CD Rates Drastically Slashed At Igo Banking

I applied online for a 2-year CD on Nov 4 at iGObanking.com when the interest rate was 2.25%APY. My application approval was pending until the bank received additional documentation (ie. at copy of my phone or electric bill with my address). I sent a digital copy of the documentation attached to an email reply to the bank the same day, just as the CSR had requested.  It took me 30 minutes to talk to a CSR that day. A week later, I still had not heard about the status of my application. Then I received an Email stating that the bank had still not received my documentation.  I called the bank again, put on hold for over 30 minutes, and asked the CSR why they did not read the Email with my attached documentation.  They explained that it might be up to 3 working days before any Emails were read by a bank CSR. They could not verify whether they had received the Email from me. Shortly afterwards, the interest rate on the CD dropped to 2.0%APY. Days later I get another Email from the bank stating that they could not process the application until my documentation was received.  On the same day, Nov 15, that morning, I replied to the bank Email with a request that my application be cancelled and that I no longer wanted a CD from iGObanking.com.  On Nov. 16 the bank sent me an Email stating that my application was approved, and that they would fund my CD by ACH as I had originally set up.  I didn't think they would actually do this , as I had told them that I did not want the CD.  The next morning I find a $29.00 insufficient funds fee in my funding account.  I was very upset.  I called the bank, and a manager talked with me about why they are not responsible for what happened.  I would never consider this bank again.  I am not surprised that the interest rates for these CD have dropped dramatically.  I just wish I had read some of the comments of others who had tried to open up a CD online with this bank, because I never would have bothered if I had that information.  I think that the bank was dragging their feet on application approval so that they could lock people into terms with much lower interest rates.  The manager of the bank just went on and on over the phone with rhetoric about how they had to be very careful and maintain high security in order to offer high interest rates.  AVOID THIS BANK PERIOD!!!!   It would be really nice for those who originally posted onthe CDs available from iGObanking.com to always put disclaimers on there announcements that the bank may or may not be worthy of your investments.  And I don't think that my experience is an isolated incident.  It cost me at least $29 to learn a valuable lesson.

I was worried about this too, but I was happy to find out their CD rates are locked in when you apply.   So if the rates drop between the time you apply and the time you get approved, you still get the rate from when you applied. 

I admit, their handling of opening accounts & CDs, and overall customer service, is really slow & sloppy.  I think the demand caused from that high CD rate probably made things even worst.  It takes almost a week for most emails to get responded to.  That being said, you should have known to keep the money in your funding account until they responded saying they actually canceled the ACH transfer.  The guy on the phone even told you it takes up to 3 business days to get to your emails... you should have kept the money in the account for at least that amount of time.  Then you could have just closed the CD and got the money transferred back to your funding account and avoided the insufficient funds fee.  Still a headache, but you DID set up the automatic ACH funding BEFORE the approval.  Next time maybe you should fund it AFTER the application is approved.

You got to understand this is NOT your neighborhood corner brick & mortar bank where you can conveniently go through the drive-thru and talk to a teller... and that's why you get better rates.  It's like complaining that Wal-mart has crappy customer service when you know you can go across the street to the mom & pop store and pay a bit more for your stuff.  I mean, 2.25% was an amazing 24 month CD rate for right now... I don't know of any local bank here that would compete with that.