Glitches at E-LOAN's Online Savings Account
POSTED
ON BY Ken Tumin
E-LOAN had some problems with its online savings account. Several readers have mentioned that E-LOAN incorrectly duplicated transfer requests. Many who initiated a transfer out of their linked account into their E-LOAN account early this week found out that this transfer was done twice which caused several to be hit with an overdraft fee. Since I didn't do any transfers this week, I haven't seen this problem myself, and E-LOAN hasn't sent me any email on this issue. However, E-LOAN has sent emails to several customers. A reader received the following:
Perhaps E-LOAN is experiencing some growing pains. On November 1st, E-LOAN issued a press release stating that the online savings account and CDs has received more than $754 million in deposits from 18,132 accounts. Also in that press release was this quote:
Glitches like this won't help to build trust. But at least E-LOAN seems to be trying its best to correct the issue and reimburse customers affected. Please keep me updated on how E-LOAN does in making mends.
For those with E-LOAN savings accounts, make sure you check your E-LOAN accounts and your linked accounts to make sure all transactions are correct. Regularly checking your accounts is always a good idea. BankRate.com just came out with a good article on bank errors. It describes some of the laws designed to protect you. To get back money that was caused by a bank error, you have 60 days from the date the statement containing the error was sent. If your debit card gets lost or stolen, you have only two days to completely limit your liability to $50. If banks make mistakes in your favor, they have years to correct the mistake (which doesn't seem fair).
There could be one positive from this E-LOAN glitch. It could give E-LOAN a reason to extend the 5.50% APY on the savings account on all tiers. I don't know if they are planning to drop this rate anytime soon. But they already dropped their CD rates and implemented tiers on the CDs. If E-LOAN can properly make mends to its customers who were affected by this glitch, it'll be easy to overlook this glitch if the rates remain on top. However, if rates fall and are no better than other banks, it'll give more reason to switch back to a bank that has been more reliable.
Due to an error that occurred November 7, 2006, our electronic funding service duplicated a small percentage of transfer requests, which may have affected your external account.
We immediately took the appropriate steps to correct this problem, and hope that you will accept our apologies for this incident.
Rest assured there is nothing you need to do, and E-LOAN has informed your bank of the error. We will reimburse you for any fees you may have incurred due to this problem.
At E-LOAN, you are the reason for our continued success. Again, please accept our apologies. If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to log into your E-LOAN Deposits Account and send us a secure message.
Perhaps E-LOAN is experiencing some growing pains. On November 1st, E-LOAN issued a press release stating that the online savings account and CDs has received more than $754 million in deposits from 18,132 accounts. Also in that press release was this quote:
More than 84% of E-LOAN customers have indicated that a trusted brand is a key influencer in choosing a high-yield online savings or CD account.
Glitches like this won't help to build trust. But at least E-LOAN seems to be trying its best to correct the issue and reimburse customers affected. Please keep me updated on how E-LOAN does in making mends.
For those with E-LOAN savings accounts, make sure you check your E-LOAN accounts and your linked accounts to make sure all transactions are correct. Regularly checking your accounts is always a good idea. BankRate.com just came out with a good article on bank errors. It describes some of the laws designed to protect you. To get back money that was caused by a bank error, you have 60 days from the date the statement containing the error was sent. If your debit card gets lost or stolen, you have only two days to completely limit your liability to $50. If banks make mistakes in your favor, they have years to correct the mistake (which doesn't seem fair).
There could be one positive from this E-LOAN glitch. It could give E-LOAN a reason to extend the 5.50% APY on the savings account on all tiers. I don't know if they are planning to drop this rate anytime soon. But they already dropped their CD rates and implemented tiers on the CDs. If E-LOAN can properly make mends to its customers who were affected by this glitch, it'll be easy to overlook this glitch if the rates remain on top. However, if rates fall and are no better than other banks, it'll give more reason to switch back to a bank that has been more reliable.
I'm worried that they are going to try to unreverse them tomorrow morning. Are they in some kind of loop?
You're not out of the woods yet. ELoan CSR's are saying DO NOT put in for another transfer, they are going to automatically reverse the reversals. After 2 hours on hold they say they will fix the problem, which is very widespread, tomorrow.
and they return his money to the bank. It was the same amount he used a month ago when he opened the saving, they might have thought it was a duplicate?
strange... he is emailing them
My 11/8 deposits to E-Loan have again been withdrawn from my external account and credited to my E-Loan account today with no additional action on my part.
Anyone who went in and rerequested any transactions because they were reversed yesterday is going to get ****ed!
What a mess! They don't have Quicken/Money downloads, and you can't view or cancel scheduled transfers. They need to improve this service quick, or they will lose business- an extra 0.2% is not worth it.
On 11/09, they reversed the glitched transfer AND my $200 transfer, the latter with no warning.
On 11/09, I call to see how to get my NSF fees refunded. Followed their instructions of sending a secured message through their site and have received no response in 4 days.
On 11/10, I've racked up $150 in overdraft fees. The local bank rep warns me more fees will show up next week.
On 11/11, eloan deposits $200 into my checking account. Eloan online account does not show a $200 debit.
Absolute nightmare! When nothing is going wrong, eloan is fine, but watch out if they **** up!
Apparently a few people did get an email that said something like "We accidentally processed some transactions twice on Monday. Don't worry your pretty little heads about it. Sorry for the inconvenience." (Not their exact words, just what they meant.)
But most of us didn't get any email. If they were going to start a mad frenzy of deposits and withdrawals from our external accounts, at the very least they could have sent out a bulk email telling us what they were planning to do and warning us about the activity in our accounts. Something like "We can't figure out which of you had double transactions on Monday, so we are going to reverse all of Monday's transactions, whether doubled or not, on Tuesday. We will then again reprocess Monday's transactions from scratch on Wednesday."
I am also bothered by the utter stupidity of reversing all withdrawals from E-Loan. Didn't they realize that some people could already have written checks against the money that got transfered to their external accounts? While little harm came from reversing deposits to E-Loan, reversing the withdrawals -- whether they were doubled or not -- compounded the injuries.
If there was no way around it, they could have at least told us what they were going to do. How hard is it to send out an email? But I suspect that they were attempting to keep their ****up as quiet as possible. Just let the minimum number of people know what is going on. Maybe most customers won't even find out it happened.
I would urge everyone to write letters. Tell them that mistakes happen, but it's very disrespectful to treat your customers like mushrooms (keep them in the dark and feed them manure). Wait until next week to see if they make any more mistakes and then print out your letters and stick them in the US Mail to:
Roberto R Herencia, President
Banco Popular North America
9600 W BRYN MAWR
ROSEMONT IL 60018
-and-
Mark Lefanowicz, President
E-LOAN, Inc.
6230 Stoneridge Mall Road
Pleasanton, CA 94588
Let Banco Popular know that they cannot hide behind their marketing arm (E-Loan) and place the blame on them. Let them know that this kind of treatment reflects poorly on their bank.
Tried to open an saving account at e-loan.
On 11/8 they deposit two small amounts to verify my external account ( I link it to my anohter HSBC e-saving which limits 6 out going per month.
Same day 11/8, they took two small amount deposit out of my external account and also took my initial deposit for opening e-loan account.
11/9, they reserse all three transaction by credit two small amount and initial amount. Then on 11/9 , took two small amounts out of my external account again.
On 11/10 e-loan deposit two small amount again! and took two small amount out of external account again! And finally took initial deposit AGAIN! for opening e-loan account. So, total 8 transaction out of my linked external account! HSBC e-saving is limited 6 times per month, if exceed, HSBC might force me to close this account.
Very bad experience!
The banking examiners aren't going to do a darn thing unless someone files a complaint or calls the situation to their attention.
If you really want to do something other than ineffectually complain on the internet,
the primary regulator of BPNA is the Federal Reserve Board.
You can find the procedure for filing a complaint here:
http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/complaints/
Remember to mention the full name of the bank:
Banco Popular North America.
Remember also that although BPNA is marketing these accounts under the E-Loan brand name, you have an account at BPNA. E-Loan is not a bank and does not issue bank accounts. Any complaints should specify BPNA, not E-Loan.
I promptly closed my E-Loan accounts, though they fought me tooth and nail about closing them. And at first they said it would take 30 days to close the accounts, though I'd opened them only three days previous! "It's in the terms of service," they said. "And it's in the terms of service that you won't abuse your access to my checking account!" I retorted.
They said I'll have my money back in five to 10 business days, and I have my lawyer at the ready just in case. I am livid. High rates are NOT worth this kind of crazyness. And I will be filing complaints about this. These people should not be allowed to do business.
So, I look into my account yesterday and lo and behold--they continue this erradic money movement on Monday and Tuesday. I just called them up (after spending an hour on hold), and they said they would get someone to call me back.
I am livid. I am really livid. I have been hit with two not-enough-funds fees from my other bank (checking account). What is going on over there?
I am starting to look up contacting the Federal Reserve; it seems to be a drawn-out paper process, but it is all there is. ING Direct, I felt, was not doing me justice at 4.4% but at least they never made these kinds of mistakes in the 4 or so years I have been with them.
One mistake--everyone makes them. Two--now I get nervous, and when you cannot even legible explain to me why this is happening, I get very nervous.
I have today written a letter to the FDIC, SEC and my state banking commission. I wish I had friends in the TV media so that I could tell them to get the story out about this whole fiasco.
I encourage others to write and complain as well otherwise nothing will get fixed in the future. At a minimum they needed to inform everyone of the problem.
After the ****-ups and corrections, our balances at E-Loan are now correct. Fortunately there were no NSF problems caused by their errors.
However, they continue to fail to respond to any of our secure messages that they promise via statements on their web site to answer within one business day. I have tried repeatedly to contact them via phone without sucesss. Like others, I have stayed on hold for hours without talking to anyone.
It is like communicating with a Black Hole.
We are becoming very nervous about the safety of our deposits.
We, like others, are wary that interest will not be paid for all of the time our funds were in the ACH cyberspace due to E-Loan's ****ups.
We continue to send our secure messages into the Black Hole, hoping that they will be answered.
After several increasingly angry emails and several messages left on the voice mails of "managers/supervisors" I finally got my situation resolved.
Although this was initiated by my mistake, customer service at Eloan should have been more willing to help me with the situation. Instead, they detered me with their ambivalence, rudeness, and slow response. When I am dealing with my own money and savings, I definitely would feel concerned if my bank was suddenly not helping me gain access to my personal accounts. Eloan's inability to resolve problems in a timely matter has caused me to lose faith in them and to seek banking elsewhere.
Note the "cumulative" -- if you type a bad password, then type a good password -- your "bad password count" is not reset.
Over the course of a few weeks, with a new account and following up on duplicate transfer errors, it was easy for me to hit that threshold and get my locked on what seemed like "the first try."
The only way to unlock the account is to go through the eloan phone queue (there's no website interface for doing it -- and 'non-secure' email requests were not honored).
I won't tell you how long I was on hold, but let me tell you this: I found out my company's phone system automatically ends calls that have been open for more than 2 hours!
Ultimately after leaving multiple messages with "non-savings" eloan CSRs (while on hold on another line) I got a call back from an eloan manager the following day.
The first thing I did after getting the account unlocked was transfer my 100k balance back to emigrant-direct. Then I put that balance into a few 6% APY 3 month CD at a local credit union.
I figure a 3 month CD is a far more more liquid investment than a Banco Popular savings account. :-)
**** you eloan!