Virtual Bank

Virtualbank Introduces Monthly Maintenance Fee
- darkdreamer4u - Friday, December 14, 2012 - 11:47 PM

Got this email:

[...]

Our goal is to be your primary bank – to support all of your savings and checking needs. That is why we are investing in these important upgrades. However, these upgrades are costly, and to help cover our expenses we will begin charging a small monthly maintenance fee on low balance eMoney Market accounts as of Jan 31st 2013.

How small is the fee? $5.00. What is the minimum balance? $100. Same as the minimum opening balance. This means that if you keep a monthly average collected balance of just $100 in your eMoney Market account, you will not be charged a maintenance fee.

For more information go to https://www.virtualbank.com/ServCharge0512.pdf

Thank you for your business, and please let us know how we can serve you better. We look forward to continuing to bring you the very best in internet banking.

Ernest Hartner
President
VirtualBank

 

 

So I said: "Goodbye Ernest."

VirtualBank's New Login Security Feature - PhoneGuardian
- KenBDG - Monday, September 6, 2010 - 2:51 PM

As I logged into my VirtualBank account today, I noticed a new login requirement. After you enter your user name and password, they display a code on the screen, and this code must be entered by phone. You can select the phone number for them to use based on what they have on record. Once you select the number, it will call your immediately and an automated voice will ask for you to enter the code that you see on the screen.

VirtualBank calls this PhoneGuardian, and according to VirtualBank it should only be required when it can't recognize your computer. So you won't have to go through this process every time from the same computer.

It's a nice security feature that seems like it would make it very tough for a hacker to break into your account.

I just wish VirtualBank's eMoney Market account had better rates. However,they do often have competitive CD rates. I just noticed their 9-month eCD yield is competitive at 1.26% APY as of 9/06/2010.

Started Great....Steeply Downhill From There....”
- MaxPow3r - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - 3:10 PM

I first signed up with Virtualbank in 1999. I simply loved them. And I continued to love them for 12 years. I even got a family member to sign up with them and she loved them too. In 2012 they were bought by Sabadell. In mid 2012, they relaunched their website. Here are the issues I experienced.

1) During the switchover all of my transaction history was entirely deleted. Online access to my transactions IS THE WHOLE REASON I HAVE A VIRTUAL BANK!

2) During the switchover, all of my automatic payments stopped being, well, automatic. Again, why do I have a virtual bank account if I have to remember to send checks? Through sheer luck, I caught this error in time to prevent serious tardiness with my automatic payments.

3) I began receiving a PAPER statement for my overdraft line of credit despite the fact that my preferences state that I should be receiving electronic statements for everything. Again, the whole point of a virtual bank is to avoid paper statements!

4) Said line of credit account is a complete phantom. I have no access to this account online. Seemingly, the only evidence that it exists is.....a paper statement. Did I mention that the whole point of a virtual bank is that I have online access to everything?

5) Even the electronic statements that I WAS receiving were not complete. They only reflected my checking account, not my money market account. I had to email them to request regeneration of correct statements. One more time, WHAT IS THE POINT OF A VIRTUAL BANK ACCOUNT IF I DON'T HAVE ONLINE ACCESS TO EVERYTHING?

I did incur one $5 late fee when my bill payments stopped being automatic. I contacted them about this (and mentioned the above issues as well). Their response: "Please send a copy of the statement showing the late charge." 12 loyal years, then 6 months of hell only to bust my balls over 5 bucks. The appropriate response here would have been "Sorry for the $5 fee and the inconvenience. Here's $500 for your time and loyalty."

....and the hits just kept on coming.  I had a tenant who wanted to pay rent via wire.  I told him to wait until I could check to make sure no fees would be incurred.  I reviewed the fee schedule which I found on the virtualbank website.  The fee schedule said that for every account type at virtualbank, incoming wire fees were $0.00.  So, I told the tenant to go ahead and wire the rent to my virtualbank account, which he did, twice.

I then logged in to find that I'd been charged $15.00 for each incoming wire (total of $30).  I figured this was an error of some sort, and sent a message to virtualbank, asking for a refund of the wire charges.  We went back and forth on this, several times, but, their response amounted to the following:

1)  Wire fees are only refunded if it's a bank error.

2)  The fee schedule that I found on their website is out of date and not the right fee schedule.

3)  When sabadell took over virtualbank, I was required to agree to all new terms and conditions, including the new fee schedule

4)  Since I'm having trouble finding the fee schedule for my account, they are sending me a paper copy.

My points were the following:

1)  It IS a bank error because virtualbank listed the wrong fee schedule on their website.

2)  This is a virtualbank, I shouldn't need paper copies of the fee schedule.

As you can imagine, I did not get a refund of the $30 incoming wire fee.

I'm waiting for a few payments to clear and then changing banks.  I, simply, can not wait to close my virtualbank account.  Never in my life, have I experience such a degradation of what used to be a fantastic company.

 I'm a small business owner myself, and I am always patient with other businesses, as I know that sometimes things go wrong.  However, customer service and a companies ability to handle those things that go wrong is what defines a company for me.  Virtualbank has lost all sense of customer service.  This company has become a nightmare to deal with.

I hope that this review can help somebody avoid the same experiences I've had with virtualbank.

I Do Like Virtual Bank
- jimmyc - Saturday, December 15, 2012 - 7:00 PM

Keeping at least $100 is still easy to do and the rate is good, not the best, but good. I am not closing my account. I have had it for years and really like the customer service. They had to walk me thru a change to their website earlier this year and the person who helped me is the same guy who helped me with an issue a few years ago. I like that the customer service didn't change when the new bank took over.