 4.81% for new accounts, I still have the old rate...? Which is nice I guess. Only real downside was after my initial account funding, it didn't get processed for 10 days or so which I felt was a little long. They've generally responded to my question within 2-3 days which, for the interest rate I'm getting, I'm happy with. No fees so far. They also integrate well with Mint.com too which I appreciate for tracking.
It's obvious that the primary reason ANYONE is coming to UFB is for the very attractive savings rates, but there are only so many hoops and dumpster fires customers are willing to endure before they just give up or find better solutions. Here's as gentle a summary as I could ever give on the overall first impression of this absolute clown show of a bank:
1. Horrible desktop site / app usability and user interface, UX.
2. Confusing messaging and lack of any semblance of human beings behind the company or legitimate thought over communications / expectations. I had to research twice as hard on if this company was even legit, the site and experience is less suffice than a lot of scammers.
3. Nonstop hoops to open an account and transfer funds, constant errors or issues that have no paper trail- some 'errors' with no explanation (very fun when dealing with your hard earned money)
4. Says 5 days transfer, but it was more like 8-9 *business days. Even if blaming my other bank there are plenty of options that are faster and still have a nice return.
5. Chatbot on their site leads to nonsense support articles, not live people. I shudder to imagine what calling these folks is like.
6. They are missing simple win-win opportunities to improve their site functions and set expectations accordingly- their dashboards and layout and integrations are horrendous.
7. I CANNOT believe this is a big time company, sharper banks with nice APY offerings will eat their lunch, no one wants to do business with clowns.
I intended to open a savings account, but instead, a money market account was opened. However, I was unable to log in as the system appeared to be stuck on a white screen. After all my information was accepted, I was asked to provide my ID again, creating an unnecessary loop.
Since I did not request a money market account, I asked for a savings account instead. However, the bank informed me that I would have to wait for two days for the request to be processed. When the account was finally created, I was asked to fund the money market account, which was confusing.
Every request had to be placed through the messaging system, which took 1-2 days to receive a response. The phone service was only available from 8am to 5pm. The Evo Chat appeared to be in training mode and had many logical errors.
To fund my account, I was required to provide login credentials from another bank. This meant that I had to share my access and data with another party, which was a major security concern. If I wanted to cancel the account, I had to place a request through the messaging system.
For now, waiting...
Online access (website) is down. According to the rep on the phone, the website is estimated to. be back up "before the end of the day"!
In my company, "if one of our mission critical system is down for more than an hour, heads are gonna roll!"
Perhaps to the bank, their online access webserver(s) is not mission critical???
I opened an account because of the high interest rate on savings. I had to link my chase checking account in order to transfer funds. They literally have access to my account and can see my balance. Money was removed from my chase account in 1 day, yet I still have to wait 7 "business" days or 11 days (including weekends) before my money is available and earning interest. So they get 1/3rd of a month to use your money for free before you start earning interest. THE longest pending/hold times of any bank savings account I have.
I gues I am still considered a new customer since I opened the account the 3rd of April, 2023. I had no problem opening the savings account or linking up my external banks. Yesterday, Monday, the 17th of April, I initiated a transfer of 2,000 dollars at 5:30 in the morning. Before 1:00 in the afternoon it was posted in my checking account as available funds, I was shocked after reading all the reviews. So for me, so far, so good. I do agree the customer service is terrible. Just type “Agent” in the chat bot box and a customer service rep will respond after waiting for awhile. The key to transferring to an external bank is do it first thing on Monday morning, early ! 3 stars for their customer service. My 2 cents.
Update: May 2, 2023. While trying to log into my account all I get is a Blank page. Called customer service at 4:am and she said they are having a meeting, whatever that means. She also said I am not the only one. Something is not right. Anyone else having this issue ?
Opened account and linked to all other banks went smooth. Unfortunately, if you don't transfer funds immediately, they close the account due to no funds, then you have to open another account and wait to link to external accounts. Frustrating just to get a little over 5% savings. Not worth the hassles.
Account opening, seamless.
Account funding, pushed funds to acct Friday, credited Tuesday.
Online banking platform, decent.
As far as the $25K withdrawal limit, you can always pull the money from the other FI insted of push it.
There is nothing here to keep you away from 5% liquid.
You can't transfer more than 25k at a time..In this era of valuing the ability to get your money ASAP, this is a huge deal breaker. Also took a week for my transfer to show up in my account..When able to get someone on the phone, I usually couldn't understand them as this key function is contracted out to somewhere in India I believe. All in all, after a 1 month trial run, I'm transferring my money back to Ally Bank where everything works as expected.
On Monday the 3rd of April I transferred funds into my UFB savings account which I had no problem at all opening. Today, the 7th of April the funds are posted and available. I have two external banks linked up which was also no problem. I am going to wait for about a week and see what happens if pull a small amount from UFB from one of my external accounts. I have been using on line banks now for about 5 years and so far nothing unusual has happened. One thing I agree with most of you on is the horrible customer service. I have experienced bad connections about 6 or 7 times then gave up. I have sent my question about the transfer limits through a secure message a few days ago and have still heard nothing back. Very bad communication and I told EVO, the bot, that it should experience love, LOL.
My interaction w UFB requesting TITLING of my Savings account as POD for maximizing FDIC Insurance.
------------------------------
-Sent to UFB the following:
FDIC:
Trust Relationship Must Exist in the Account Title
The required intention in paragraph (a) of this section that upon the owner's death the funds shall belong to one or more beneficiaries must be manifested in the “title” of the account using commonly accepted terms such as, but not limited to, “in trust for,” “as trustee for,” “payable-on-death to,” or any acronym therefor.
For purposes of this requirement, “title” includes the electronic deposit account records of the institution. (For example, the FDIC would recognize an account as a revocable trust account even if the title of the account signature card does not designate the account as a revocable trust account as long as the institution’s electronic deposit account records identify (through a code or otherwise) the account as a revocable trust account)
--Their Secure nessage response:
Per our phone call conversation your account already has your beneficiaries added, so there is no need to do anything else on it
Unfortunately, we do not change the name on accounts you can nickname your account to POD but we can't change the actual name of the savings account.
-----------------------------
So am I to assume that UFB has identified this account with a "code or otherwise" for POD purposes but not specifically stated in title?
The details matter if/when the music stops
Deceptive is the word to describe this bank: They scammed interest. They cut you from access to your money. Filed complaint with OCC against them - they fraudulently misrepresented facts.
What is up with all the bad reviews?!!! These bad reviews almost cost me this amazing interest rate with UFB Direct. Seriously what is everyone going on complaining about?!!!
I have a number of milestone and life changing events coming up in the next year and half, i.e. my wedding being the big one amongst others...so I was looking for somewhere to park my cash while earning an amazing savings rate to help me reach my short term savings goals. Here's where UFB Direct enters the picture....
I just wanted to take the time and write a really positive review about my experience with this new account. I must say I was very hesitant to open the Preferred Savings Account with UFB based on all the bad reviews…however I’m very happy I went with my gut and opened the account. It was very easy and it took all of less than 10 minutes. None of the issues that other ppl reported having at all....One thing I will mention is that at opening the account showed a 0.00% interest rate. I thought hmm, that's weird so I sent a message through the app and received a prompt reply letting me know that it would update in 24hrs and sure enough it did update to the advertised 5.02% rate. So far off to a good start. So much for these horror tales about never being able to reach anyone to answer any questions…… I had my external accounts easily linked as well. I am really confused over all these negative reviews if I’m being honest…To all of you out there complaining about how it took FOREVOR to fund your account and have the funds available, well, the bank is very clear about letting you know that the quickest and easiest way to fund your account is through a wire transfer…I had never done a wire before and it was quite a large amount to wire, a large amount for me anyway, so I wanted to verify with an actual real person at the bank that my funds would be available the same day…Well I called and was placed on hold for 6-7 minutes and I did talk to an actual person….they were helpful and answered all of my questions…so for those ppl claiming they were never able to get a hold of any real person to speak to, that the wait times were outrageous etc etc, i'm not sure what they're talking about but that was simply not my experience… I wired the money before the cut off time of 12pm PST and the money was available and in my account instantly. Also I find the mobile app to be perfectly adequate.
To summarize, if you are looking for a no frills bank really just somewhere to park your money to earn an excellent savings rate, much more than what others are offering, then I’m really not sure how you can go wrong here…everything was seamless, from account opening to funding the account. I would highly recommend UFB Direct. Don’t trust these bad reviews….go ahead and open your account you’ll be glad you did.
Date of experience: April 04, 2023
Wish I would've read these reviews before I opened the acct. There is supposed to be a 2-4 day wait between depositing funds and those funds actually showing up and collecting interest. Not true! I've waited as long as 11 days, losing out on that interest. Also have had to call customer service, both during the day and evening - calls are outsourced and the question is lost in translation. Cannot get a call back from a supervisor to save your life. The online message service is terrible. They give your inquiry a non-helpful, non-answer (after 2-3 days) and then mark the discussion as 'Complete'. I also set up an external acct, doing all the necessary steps they say to do. It was approved but when I tried to transfer money into UFB from that acct, they canceled the transfer WITHOUT NOTIFYING ME. NEVER DID GET TO SPEAK TO A SUPERVISOR ABOUT IT.
The online savings rate is high, but so not worth it. Look elsewhere. Citizens Access online is pretty good.
Opened an account, went to link with my other banks to fund it. UFB demands to know my LOGIN INFO from the OTHER bank, what the actual F! There is no way I am agreeing to anything from "Envestnet" or "Yodlee" which is the data brokerage UFB uses to pull info from your other banks. Those have been involved in data privacy breech lawsuit and supposedly their defense is "you agreed to this in our fine print".
Tried from my other bank which is the standard test deposit of a few cents to make sure the routing and acct# are correct. They are not showing up for three days already. Now waiting for these a$$#01e5 to bill me for monthly fee
As with any other online bank, I plan my exit strategy in case the funds are needed ASAP. UFB is stuck on the $2k daily / $5k monthly withdraw limits otherwise pay a $35 outgoing wire. This is outdated thinking as many banks are now well into the $100k+ even daily. We're going in a different direction.
Just maybe it's because they are overwhelmed with a lot of new money, given the rates.
This is day #4 since I've moved the money (ACH) into UFBdirect, and it's still not credited.
They did reply to my inquiry and said it will be in Tue. So that's 6 business days, I have not seen anything similar in any online bank I've used.
And I used a few chasing the rates :)
--------------------------------------------
So updating to 3 stars:
Rate is obviously great
I've made comments about slow transfer rates - they are slowest I've ever seen. They claim 3-5 days for money to show as available - it's not true, it's way way longer, can easily take 7-8, in my experience. However, they do start adding interest before money show as available (shows up as "earnings" )
So it's kinda ok, if you want to stash money away. Not good at all if you want to move your money out.
I find that if you send messages to support, these are universally quickly answered with very cheerful and quite unhelpful responses.
So, overall 3 stars for my use case.
Online sign-up allowed me to open a Trust Account Directly, they ask to upload related documents later.
Getting in touch with a person at this bank is IMPOSSIBLE. It's so frustrating. I've spent literally HOURS on hold, left messages and emails, and have YET to receive a reply. They offer a great interest rate, but with their TOTAL lack of anyone to talk with, it's not worth it. I'll take a lower rate and human beings who actually give a #@$%!!
I have spent over 8 hours so far, trying to get direct answers to direct questions. The barriers to getting help are significant. Once you *are* able to get a response, the response is inadequate or flat-out wrong.
Examples:
- I have a chat record with misrepresentations.
- I was told a few times that I would be receiving a call within a day from "a different department" who could answer my questions - no return calls ever received.
- I asked multiple times, for an explanation of interest amounts I was paid. I started asking on March 6; it's now March 23 and the anwers I've received tell me which online calculator I can use to figure interest, and that the interest I was paid is correct - not how or why the interest is correct. I already know how to use the calculators, and I know there are only 28 days in February: The results I get are different, *which is what generated my question to begin with.* (I have never had to question an earned interest amount from an accredited institution before!)
Finally, I figured out on my own that UFB had my funds for *three business days* before they credited my account with them, which must be the reason for the interest discrepancy. This is a bigger loss than just the loss of three days interest (which was a small chunk itself) when you figure in the compounding. This is a "fee" in disguise - deceitful.
I have confirmation from the originating banks about the transfer date, and a transfer I made to Schwab was credited by Schwab into my account *that day*. My UFB statements show the account as open and active the day before the transfer.
I expect that any reply from UFB - if they ever do reply - will start by thanking me for contacting them, apologizing for any inconvenience, supply some boilerplate doublespeak about policy or process about why they need 3 days to credit my account, and then thank me for my business. I guess the ROI on lousy and insulting customer service is more than any customer attrition.
P.S. If UFB trots out that bank transfers can take three days, you could justify that as an excuse for not allowing me access to the funds but not as an excuse to not pay interest on them. As CNET explains, "3 business days is just a legacy convention among banks. They don't rush to change it because they don't mind using your money for 3 days for free."
I recently opened a Preferred Savings account to keep my funds liquid. The chatbot said “…schedule transfers, send one-time ACH transfers, or schedule recurring payments. Moving money between your connected account in this way is always free at Axos Bank.” So I thought transfers to external bank accounts connected on the UFB app would be free and easy, just like my other accounts. I haven’t been able to reach a real person, and and it’s hard to get clear answers from their messaging system, but it seems outgoing transfers are capped at $2000 per day and $5000 per rolling 30-day period. Also, the limit on the ATM card is only $310.
Never did get my savings account application completed last year. Per an 11/21/22 email: "A Customer Service Representative will contact you within two business days to discuss the next steps for your account." No one ever contacted me.
After waiting 40 minutes (after calling 888-502-2967) yesterday, I finally got to speak with "Simone" in customer service, though I could hardly understand her because of her thick accent & the poor sound quality of HER phone (mine is a landline). I told her I got an error message, "Synchrony Bank doesn’t support moving money..." when I tried to link my Synchrony Savings Acct. with UFB Direct, although I have no problem moving money between my Synchrony and my other bank accounts. Simone said she had no suggestions, nor could she locate my new application confirmation number. I'm giving up on UFB Direct. Worst customer service ever.
By the way, the chatbot is useless, an insult and a joke all in one. Fortunately, I was able to ask the right questions when chatting with a real human. Anything more than $25,000 requires an ACH deposit that will cost about $40. Many transfers will add up. After many years of saving, if you accumulate a lot of money and want FDIC protection, you will need multiple accounts, each with a different beneficiary. If UFB lowers its interest rate and you want to move your money out of those accounts into other higher yield accounts, it will require a significant number of transfers which would take a very long time to complete; otherwise, you will be paying quite a bit on ACH transfer fees. That seems to be their strategy, take a long time to give you credit for the money you are earning interest on and also sock it to you on transfer fees. When all that is considered, the effective interest rate is significantly lower and you are at their mercy as they punish you for trying to move your money. There is a cost for freedom and I will choose it instead of being held hostage by UFB. Life is too short to deal with the long and frustrating process with them. A 4.35% interest rate with another entity such as My Savings Direct, for example, comes with much less headaches. You can move your money faster and avoid the ACH fees.
Just like almost every reviewer on this site, my application got declined after uploading my driver's license and utilities bill.
Here is what I was told via email: 'Thank you for your interest in banking with UFB Direct. Unfortunately, your application has been declined. The information you provided was either incomplete or could not be verified.'
I am well prepared for the hassle of making transfers and deposits. However, they do not even give me an opportunity to struggle further.
3/10/23 I received an email that UFB accepted and gave me an account. Meanwhile, my password is not recognized and tried for many days. I planned to transfer two bank accts. Try talking to their computer it doesn't understand what you say and keeps talking then goes silent. I waited it out a minute and still crickets. This happened every time I called and when I start to shout then it starts over again. I've sent emails and only got one reply saying when we have time someone will contact you. Since they have my bank and I said I wanted it transferred it wasn't official until I make a transfer form. So I sent the main office in San Diego a letter stating the above plus now I'm afraid to lock up many thousands in retirement money and never get back in if or when I need any. Phone calls, emails via USP and a form online, and chats all did not a thing. THE WORST
Have been with ufb for months. Most banks take days for the initial deposit to go through.When i transfer to an external bank it is there my the 2nd day. When I noticed rates went up due to a renamed savings account I called & my rate went up in 24 hrs. If you call between 9-5 you can speak directly with a banker who speaks perfect English!
Interesting to see all of the negative reviews here. I have opened three accounts with them in the course of the last 2-3 months. I didn't have any issues opening the trust accounts and was able to use their secure web portal to upload documents instead of email (one person suggested email was the only method).
I did have to call customer service once as there was a web outage, but they informed me they were aware and should be resolved soon (which it was).
My only gripe is the same as what a few others have mentioned: transfers take longer than most other institutions.
I opened a UFB Preferred Savings account for what was advertised as a 4.55% APY.
After my application was accepted, I created my online account. I noticed that the APY for my account was listed as 0%. I wasn't sure if that was an error, if I had to fund the account, or if there was some bait and switch going on.
I called the lone phone # listed on the site under "Contact:" 877-472-9200. The only option given was to press 1 to speak to a rep about a $100 WalMart voucher. I was connected to a rep and I asked if they could help clear up my issue.
The rep said they couldn't help me but they could connect me to a Customer Service rep who could. They then asked if they could have my mailing address so they could mail me my $100 WalMart voucher. I said no to that and the rep hung up on me.
I called back at the same 877-472-9200, told the rep that I wasn't interested in the WalMart voucher and could they help me with my APY issue. He said he couldn't but I could call 800-555-1212. I laughed and told him that wasn't a legit phone # and he said to me "Well, you can look it up yourself" and hung up on me!
I will not be funding the UFB Preferred Savings account and will never deal with UFB again.
yo!
thank you everyone for convincing me not to go for the highest rate out there.
and what's up with that .02 in 5.02%? is it so the bank can say "MORE THAN 5%"?
anyway, before reading your reviews, I called the bank just to verify the rate and get answers to a few questions that were not readily available on their website.
I did other stuff while their phone rang for 30, yes 30 minutes .
finally I got to speak to "rakka" .
I asked him a simple question and he asked me for the last 4 of my social security.
say what? why you need that info just to answer a question? I don't have an account there, so what's up with that?
I politely told him I'm not giving out sensitive data.
he said it was company policy.
I asked to speak to a supervisor or manager.
"oh no, we can't do that."
so guess what he said next? he wanted to know my birthdate, my address, and my mother's maiden name!!!!!
when I gave him fake info, especially when I gave him '123 main street' and then hesitated to think of a good name and came up with "smith", that's when he put me on hold, permanent hold. and how rude, not saying "by your leave"; after all, they were "british" 'till 1947, but they sure haven't changed their accents, I had to ask rakka to repeat himself, way too frequently for me.
so guess what? I ain't putting' no money in this place, they can take their 5.02% and shove it.
as many of you said: "is it really worth the hassle, the lost time, the frustration, to get the highest rate out there? hell no.
on another note , at least I don't have any money at silicon valley or signature banks. 'tho like many of us retail customers, I've personally experienced the failure of more than one bank, and I have every confidence in fdic. notice however how nervous they must be 'cos they're offering full coverage of all deposits, especially the many corporate depositors with way more than $250K. and speaking of which, isn't it just nuts that the limit of $250K has stayed the same while everything else has gone up, and I don't mean just recently.
anyway, to repeat myself and conclude, thank you y'all for steering me away from UFB .
cheers mates, be safe, dress warm, don't eat the yellow snow.
I found UFB through Bankrate which offered one of the highest rates available for savings. The bank had many good reviews on various sites.
Too bad I didn't find this site sooner, I went to open the account and the application was placed on hold due to incomplete information even though I answered all the questions. They asked me for two more forms of identification and then rejected the application because they could not verify my identity.
After calling and waiting on hold for 30 mins on two different occasions, I got a foreign call center and was informed I would have to start the process over with a new user id due to the rejection. She explained they needed a third piece of identification, so they closed and rejected the application even though the site never asked for the third item. I requested they reopen the application, and they said it was not possible. Based on the reviews here it looks like they did me a favor too bad they have all my information.
Extremely poor customer service. Took multiple tries to get someone on the phone. Chat was totally useless. You would think a bank would make it easy to move a large amount of money to them, but not these guys. Crippling restrictions on incoming and outgoing transfers make this not a useful bank account at all. Was sucked in by the paid site reviews and high savings rate. LOOK ELSEWHERE!
North American Savings Bank is 4.30% APR - 4.39% APY with no games on rate changes. I recently opened an account in February at Primis with 4.92% APR - 5.03% APY and they kept that rate for those who opened their savings accounts before their rate went to 4.35$ APY. I really like Primis because they give details on your transfers and I even opened a checking account because it pays 4.35% APY. Think about how much it costs you when the rate is not automatically increased. Then think about how much interest you lose when transfers are slow. My calculations show UFB costs their customers on deposits, debits, and rate increases. Check it out.
It appears they will allow funding up to 100k and then withdraw is limited to 5k a day for 30 days. Thereafter you must request in writing new limits.
WARNING: DO NOT DEPOSIT MONEY IN A UFB SAVINGS ACCOUNT
in September 2022, I used the ‘bankrate.com’ website to search for a high-yield savings account. UFB Direct ‘Rewards Savings’ variable rate account was listed with a 2.61% APY. This was a competitive rate at the time, so, I opened an account on the UFB Direct website.
My September through December 2022 monthly statements indicated that I received a 2.61% APY on my savings for each of those months … the APY was ‘fixed’, not ‘varaible’. I became suspicious that something wasn’t right with the UFB Direct ‘Rewards Savings’ account because my September through December 2022 monthly statements indicated that I received a 2.61% APY on my savings for each of those months … the APY was ‘fixed’, not ‘variable’, and the APY on other banks’ high-yield variable rate savings accounts had risen to between 3.00% and 4.00% by December 2022.
Finally, when I received my January 2023 monthly statement indicating that I again received a 2.61% APY on my UFB Direct ‘Rewards Savings’ account, I stumbled upon an article on the ‘https://apyguy.com’ website which indicated that UFB Direct launched their high-yield ‘Rewards Savings’ account in August 2022, but changed its name to ‘Elite Savings’ shortly after launching. Furthermore, their ‘Elite Savings’ account earned 3.83% in November 2022, 4.11% in December 2022 and 4.21% in January 2023.
UFB DIRECT NEVER SENT A LETTER TO THEIR CUSTOMER BASE INFORMING THEM OF THE NAME CHANGE FROM ‘REWARDS SAVINGS’ TO ‘ELITE SAVINGS’ AND ANY RAMIFICATIONS THAT THE NAME CHANGE ENTAILED.
After I received my January 2023 monthly statement and I read the ‘https://apyguy.com’ website article, I contacted the UFB Direct customer support desk (Ms. Krismoo?) to: (1) determine why my monthy statements still used the name ‘Rewards Savings’ instead of ‘Elite Savings’ and (2) request the unpaid interest earned on my ‘Rewards (a.k.a. Elite) Savings’ account for October 2022 through January 2023.
UFB DIRECT CUSTOMER SUPPORT (Ms. Krismoo?) DISMISSED MY REQUESTS AND REFUSED TO CONNECT ME WITH A MANAGER.
After my frustrating experience with UFB Direct Customer Support, I closed my account.
WARNING: SOMETIME BETWEEN JANUARY AND FEBRUARY OF 2023, UFB DIRECT CHANGED THE NAME OF THEIR ‘ELITE SAVINGS’ TO ‘BEST SAVINGS’.
Listen to everyone below. Avoid UFB Direct. Do NOT be tempted by its very slightly higher rates and save yourself the emotional damage from dealing with this bank with shady business practices.
6-7 day transfer time _after_ the other bank recorded the transaction (no interest earned in the meantime).
Your account does not automatically earn the interest they advertise unless you vigilantly check the actual rate on your account and ask their mostly non-existing customer service (and while you are waiting, your money is earning a lower interest rate).
I lost about 0.30% in interest between these 2 shady practices before I cut my losses and move all my money out. You can find much better and reputable banks offering higher interest than what UFB offers minus their shady tactics would cost you.
Also inbound transfer is limited to $50000 per month. In retrospect this is a blessing - limited my losses with them.
I have accounts with other banks and funds show up within 2 days at the most. I transferred out of savings 2/8 and UFB says pending until 2/14! I would NOT recommend this as 6 days without getting even the lousy interest from my local bank. Funds floating for 6 days... someone is getting the benefit, but certainly NOT me.
I tried to open 2 separate accounts on January12th. One for me and one for my wife. I succeeded with both initially but my wife's account would not let her make any deposits. I spent over 3 weeks on the phone with them and they gaveing every reason as to why there was a problem and promising it would be fine in a few days which turned to weeks. She must of robbed a bank back in the 90s. They never explained as to why they would not allow her to make a deposit even though she has a credit rating of 820
I finally sent them a message on the portal and within 2 hours her account was terminated with the banking information at home still intact. I am pulling my money out within 3 weeks as they don't allow more than 20k per month. You should read the fine print that discloses they can change
anything they want at any time.
I opened 2 accounts within 24 hours at "BMO" or currently BMO- Harris at a good 4.20 % and very good service on the phone from the USA.
Setting up a new savings account online was very frustrating. I was not able to complete the process online so I had to work with a customer service agent to provide all the personal information they required. After this ordeal I received emails requesting more information that I could not enter online. After contacting customer service they could not access my pending application because of technical problems. I had to call customer service again and after further delays I decided to open an account at another bank.
Pros:
Good saving/MM rates, currently 4.23
Cons:
Very long ACH transfers, can take 5 business days
Takes over a week for someone to respond to a message
The web site is terrible, I am currently unable to transfer money in or out of my savings or MM accounts because my external bank does not show up on my account. The account claims the bank is linked and I tried several time to link again, I contacted CS and they said to email them the issue...I emailed them 3x over 6 business days and NO RESPONSE, I will be filing a formal complaint with the State Banking Commission and closing both accounts, the 4.23 rate isn't worth the aggravation. There are many other banks paying high rates
I attempted to open a savings account here three weeks ago. I completed the application online. I was then asked for a certification of my living trust which I paid a notary $25 to notarize. I uploaded the document as requested along with a copy of my Driver's License.
I got an email to log into the site. I was told the application was "under review" and I would hear back in 48 hours.
I then got another email telling me that I needed to log on as additional documents were required. I logged in but all it said was that the application was under review and I would hear something in 48 hours. I called the customer service number and a woman with either an Indian or Pakistani accent answered. She put me on hold for some time and told me everything was in order, I just needed to give them more time.
Two days later another email came saying the same thing. I logged on again, and it was the same information as before. I called customer service again and another woman answered with a similar accent. She told me I needed to send them my driver's license (again), a copy of a utility bill, and my social security card. I asked her how to securely upload it to the bank. She said there is no way to do that, I had to email it. I told her I would not put that information into an unsecured email, it was fodder for a scam. She told me that was the only way to do this. I asked for a supervisor. I was told someone would have to call me back. Of course, no one ever did.
Today I received the same email again. I figured I would give it one last try. I logged in to the same message. This time I tried the chat function. I asked how I upload the documents securely. I was told the only way to submit was via email. I said that was not secure and I wouldn't do it. The agent told me that "email is encrypted end-to-end" and gave me an email address. I informed him that it was not. I am not proceeding further.
I was considering opening an account with UFB Direct, but I decided to check some reviews first - so glad I did.
Having read from other reviewers that there were problems in the areas of customer service and slow electronic transfers, I telephoned UFB Direct's customer service department so see how accurate these reviews were. They were spot-on.
The customer service rep was rude and unhelpful, and had such a thick accent I could barely understand him. I was forced to repeat myself over and over again, and to ask the same of him.
I was told that electronic transfers could take up to 7 days (3 - 5 business days, which is simply another way of saying 7 days). I was told that customer support could take as long as 2 days to respond to problems, and that I would have to maintain a bank account with a local bank in order to facilitate transfers to and from UFB Direct.
After about 20 minutes on the phone with UFB Direct I realized this bank would be an absolute nightmare to deal with if I ever had a problem, and given the quality of their customer service, I think problems would be unavoidable. This is not the bank for me.
A huge THANK YOU to all the people who took the time to leave candid reviews - you've saved me a world of pain.
I sure wish I had read these reviews before opening my account with UFB Direct.
I only deposited $5,000 but they say it takes a week to credit my account, even though the money has already been removed from the sending account.
Once I realized that these people were basically "stealing" my interest, I immediately went over to American Express, opened a high-yield savings, linked my bank, and then funded it -- all in MINUTES! Unlike these jackasses, my money was credited immediately!
A couple of weeks ago, I was in the same place many folks are with UFB Direct. Afraid I had been scammed. I wanted to post my experience to reassure those who may be concerned you wasn’t see your money again. You will—it just may take a while.
I was lured in by the high interest rate and deposited $20,000. It took almost 10 days for my funds to become accessible. If you read the fine print, they say they will delay the accessibility of the initial deposit for at least 7 business days. After reading that on the fifth day, I decided to be patient and not try to push the customer service (I read about how bad it is). Sure enough my money finally showed up.
In the meantime, I had set up an online account with a different institution. I also read the terms and conditions and checked all the boxes, especially submitting my signature card. Once my funds became available, I first made a $7,500 transfer to see if they would make me jump through a bunch of hoops. It went through (after 3 days). I then waited a couple more days and transferred the balance. Again, not problem after 3 days. Relieved to have my money.
Be aware there is a $15,000 transfer limit and you can only make 6 withdrawals per month.
Not a scam, but stay away.
I was the sole beneficiary of an account at UFB, after the account holder passed away. After several calls and emails, it took them 7 days to reply back to me to confirm that they have received my emailed documents and that they require more documents to be mailed in. Other financial institutions that I was the beneficiary of, have contacted me at least within 2 days with instructions. this review should be for Axos bank since they are the main bank for UFB
I hope this can help someone else from making the same mistake I did!!!
I can't believe this company is rated so high n a lot of sites. They have the worst interface. It makes no sense and is contently getting errors.
My initial funding was an electronic transfer that took 9 days for them to receive. It never showed up as a "Scheduled Transfer" in their system, so I had no idea it actually went through until 9 days later.
Customer service is NON existent. Took them 8 days to answer my message, just to tell me that they have a problem and are working on it.
STAY FAR AWAY from this savings account!!
My opening account was the "Elite" savings account. I funded the account with the impression the rate was the 4%. Come to find out the 4% is with the "Best" savings account. I opened a new "Best" account so I could transfer the funds for the higher rate. I received the email stating my new account was approved click to log in. So I click to log in and it only shows my "Elite" account. Long story short, I ended up opening 2 "Best" accounts because nowhere did I read it can take up to 24hrs for a new account to show on the app dashboard. I still can't believe the virtual assistant answered my question. I'm holding my money with UFB only because the money is already there and from what I've read it can be a pain to transfer funds out plus I think there may be a transfer charge of 35$. When I do leave I will be calling to close the account so I can get a paper check in the mail. I never received my debit card either for the "Elite" account. I can confirm long transfer times when funding an account. The funds disappear the next day from my other bank but then are lost in limbo in some other dimension for 7 days. Nothing shows as "pending" in a USB account. You only know your originating account shows the funds are gone and you have only received an email from USB confirming an initiated transfer. Scary when both accounts show the money doesn't exist. You just have to embrace the suck and have blind faith that the amount will magically appear in your account somewhere between 1 to 2 weeks after you initiated the transfer. No. You do not collect interest when funds are lost in space.
Was fooled by the "high" rate online. The web site and app are less than adequate. More importantly, they pulled money from my other account and took a week to post it. It was withdrawn from the other account the next day, but they held it (without paying interest for six more days. Probably illegal and should be reported to the banking authorities. In addition, once a transfer is requested, it disappears from the app until it is posted. It should show the next day and start paying interest and should show as uncollected until the 7 days are up. Sent a message 5 days ago with a couple of questions and still have not had a response. Trying to call or use the chat is futile!
Transferring back to Goldman/Marcus. They are a little slow to increase their rates, but are more than adequate and the service is very good. I learned my lesson!!!!
Customer service rep from the Middle East tried to charge me $4.95 for an account inquiry, even though I reached out a couple weeks prior, and there was no fee then. The thief wanted my credit card details over the phone. I tried multiple times to deposit money into my account to only see $1 transferred in, and that took about a week to see after my other bank account showed a withdrawal.... and they didn't increase my savings account rate up from 3.91% APY to 4.11% APY despite the advertisement for it on the front of their site.
UFB tries to be a rate leader.
But if you already have their savings account you will be ignored after sending secure messages to initiate a conversion. Accordingly, after a 3 week wait, I reduced my balance from $1000’s earning 4.21% to less than $100. DO NOT SEND FUNDS until you see they have actually upgraded the account.
Very difficult process opening account, was required to call to complete opening. Offshore call center, first agent could not even communicate. Hung up and called back and was not much better. Long wait times calling. They have online chat but then they just tell you that you must call. I eventually asked them withdraw my application. Ridiculous.
Setting up the account was very easy online, The App is basic and easy functionality. Only thing is it takes a little longer than some other banks for transfers to go through (4-5 days). They say it’s due to following operating rules, set forth by the national automated clearinghouse association. This is not an issue if you don’t need the money immediately. I’m enticed by the high-yield interest rate and will keep money in here long-term as long as their rates stay competitive.
I can concur with other's complaints about the excessively LONG transfer times imposed by this bank! 4-5 business days is considered acceptable to the UFB Direct staff, despite the fact that they don't waste any time removing the funds from the funding account! Usually within 24 hours or less, and then make you wait for what seems like an eternity for those funds to finally post to your UFB Direct account! When you factor in weekends, you are usually looking at an entire week or more for a new deposit to actually post!
Their website is also kind of clunky and doesn't even provide you with an EFT progress tab for tracking your transfers. Once the transfer executes, all evidence of it vanishes from the website, and will not return until AFTER the transfer has completed and the funds are sitting in your UFB account. Basically providing you with a "DUH" piece of info you don't care about any longer. You will get an email confirming the transfer, complete with that ridiculously LONG completion estimate date, but that is the only record of the transfer you will have during the entire process.
For this reason, I will be moving all of my cash from UFB over to my new Customers Bank account. I will gladly take the 1-2 day transfer times CB offers compared to what I have had to put up with at UFB.
Plus... Customers Bank is offering a 4.05% APY as compared to the 3.91% APY from UFB.
After opening up the account, tried to link external account for money transfer. Even after providing correct credentials (verified multiple times), screen kept saying "encryption of credentials required". As IT guy, what that tells me is that external bank which I am trying to link has security requirements to connect over a secure link. But UFB app is trying to send my credentials over open link. Now comes the scary part. I have been receiving unsuccessful login attempt emails from the external bank which I was trying to link UFB account with. Then I read up online about online banking fraud and first red flag is internal employees selling customer data. This bank really raises suspicion where I think an internal employee(s) is looking at application log which possibly is printing login information while external bank link process is failing. Please read this last line again carefully.
If you are suspecting same/similar behavior, please report this bank to FDIC right awat at 1-800-964-3342 / 1-800-964-FDIC.
Bottom line, keep an eye on login attempts to your external bank account, if you have tried to link that in UFB Direct app. THIS BANK REEKS.
You've been warned. I wish I'd listened to all the bad reviews.
This is the worst online entity I've ever experienced! Its a scam! Horrific!
Wait time to speak to someone WAY TOO long (15-20 min) for 24/7 service. Have the people don't speak native English Is the call center in Bangladesh?
First they lied to me about able to deposit money to my acct at the single ATM in my area (I live on an island in Hawaii). Cannot do. Then when finally get an ATM card (they didn't offer to send to me) I found cannot access my savings account on ATM, only checking which I don't have.
ACH transfers are very confusing on phone or PC interface. While doing a transfer IN, taking 9 days, they CLOSED my account for no reason!!! Phone support person wouldn't help me, had no idea what is going on. "I'll write you a support ticket and get bac to you." No one ever did! HORRIBLE support! My account mysteriously reopened a few days later, WTF??? This is no place to put your money!
I couldn't withdraw the money I earlier transferred (ATM doesn't work with Savings). But I managed to do a transfer of all my funds back to my home bank, It actually arrived, now I'm going to CLOSE this junk bank and reopen with Capital One 360. Just slightly less APR (3.00%) but its a top notch legit online bank. uFB Direct (or AXOS) is total junk and should be put out of business. What a scam!!!
Ability to speak with someone is impossible. ability to understand them is worse. phone connection was terrible.
Transferring funds was next to impossible and they incorrectly pulled a large transfer from my checking.
Customer service is horrible.
Direct verbal communication is almost non available and when it is the person is rude and not caring about you. Limits on withdrawals are excessive and access to your account is severely limited! DO NOT RECOMMEND THEM REGARDLESS OF THEIR HIGHER INTEREST RATES!!
Spoken with UFB's reps in India a no. of times. Each time they have a hard time understanding English or spelling your name correctly. It sounds like a boiler room with all the background noise there. Their reps normally have no basic info to help, or worse give incorrect info on transfer limit increases that aren't implemented. When attempting an incoming wire transfer, the UFB rep I was switched to didn't even know the UFB routing no. Dealing with these people is really frustrating and time consuming.
I have been a UFB Direct account holder for many months and have linked several external accounts and made many transfers to/from UFB Direct. After linking and verifying trial deposits with two relatively new external accounts from Upgrade & Wealthfront, UFB Direct/Axos Bank requested additional verification by means of account statements from the external banks. Since the accounts are new, I do not have account statements and won’t have them until early next month. Meantime, UFB Direct restricted my ability to transfer funds to/from ALL previously-linked and verified accounts, not just the new ones. After sending various messages via the Secure Message portal with no response, I called customer service. They take no responsibility, claim the issue is with Axos Bank, were unable to transfer me to Axos Bank for technical support, and told me the only course of action is to wait 2-3 business days (after waiting 3 business days for support via Secure Message) for a response from Axos Bank. Meantime UFB Direct is holding my funds hostage. Totally unacceptable.
The rate in our "Savings Account" did not match their advertised rate. When I called they said I had to switch to their "Rewards Savings Account", which I did two months ago.
Just checked my account again and to find even though I had a Rewards Savings Account" I still was NOT getting their advertised rate.
Now they tell me, they have to redo the account again. They said it must be a system error. I asked if it was a system error, why is my account now name their "Rewards Savings Account", but posting the incorrect lower interest rate again?
I asked if the interest lost for the last two months with the incorrect rate will be recalculated to reflect the proper posting? They stated that their system doe not allow that.
I told them that was unacceptable and wanted to talk to a supervisor, which of course was not available. I asked for a supervisor to please call me, Again, no call back.
I am pulling all of my money out of this institution today.
READ ALL THE REVIEWS POSTED HERE, You will see this is a COMMON ISSUE time and time again.
If you want to deal with incompetent and indifferent people with your money, this is your bank.
I tried and did open a UFB Savings account last week and it has been nothing but issues from day one.
Issues:
1) The interest rate advertised was 3.11% but when I opened the account it was 0.00% so I had to complain and after a couple of days it showed up on the account as 3.11% ok.
2) Every time I logged in via PC web browser or mobile phone app, there would be an error, 'Something went wrong' message. I tried both Edge browser, Chrome and Apple Mobile app, it didn't matter.
3) To link an external account by routing number and savings account that wasn't straightforward nor easy, until they updated the web page to allow it, another request (that came from AXOS directly and wasn't the UFB Bank front end webpage - interesting, isn't it?)
4) After successfully linking my home savings account, I then wasn't able to transfer money because the Dropdowns for 'From Account xxx' to 'To account' would not work and no account would be listed under those dropdowns.
5) When I logged in there were always two of the same account names and numbers listed.
Something is terribly wrong with UFB Bank and the bugginess of the code is scary, I won't be putting a dime in there - expecting them to be hacked because clearly their code has bugs. Now I am very concerned because they have all my personal information. Suffice it to say, I have requested UFB to close the account after only one week of total frustration.
I, apparently like many others here, was lured by the high interest rate. Like everything else in life...if something looks too good to be true, most likely it is TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE! Initial account setup ws easy. Depositing funds was ANYTHING BUT easy. After multiple attempts to deposit funds ($40K initially) I tried calling them. After being given the runaround by "EVO" and never getting to a real person, the red flags began to surface in my mind. I turned to these reviews, and consider myself fortunate that I never managed to deposit even a cent!! I usually do much more thorough due diligence UP FRONT before entering into ANY business relationship...especially one involving finance. Lesson learned...I suggest avoiding UFB like the plague!
I transferred 125K from my credit union which took a staggering eight days to arrive, not the best start. Funds disappeared from CU with no indication where they went. No "pending" notification from UFBDirect.
The only support options are their virtual assistant (EVO) or an excruciatingly loud call center in India staffed by12-year-olds you can't hear or understand, probably in their third week of ESL (English as a second language) courses.
If that wasn't enough, account details from other banking institutions are somehow displayed so that "you can stay aware of your activities everywhere". There are no choices for opting out of this "benefit".
My stay here will not be long and more funds will likely be put in a coffee can rather than here.
I got excited at first cause I saw they currently have a 3.11% APY... So I registered and created an acct with UFB Direct through their website..
Then I get a Congrats email from them saying I may now login to their site and have money transferred into their acct. When I went to login it says "not a valid username/password" ... so I tried again.. and again... still the same problem...
Called their 800 toll free number and tried to just cancel the acct... An automated machine comes on and says I'll need to login to acct in order to do so... WTF! How can I then if I can't even log in in the first place!?!
Adding my own bad experience to all the other 1-star reviews here due to repeated delays, runaround, and outright fails in completing setup process, but with something else to consider: Like myself, everyone seems at first to be impressed by the smooth online tech presence, ease of navigation etc. BUT all the fails start happening with "requests for addt'l info" and "awaiting verification" after some personal info, drivers license pic, and other stuff already uploaded. What happened to the smooth tech interactions? All may be a scam (or hackers obstructing an otherwise legit site) to get private info. My DL # could be for sale on the dark web, or in some enemy country database right now
I opened an online account and was told that someone will connect with me in 2 days, no one contacted me for over 2 weeks. I waited for about 40 minutes on the virtual chat just to be told that nothing was done and the account was still pending.
I asked to close the account and will never try to open it again.
I was impressed by the clean and easy to use website and app. I was excited about the mobile upload option into a high yield account. It's been 9 days and I still don't have my funds showing in my account. When I contacted customer service, I spoke to their chat robot, which told me a new account takes 7 days for deposits. I've been waiting for an hour to chat with a Vaibhav to find my funds, and so far this individual is not helpful AT ALL. This is, by far, the worse bank experience I've had.
I really wish I would have read these reviews before opening an online 3% APY deposit account. Today I received the email saying the funding had gone through. I tried logging on to my account to verify it is there. It said I had the wrong Username/password combo. I use a password manager to log into my accounts and I know that I used the correct info. I tried 3-4 times, got locked out. Have to either wait 24 hrs for it to be unlocked or contact customer service. I called 5 times. Left 3 voice mails. They don't answer. I downloaded the app but can't log in due to being locked out. There is no way for me to send them a secure email being locked out. I am going to close my account as soon as I can get back into it. This is horrible customer service. DO NOT USE THEM.
Although they advertise a high interest rate, they hold your transferred funds for about a week, or at least they did with me. And on both occasions, so it wasn't an aberration. During this week, I received no interest on my deposits. I would guess they do this on funds being transferred out, too.
Their customer service also sucks. Unless you are bilingual in Hindi.
I was so uncomfortable with these guys that I decided to try and close my account. As you might guess, I have been unable to withdraw my own funds. They say you have a limit on how much you can withdraw - funny about that seeing that it's your moey, not theirs - but even when I am under the limit, I still get the same nonsense message.
Customer service has been no help either. Located somewhere between Mumbai and Calcutta, they assure me that the only way for my problem to be resolved is to send message over the web site.
Do yourself a favor and stay far away from these guys
What a joke, they suspended my account for no
reason and cancelled a 3,000.00 deposit. I made the mistake of making four deposits within a week totaling 3800.00. I quickly cancelled my account.
Beware the reviews are true. Customer service sucks.
Worst customer support. They have no idea of their own products. Not even the difference between interest and APY rates. All the emails are responded by someone in India the next day or few days later and very often you won’t get any response for your emails. You need to write back and forth to get the response. Very very annoying. You need to wait on average around 15 mins on normal day to talk to an agent. If you ask for supervisor, she will just want tocut the call and asked me to call again (seriously!!! Who wants to wait another 15 - 20 mins to wait for someone to talk and waste another 10 - 20 mins to explain the context) Poor support and worst experience. I had very annoying and worst customer experience with a customer named Victoria. I have to say everything twice or thrice to her. The system asks to enter the dob, ssn and zip code, but I have to say that again to the agent. Ridiculous!!! What a wonderful, time saving system it is!!!!??Response to Axos(UFB direct) customer support:- I have already asked to close the account. I have some incoming pending funds, once that is settled and I have moved that out of UFB (irrespective of 2.61% APY. To me smooth hassle less transactions (as these banks don't have any physical locations, all online services should be smooth enough) and good customer relations are more important than whooping high interest rate. Same thing with other bank like Varo (worst customer experience)).
Improve your app also, very very slow loading time (especially login experience) and sometimes inconsistent data rendering.??I want to close out the account and get out of Axos(UFB direct) family ASAP.
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I had very bad experience and hence decided to close the account within two weeks. But even for closing the account, the bank is causing lot of troubles and nuisance and it is very annoying. Even any small bank, when asked to cancel the account, they just cancel and send any future interests as a check to the mailing address. But, here the my account has zero balance and it accrued few dollars interest and which has not been yet credited ( as the month is not over), but the customer support representative asked to transfer that to other account. I think she is a moron and asking me to transfer that to another account. How come one can transfer a future interest now? ??Hey Axos(UFB direct) bank, why are you always annoying customers, even when we want to get out of you? Very pathetic and worst bank and customer relations.
As of today, it has been more than 4 working days after I asked to close my account and my account is till open.
Update:- Still proving how cheap and literally zero customer care. They said, they are going to charge $10 to send a cheque of $5 (interest accrued) to close my account. Very Very pathetic and cheap. I have opened many banks, no banks in my experience asked for any charge, even they need to send a cheque for few cents. I already said them, I don't need any interest and keep that to improve your customer support (at least provide good customer support to other customers).
Run away! I wanted to park $100,000 at their bank due to their higher APY rates. I had 2 questions so I chatted with their online rep. I asked a couple questions and their response? Generic templates that do not answer the questions. Yes, it was a live person by the name Akhlakh.
My Two Questions Were:
How long has your bank offered the 2.61% APY savings? What was your last rate APY and when?
Their response?
Earn up to 0.61% APY*
Free ATM card upon request
Suite of digital money management tools
No maintenance fees
No monthly minimum balance requirements
$250 minimum balance to open an account
Akhlakh should not be working anywhere that works with the public. Run FAR AWAY! better to get a slightly lower rate, keep your money safe, but not have to deal with these people or this bank.
The website is very functional and the rates are very competitive, but the customer service leaves much to be desired.
UFB's application process is seriously flawed. Zero transparency, painfully slow feedback, no ability to get a voice on the phone able to do anything other than read a script, but unable to explain that script. Periodically high rates are interesting, but compared to Brio or Marcus or Ally or LendingTree, best to simply move on.
In my quest for better rates have been trying to open a new MMKT account and have submitted 3 or 4x's documents as requested.
Keep getting automated msg require new docs...
poor service msg says will be contacted in 2 days nothing for the last 3 weeks. Customer service answered today from INDIA so much noice & echoes in background gave up trying to converse
For those who are concerned politically. UFB is run by AXOS, tied closely with the Trump AXIS. Source: FORBES, August-September 2022, pp. 118-120.
Interest rates on savings accounts have been rising rapidly over the past few months. UFB (Axos) recently increased their rate and explained to me that I don't get the rate increase because these higher rates are for "new accounts." They made no offer to move my funds to a new account or match that rate. I called back and a rep moved my funds to the new, higher interest account. Yesterday, they passed along their new rate to my account. Except for the one stinker, the customer service reps have been very good.
I just opened an account and transferred in most of my savings. Then as soon as the funds showed "available" 4 days later, UFB froze my account and will not let me access funds or even withdraw 5 dollars unless I send a photo of myself holding my drivers license and a utility bill with my adress from the past 30 days. They are refusing to even let me speak with a supervisor. I have banked with many institutions over the past 40 years and never encountered anything like this. So please be very very careful.
I had an account with UFB years ago and kept it open with a small amount. They raised their interest rate to 1.66% so I figured I'd move some money over there. The interface says 3-4 days to clear. It's been over a week since they show they've received money and it still shows as pending, not pending in the account, but pending where the bank is getting interest and they aren't paying me. So, if you want to use UFB Bank, make sure your ACH is initiated at your other bank or you'll probably regret it.
Noticed I was getting lower rate on my savings account than what they advertise. Sent message asking why the difference. Got this response:
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Thank you for contacting UFB Direct. I am sorry for the difficulties you faced so far. However, I can help.
I have personally reviewed your account and I can see that currently, you have a UFB High Yield Savings account, this account comes under the legacy account.
We are providing a 0.81% Annual Percentage Yield(APY) on the UFB Savings account.
We can convert your current account to the UFB Savings account in which you can get 0.81% APY, please let us know if you wish to convert the account.
I had a account with UFB a couple years ago. They were always a little difficult to deal with but had good rates. I could usually call and they would raise transfer limits immediately. I stopped using the account when rates fell and they closed it. They called me a couple days ago to entice me to reopen the account with their new rates under Axos ownership. I took the bait. They told me this and that and the people working there seem nice but unfortunately come across very amateurish and not well-informed. They would not raise the ACH limits enough to accomodate a inbound transfer, even though I was told it wouldn't be a problem.. They wanted me to do a wire transfer instead. When I tried to link them to a external bank account to push funds, the other bank said they were having a problem linking to Axos. If it's this hard to get money in, I can only imagine how hard it must be to get money out. No thanks...life is too short to jump through these hoops to make a deposit. There are plenty of other banks easier to deal with.
Do not ever use this “bank”. They can not tell my daughters where $86,000 is that belonged to their Dad. After his sudden death, my daughters were trying to close the account which had the balance of $86,000. After USB closed the account, they said there was no money. We all saw the balance!!!! And my daughters were told “Happy National Pie Day” by an employee as the response to their Dad’s death. WHAT???!!!! Rude employees and they are causing us all more pain and grief. Horrible
Do not use this “bank” !!! They stole tens of thousands of dollars from me and my family. They are shady and the customer service is awful and doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Stay away!
I had to buy a wallet for a transaction.
First they said the 3 codes i already bought weren’t valid. When i bought another one of 50€ they said i had to buy 1 more for the transaction to succeed. Scammers