Marcus by Goldman Sachs Brings Back $100 Online Savings Account Bonus
Now through February 16, 2022, Marcus by Goldman Sachs (Marcus) is offering a $100 bonus when depositing $10k or more of new money in a new or existing Online Savings Account. The new funds must be deposited within 10 days of enrollment. At least $10k of the new funds, plus the account balance at the time of enrollment, must be maintained for 90 days. Enrollment must be done by using the enrollment link on the Marcus promotion page (which can be accessed through the "Open an Account” button) or by calling Marcus at 1-855-730-SAVE by 11:59 PM EST on February 16, 2022. The bonus will be deposit into the Online Savings Account within 14 days after the requirements have been met.
This is the fourth Online Savings Account bonus offered by Marcus in as many years. The current $100 bonus offer seems to have the same basic requirements as the January 2021 offer. The one difference from the bonuses offered in 2019 and 2020 is that the “maintenance” period has been increased from 60 days to 90 days.
While existing customers can qualify for the $100 bonus, thoroughly understanding which funds must be maintained during the promotional period is paramount. The following is an excerpt from the small print on the bonus promotion page (text emphasis is mine):
After enrolling, you must deposit $10,000 or more in new funds from an external account into your Marcus Online Savings Account within 10 calendar days of enrollment (the “Funding Period”).
The account balance plus a minimum of $10,000 in new funds (the “Required Dollar Amount”), must be maintained in your Marcus Online Savings Account for 90 consecutive days from the date of reaching the Required Dollar Amount.
The account balance is based on the starting current balance reflected on your account at 12 am ET the day you enroll.
Once the Funding Period has ended, your Marcus Online Savings Account balance may not drop below the Required Dollar Amount at any point until after the 90 consecutive days have passed.
You may make multiple deposits within the Funding Period to reach the Required Dollar Amount. Internal transfers do not count for the purposes of this Offer.
The relevant portion of this quote is the third sentence, which indicates that the account balance at the time of enrollment will be included in the funds required to be on deposit for 90 days. That requirement could prove to be crucial if you have plans to use any of the “account balance at the time of enrollment” money during the 90 days following the deposit of new funds.
Thanks to DA reader, ratefinder, for the recent Forum post about this promotion. The following quote is a helpful hint from DA reader, enuser, which appeared in my February 2020 Marcus blog post.
NOTICE to all who have signed up for this promotion. As stated by user "Tracey" you will need to call Marcus and confirm that you are in fact registered for this promotion. I also did not receive the confirmation email as stated when the signup process was completed.
When I called I was told that I was not enrolled in the promotion. The CS rep went ahead and enrolled me also. Call Marcus CS at 1-855-730-7283. Within a few minutes I received the long awaited confirmation email.
"Confirmation: Marcus savings bonus enrollment"
You will have to put up a fight to get past the auto attendant. Since she will insist that you say what you are calling about. None of the obvious phrases I tried worded until I said "savings account", then "close".
Online Savings Account Overview
The Marcus Online Savings Account 0.50% rate is above the current 0.456% online savings account yield index and has averaged slightly higher than the online savings account average for the last four years.
The Online Savings Account has several features that make it a strong contender for a primary online savings account, including the following:
- No minimum opening deposit.
- Rate applies to all balances of $1 or more (currently 0.50% APY).
- Free ACH bank-to-bank transfer service.
- Up to 4 external accounts can be linked.
- Because of a change in federal law, the six monthly withdrawal/transfer limit has been suspended. There is currently no limit on the number of withdrawals/transfers that can be made.
- Maximum outgoing transfer is $125k per transaction if done online (no limit if done by phone).
- No incoming transfer limit (as long as the maximum balance limit is maintained).
- Same-day transfers of $100k or less to and from other banks.
- Funds received by ACH transfer initiated at Marcus are available on the third business day. Funds received by ACH transfer initiated by another bank are available on the next business day (see FAQs for full details).
- No charge for sending or receiving wire transfers, but wire transfers to a third-party (such as a mortgage company) are not allowed. Wire transfers requested online can only be sent to a previously linked external account.
- Maximum balance of $1 million for individuals (new customers).
- Up to six beneficiaries per each account.
- A beneficiary must be an individual: you may not name a trust or other entity as a beneficiary.
- Social security numbers required for beneficiaries.
- Trust accounts are not offered.
Other Marcus Promotions
Marcus still offers AARP members two special deals. New and existing Marcus customers can receive an extra 10 bps on their savings account for 24 months. There’s also a special 8-month No-Penalty CD with a rate that’s 10 bps higher than the standard Marcus 7-month No-Penalty CD. Please refer to my 2020 AARP Marcus promotion review for more details.
Marcus also has a refer-a-friend promotion in which current and new customers can receive an extra 50 bps on their savings accounts for 3 months. This promotion was scheduled to end in 2021, but it has been extended to June 30, 2022. You can see info on this promotion at the Marcus site by hovering your mouse over the “Savings” menu item in the top navigation bar. Thanks to DA reader Cumulus who first posted on this promotion in this DA Forum post (Please avoid referral requests in the comments.)
Availability
Headquartered in New York City, Goldman Sachs Bank’s internet bank operates under the Marcus by Goldman Sachs brand. Savings accounts and CDs are available nationwide and can be opened using the Bank’s online application. Account owners must be U.S. citizens or legal residents and at least 18 years old.
Enrolling for this offer is the first step toward qualifying for the $100 bonus. Clicking on the “Open an Account” button on the Marcus by Goldman Sachs Bank Information Page leads to the Marcus promotion page. You can also apply for the bonus by calling Marcus at 1-855-730-SAVE (7283) no later than 11:59 PM EST on February 16, 2022. A confirmation of successful enrollment will be sent by e-mail or snail-mail.
Bank Overview
In early 2016, Goldman Sachs Bank completed its acquisition of GE Capital Bank’s internet bank division, thus establishing the “GS Bank” brand. The “Marcus by Goldman Sachs” brand was launched in October 2016 as an online platform that offered unsecured personal loans to consumers. As I noted in a November 2017 blog post, Goldman Sachs decided to consolidate savings accounts, CDs, and personal loans under the Marcus by Goldman Sachs brand.
Goldman Sachs Bank has an overall health grade of “A” at DepositAccounts.com, with a Texas Ratio of 3.67% (excellent), based on September 30, 2021 data. In the past year, the Bank has increased its total non-brokered deposits by $48.75 billion, an excellent annual growth rate of 30.84%. Please refer to our financial overview of Goldman Sachs Bank (FDIC Certificate # 33124) for more details.
Goldman Sachs Bank is currently the ninth largest bank in the nation based on assets. As of the latest published FDIC data (September 30, 2021), the Bank has more than $387 billion in assets, more than $218 billion in deposits, and just over 2 million customer accounts.
Bottom Line
This is an easy bonus that doesn’t require much time or effort. Earning $100 on a $10k deposit in three months is the approximate equivalent of a 4.1% APY. As I mentioned above, the 0.50% APY is above the current 0.456% online savings account yield index. It’s also much higher than the current national average rate for savings accounts, which is only 0.124%.
If you don’t qualify for the Marcus by Goldman Sachs bonus, check out our full list of the best savings and checking account bonus offers.
It's $10k (electronic) per person and $5k in paper for tax return, so a married couple would be $10k for one spouse and $10k for the other spouse for a total of $20k and if they file their tax return jointly, they could use their refund for up to $5k in paper for a total of $25k if they wanted.
If they have kids they could set up accounts for each one (so another $10k per child, keep in mind that money in the child's name legally belongs to the child but it you are putting the money aside to one dat buy them their first car, spend on their future wedding, etc. it's certainly as good a place as any to park that money, just be sure to let the child know the purpose you are putting that money into their account is meant for).
Then there are trusts and business setups that the individuals can buy another $10k each.
In short, while there is a 10k/year (electronic) limit, there are plenty of ways for a family to put a lot more into ibond in a year, if they've a mind to.
FYI MidAtlantic, both the rate bonus for AARP and $100 Savings bonus are reflected for the same account..
I plan to open a new savings account with new external funds to qualify for the offer, but then my CD matures in a few weeks. I plan to close the CD and transfer out the funds. My reading of the terms seems to indicate that this will have no effect on the bonus. Am I missing anything?
So if your CD matures after Feb 16th, you are in the clear, and will be eligible for the $100 bonus (if you fund the new savings account prior to the 16th).
If your CD matures before Feb 16th, then tread carefully. You may wish to establish and fund your new Savings account with the minimum $10k ASAP, well before the maturity of your CD.
Else, commingling the funds of your matured CD with the newly establish Savings account risks confusion, especially if the Savings account did not already have the required minimum $10k balance when the CD matured into it.
But this may all be extraneous info, if you already have another channel established to funnel off the balanced of your matured CD . . . entirely sidestepping your new Savings account. That would be the clearest, cleanest route.
Alternatively, if your CD matures well before Feb 16th, then get the matured balance out of Marcus prior to "enrolling" in the bonus offer.
Consider the following scenario:
100K in my Marcus Savings Account presently.
I move it all out in the next 2 weeks, - then subsequently enroll in the bonus offer and make a new 10K deposit which remains in the Account for 90+ days. I qualify for the $100, right?
Feb 16th to "enroll" . . . and 10 days after that enrollment date to "fund"
But don't bank on my interpretation. Best to call Marcus, and confirm.
PS I only sound like I know what I'm talking about because the "edit" function works for me! (I usually go back to rewrite and polish at least a half-dozen times)
Occasionally I get lucky and the edit button will work, but lately it rarely does.
https://archive.feedblitz.com/25981/~8150290/103035184/b8b30483473daad7281e1e2b1dc4c96b
But a few months ago I was doing a routine transaction related to a bonus at another bank, and was shocked that they apparently reported me to the government for possible suspicious activity (I can't confirm it because they are not allowed to tell you, but it is pretty clear that is what they did). It was ridiculous. All I did it transfer some funds from another bank into Marcus and then, when they cleared tried to transfer them out to another account elsewhere. All routine transactions with nothing at all suspicious about it. They would not let me transfer them anywhere except the bank I transferred them out of and kept that restriction on the funds for 90 days. I couldn't believe it. Never had that happen before.
So I think they have a trigger happy department there that is anxious to report you for suspicious activity for no reason. You may want to take this into account as to whether it is worth that stress for $100 in case you are contemplating some complicated cash maneuvers. It was very distressing. Hopefully it is over now since they eventually let me transfer the funds out. But that experience made me wonder if I want to continue to use that account at all. Who needs that kind of thing? I've never had an FI do anything like that before. And in addition now I feel I can't count on them to manage my funds when needed. If an account is unreliable, it may be useless.
Just something to consider. I am not saying not to do the deal.
That was the first thing that came to mind. I asked them if they were telling me that they had use of my money but I didn’t have use of my own money. Their out is that they offered to send the money back to the account I sent it to them from but would not allow me to send it anywhere else.
I was completely stumped and had no idea what the problem was. Since they wouldn’t tell me anything about why they were doing that, and I had done similar transactions there for years including one pretty recently and I have never had a problem, the next thing that came to mind was that maybe someone breached my account and there was some kind of identity theft involved. I asked them if there was evidence of that and they said no. But then in a cosmic coincidence, I had another FI that I have had an account at for years deny a transaction I think within a week of that and I totally had a freak out session thinking that this was connected. And then someone in their security department told me that it is likely that there was an identity theft! Couldn’t believe it. I immediately froze all of my accounts with the agencies and got no sleep that night. Next day called that FI back and finally got a manager on the phone who said it was a mistake and apologized. System error! But before that happened I was almost certain the Marcus thing must have been ID theft too. Since then I have not had any problems at any other FI.
After that I concluded the only thing left it could be is that Marcus filed a SAR (as you mentioned it might be in a previous discussion). And since A. They wouldn’t tell me what it was and B. The bank I transferred the funds to Marcus from is a foreign bank and C. They gave me a 90 day time frame and D. Some other things they did, I concluded that must be what they did.
At that point I became outraged that they are using my own tax money to surveil and spy on and harass innocent citizens by using private businesses to perform law enforcement activities. I thought about contacting my congressmen to demand they revise the banking regulations to protect against this kind of harassment, but he is in the party that unanimously voted for the one party bill in the House that would add even more government surveillance, invasion of privacy and harassment of innocent citizens through the banking system if it ever got passed into law (which I hope it never does). So I didn’t waste my time.
Fortunately, I was not in urgent need of those funds so I decided to just let them sit there until they realized that I did nothing wrong.
All I can tell you is that that was the worst month I have had in my entire personal banking life. And all over nothing. I felt so violated.
I don’t know enough details about how much leeway Marcus had in this situation. Maybe the fact that there was a foreign bank involved means that they are required to report certain transactions and had no choice. Maybe they routinely do this because the regulations require them to do it. I do not know how much discretion they have in this case.
In any event, whoever is responsible, I did not appreciate it and now feel concerned about using my Marcus account since I question whether I can rely on Marcus to timely honor my requests for funds transfers when I need them to. In this case timeliness was not critical. But it often is. And after this experience I don’t feel that account is reliable.
Having said I don’t necessarily put the blame on Marcus I also note that of the thousands of personal transactions I have done with dozens of banks in my life I have never had this happen to me before.
I’m just going to drop it and move on. This is a political issue and one that I don’t think has any chance of being fixed in the near future. There are much bigger fish I would like to see fried first.
Still I feel disappointed in Marcus which up until now was one of my go-to banks. Because of this episode, I don’t feel comfortable relying on them anymore for timely execution of my funds transfer needs.
They didn't hold your money. They were willing to transfer it back to A. They just weren't willing to facilitate your moving money through them.
Now, like I said, I'm sure everything you were doing was fine. But can you see that Institution B might have some concern about what was going on? I assume this was not a small amount of money.
As to their questioning why I sent it to them first. Yes, I can see why they might be curious. But I followed their terms and rules, properly waited for it to clear, and expected them to execute the transaction according to those terms. Why assume it is legally suspicious without even talking to me first? That's outrageous. Second, I have done that many times before at other banks for various reasons with never a problem. And third I have done it at Marcus before without any problem. Sometimes I did it with Marcus because they have better options for transfers than the other institution involved such as higher transfer limits and faster transfers. That's exactly one of the main reasons why I have the Marcus account in the first place for situations like that. This transaction was far smaller than a lot of the other transactions I have done with Marcus over the years I have had the account with them. I would say it was an average amount for the transfers I have done through them.
In this particular case I did it because transferring it directly to the other FI was not an option for technical reasons without a lot of hassle and time wasted. I couldn't push it because the amount was too high and I couldn't pull it because I had the maximum number of links at the other FI and they had a new policy that would have forced me to delete many of the existing links in order to add another one. So I decided to do it through them where links were already set up and all I had to do is wait a few days. Much less hassle. It's as simple as that. If they were curious they could have asked me before they treated me like a criminal and I would have gladly explained.
There was absolutely nothing wrong with this transaction and no reason to take such aggressive action on their part (again, unless they had no choice by regulation which I think is unlikely but possible).
In my opinion the bottom line is that banks are not law enforcement agencies and should neither have the authority nor the responsibility to act as one.
I reminded them that this is a LIQUID account, not a CD. The whole point of a liquid account is that you can put money into it and take money out of it at will as long as you comply with the agreed terms (which I did). This was a ROUTINE transaction not unlike other transactions I had done with them before. I had no way to anticipate that they would have dishonored it... and worse apparently reported it as "suspicious" with no basis for that.
I get that that one of those terms is that they have the right to prevent any transactions that they choose. I get that. But why they heck did they? And without even having any discussion about it or notifying me. I didn't find out that the transfer was not completed until I noticed that it did not complete as I expected it to. I was taken completely by surprise and couldn't imagine what the issue was. I had to call them multiple times to get any kind of information at all and even then they hardly told me anything.
If I was money laundering (ha! makes me laugh), I sure wouldn't try to do it like this.
A simple look at my long account history would have told them there is nothing suspicious here.
But I don't want to get too far ahead of my skis. Since they are not permitted to tell me if they filed a SAR, I have no way of knowing that that is what they actually did. So I can't really go as far as to say that I know that they did that although the evidence seems pretty strong that they did.
Absent that part, it could just be that they used bad judgement on this particular transaction. Call it a mistake. And mistakes happen.
So I don't want to make the criticism stronger than the facts. But either way, the result is that it has undermined my faith in this account and my ability to continue to use it for the same legitimate purposes and in the same legitimate way I have counted on it for in the past. At a minimum Marcus owes me an apology... one that I'm quite certain won't be forthcoming any time soon.
My intent here wasn't to overdo the criticism here. Just to post about my experience so that others might benefit from the information.
I consider this matter closed (hopefully) but I am left with uncertainty about whether or not I can count on my Marcus liquid account for reliable transactions. I will rely more heavily on other FIs that have proven to be more reliable.
A question - the way I read your posts in this thread, all the transfers you did (or attempted to do) were ACH transfers. When Marcus refused your “Marcus to Bank C” transfer, did you ask them if, as an alternative, they would initiate a wire transfer to Bank C? Wire transfers can of course be a pain in some ways, and often cost money. Marcus itself does not charge for sending or receiving wires, but of course your Bank C may charge for receiving one.
I noticed this DepositAccounts article states above that with Marcus “Wire transfers requested online can only be sent to a previously linked external account.”, but in theory at least, that should not have impacted you since if I read correctly your external link to Bank C WAS previously established.
I've always heard that wire transfers have a different and higher level of security than an ACH transfer, but I don't really know the details. Just curious whether a wire transfer might be considered as a possible work-around, in case this problem happens to people in the future.
They told me that the hold could be up to 90 days if I wanted the funds to go anywhere but back to the FI they came from. I believe that 90 days is a significant time period with regard to the SAR regulations and took that as a possible piece of evidence that there may have been a SAR.
I tried again in I believe 30 or 60 days (can't remember which) and they allowed the transfer to Bank C. Don't know the significance of that but if there was a SAR hopefully the treasury got back to them and told them stop sending us garbage.
I also interpreted the fact that they said they could not tell me the reason for their actions to be possible evidence that it was SAR related.
So all I have is conjecture that there was a SAR involved... no definitive proof. Can't see any justification for it, but it is what it is.
But a wire out doesn't seem to be the workaround. This was an ACH in and (an attempted) domestic wire out (after I believe around an 8 day hold which is Marcus's standard hold policy).
And yes precisely. I already had links to both Banks A and C established at Marcus. Bank C had recently changed its policies, and I was already grandfathered in for more links than the new policy allowed. I did not want to give those links up and then have to juggle links around again later. If I deleted those links I would be subject to the new lower link limit policy. So I could not add an additional link for bank C in order to get the funds out of bank A without causing myself further problems.
It's actually a little more complicated than that at bank C. I was initially told that I could not add ANY more links at bank C even if I deleted existing links! That was yet another shocking piece of information that was confirmed to me there by three supervisors and I still could not believe. It took me a week to get to a manager who told me that the information I was given by the supervisors was incorrect, he apologized, and said he was going to call a meeting with the supervisors to correct what they are telling customers about the link policy. But that's another story. Anyway I decided not to initiate the transfer through bank C because I couldn't add any more links and they seemed to be confused about their own policy. Didn't want to touch that at the time.
So the reason I went through Marcus instead of directly to bank C is convenience and nothing else. I just wanted a reliable way to get the transfer done and make sure I wouldn't have any problems. Boy was that a mistake! Marcus has always had mostly exceptional transfer facilities. But they have no use to me if I can't count on execution when I need it. And since I did nothing wrong I don't know what not to do the next time. If they don't want you to do something that is completely compliant with their terms they should change the terms.
Not **** their customers with surprise actions and possibly exposure to unwarranted problems with the government. I'm really disappointed in them.
In the end I'm guessing the takeaway is probably to avoid foreign banks, even if they are licensed to operate in the United States, insured by FDIC and have multiple branches here. Sounds ridiculous, but I can't think of any other explanation.
After this happened I couldn't wait to close my account in that foreign bank even though they treated me fairly and there was no evidence that that specific bank had anything to do with the problem. It just gave me chills. And I did close it.
By the way Barclays Bank is a foreign bank as are other large banks that operate in the United States. So you can't have transfers from these banks without being subject to criminal suspicion? I'd rather not name the bank but I can assure you it wasn't Bank of Iran. Regulations need to be changed to prevent this from happening to law abiding citizens. Wish I had the time to pursue it. Too busy trying to earn an honest living so I can continue to pay more than my fair share of the confiscatory taxes while the government I'm paying for treats me like a criminal.
The fault falls squarely on Marcus and their undisclosed policies. Both my banks transferring into and out of Marcus were US-based and not international. I had no fraud activity flagged at any of my other financial institutions. I confirmed with the Marcus supervisors I talked to that when the balance amount is stated as “available” it means you have full access to it. Well, apparently that is not true. They could not explain why the wire department denied my transfer request, just repeated that I can move my money back to the original bank via the same method I used to transfer into Marcus or wait 90 days to transfer to another bank. A 90-day hold which means waiting three months to access your money is quite excessive, especially when given no explanation. I even asked my other banks if they do 90-day holds on customers’ money; they don’t and have not heard of such a policy. I contacted the Federal Reserve to see if such a regulation exists; it doesn’t. Placing a 90-day hold is at the sole discretion of Marcus.
Like P_D, I too had the same reasons for going through Marcus to move my funds between my two other banks: dollar limits on both sides of those banks, and supposedly faster turnaround with a Marcus wire. I have been a customer of Marcus for a few years. I have had issues in the past: customer reps who provided incorrect information or processed requested transactions incorrectly; delays in fulfilling outbound wires until the next day, even if the request is made early when the office opens. I have complained to Marcus about these instances. Being an outspoken customer should not be a reason to be treated so poorly. I agree, I would think twice about doing business with Marcus. Quick posting of funds into Marcus to earn a little more interest has been eliminated and free wires seemed to be fraught with inexplicable delays or outright denials. This type of behavior may temporarily pump up their asset size on paper but does little for customer loyalty. If you do want to take advantage of any promotions, I would keep an account open with just a minimum balance and pull out your additional money once you have met the bonus requirements.
But I hope lessons are learned. Moving (presumably large amounts of) money through Marcus may not be well-received by Marcus.
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“And Marcus, who presumably gets no income from doing this work, says "no, thank you" You can move your money back to A, but we aren't interested in being the middleman here."
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I think there is a flaw in your take in post #39. Like most banks, Marcus makes most of its money on the spread between the rate they pay depositors and the earnings they receive by borrowing the depositors money and lending it out or investing it at a higher return. By the time the 7 or 8 day hold they impose on the funds has been met, they have already made up any transaction costs the may incur on your transactions simply by virtue of holding your money for several days without giving you access to it. And ESPECIALLY for large amounts of money, they have very likely already made a profit on transactions such as this by the time you transfer the money out.
And of course that ignores the other profits they have made on your deposits over the years which in my case is substantial I am sure. So all they are doing is ticking off a good customer and becoming less profitable. A very poor business decision in my estimation.
What we are left with, I think, is Marcus didn't want to be involved in your very large transfer through them. There was no 90-day hold. You could move your money back to the source whenever you wanted (after the initial week hold.) Maybe the 90-day delay on moving money through them was just to discourage you from doing this. I suspect their Terms of Service say that can refuse to make these transfers for any reason or no reason at all.
I assume neither of you any longer use Marcus as the middleman for moving large sums.
And although you haven't specified, I think the size of your transfers far exceeds the $10,000 that we're talking about for getting the bonus. So your difficulties don't have anything to do with the rest of us and the likelihood of issues with Marcus.
"Large" is a relative term. If $10,000 is not large than the amount I was trying to transfer in this particular transaction was not large either. It was much smaller than many of the transfers I have done through Marcus in the past and the amount was typical of the transfers I have done there many times over the years with no issues.
Marcus gets no pass on this. Yes, they have a right to deny transfers. But if they don't want you to do transfers over a certain amount or of some certain type, their terms should say so instead of taking their depositors by surprise and potentially costing them damages. It's inexcusable.
Even more inexcusable is not telling the depositor why the transfer was denied so that they have a way of avoiding this result the next time.
And even more inexcusable still would be filing a SAR for such clearly NOT suspicious transfers, if in fact they did that.
In my frustration I asked them if they are trying to tell me that they would rather that I close my account and they insisted that they still wanted me to be a customer. If this is their customer retention policy I would hate to see what they do to you when they DON'T want your business. This is the most egregious treatment I have ever experienced in my 50+ years of personal banking.
And interesting that in your case the ACH did not involve a foreign bank. So apparently that may not have been the issue. That’s even more puzzling and disturbing and makes me put more of the blame on Marcus than I might have if I had not known your story.
There are several disturbing issues here.
The first is that Marcus failed to complete the wires even though we both had sufficient funds marked “Available” in our accounts and met all the requirements necessary to send them.
The second is that it appears that Marcus may have filed a Suspicious Activity Report with the Treasury Department with no apparent justification.
And the third is that they refused to tell us anything about what was going on.
If they simply decided that they did not want to send the wires, it is annoying, but their prerogative. That’s a business decision. If they want to lose customers by not honoring their own terms, that’s up to them.
But if they filed such a report, with absolutely no reason to do so, that’s a different matter. If that is what happened it almost makes me angry enough to file a complaint against them. Part of the problem is that I don’t know if they did or not and by regulation they are not even allowed to tell me. So I can’t complain about something I don’t know whether they did or not.
This is just a guess, but the fact that they are not telling us what is going on, coupled with the “90 day” restriction is what leads me to believe that they did in fact file an SAR. I am not certain but I have read those regulations in the past and if my memory is accurate (and it may not be) a 90 day period had some significance in that regulation…possibly the time that the Treasury requires them to hold the funds pending the Treasuries instructions to the FI or something like that.
Anyway, I can’t thank you enough for posting that. I was extremely disturbed by the actions Marcus took, the way they handled it and the treatment they gave me. And now I see that I am not the only one. So I think my conjecture that this may be evidence that they have a rogue security department there may be accurate. I’m deeply disappointed in Marcus and will no longer recommend it as I have done several times in the past.
Thanks again!
A bank has 30 days up to 60 days to file a SAR, with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) bureau of the Treasury recommending that banks file an updated SAR at least every 90 days in situations where the suspicious activity is ongoing. I guess that can be construed by Marcus as reason to impose a 90-day hold on suspicious funds. The key word here is “suspicious” activity that would trigger filing a SAR. In my case, there were no red flags to justify such action: no cash was exchanged, there were no foreign banks involved, and Marcus’ fraud and security department even verified I owned the accounts at the external bank where my transfer came from and the external bank where the funds would be going. It was the wire department that rejected my outbound wire request, but maybe someone higher up in the fraud department overrode the verification sign-off. If Marcus can treat established customers so poorly and mark them as potential suspects without justification, it makes you want to reconsider putting your money in Marcus.
Marcus verifies tour bonus submission and from what I remember it displays when you access your account.
I Intrest will be paid on the day ACH was initiated.