Issues with Ally Bank
I have talked about Ally Bank quite a lot recently, from my decision to open an account with the bank, to troubles when trying to get a second account, to eventually leaving the bank after only two weeks. It wasn’t a good experience for me, even though initially I thought I could use Ally Bank for some time because the bank’s predecessor, GMAC Bank, has a track record of keeping its rates relatively stable.
Apparently, my posts on Ally Bank have gotten the attention of the bank and yesterday I was contacted by Laura Johnston, the executive of Social Marketing at GMAC Financial Service. She offered to have a Customer Service manager contact me to address my concerns. Since right now I don’t have much problem with the bank (the transfers were stopped and I moved my money out of the bank already) that needs to be addressed immediately, I decided to give her a full recount of my experience with Ally Bank, especially the part when I opened the second account. To be fair, I have never opened more than one account with any other online banks, so I don’t know whether what happened with Ally Bank could happen with other banks or not, which means the problems I had may not be unique to Ally Bank. Nonetheless, I wanted to tell the bank my story and, hopefully, my experience can help the bank improve.
In my response, I listed a few issues I have with Ally Bank that contribute to my decision to leave:
- During the processing of opening my second CD account last week, I was shown the same account application page when I got my first account after clicking the “open accounts” button from my account. It seems that I will have to start the process all over again because it says I will need my driver’s license number and SSN. Only until I clicked the “start application” and made a selection on “How Many Account Owners?”, I saw the option to open an account as an existing customer. It will be much easier if the choice to open an account either as a current customer (I am still logging in my account, so I must be a current customer) or a new customer at the is given at very beginning, instead of having to click a few button to see the selection.
- After selecting “Joint Account”, I also chose “Current Customer with user name and password. I can access my Ally Bank account”, because that’s what’s applicable to me, and the type of account type I want to open and opening deposit. Then I was asked to log in. This is where the problem started. Once I had that log in screen, I logged in with my own ID and password without thinking too much because I am a “Current with user name and password. I can access my Ally Bank account.” However, after I logged in, I was shown an account page where my name appeared as both the primary and secondary account owner, which wasn’t what I wanted to have in a joint account. So I called customer service and was told that to have both my wife and me appeared on the account, I had to log out, start again, and log in with my wife’s ID and password (my savings account and first CD account are joint account with my wife). I did what I was told to do and remember, the previous application never finished. The second time I had both my wife’s name and my name on the account, which is correct. The question is what if I want this to be a joint account with somebody else other than my wife? It looks like I wasn’t given the chance to enter the other person’s information.
- When I got to the fund the account page, I saw two CD accounts with two different account numbers and both ask for $56,000 initial deposit. Apparently, the first attempt somehow went through, even though the process was never completed. Since I only wanted one account, not two, I selected to fund only one of them. I was subsequently given an error message, saying something like I have to fund both accounts in order to proceed (I don’t remember exactly what the error message is, but I can’t continue if I don’t fund two accounts). Without any other choice, I selected to fund both accounts with $56K and finally got the congratulation page, saying my accounts were successfully opened (something like that).
- The next thing I did was listing accounts I own. In addition to the savings account I opened early, I also saw three CD accounts and the last two required a total of $112K deposit. Realizing this could be a big problem, I tried to edit one of the transfers, but I couldn’t despite that Ally Bank has the option to edit or cancel a transfer. I asked the CSR and later a manager why I can’t change the transfer that I made only minutes ago, I was told once a transfer is submitted, I am not allowed to edit or cancel it. If that’s the case, then what’s that “Edit” function for if there’s no way I can use it? I have transferred funds between banks very frequently and many banks, like HSBC Direct, IGoBanking, and Dollar Savings Direct, let me make changes after submitting a transfer request minutes or even hours later. But not with Ally Bank.
- The only choice for me to stop the transfer and avoid overdrafting my checking account , as I was told, was to call Bank of America to put a stop order. I did and fortunately, the transfers were stopped so I don’t have to pay a load of overdraft fees for transfers that are scheduled to occur later.
My overall experience with Ally Bank is that it doesn’t make things easier for its customers. Rather I think some information is quite confusing. I like to use banks that are easy to deal with. Since there are many banks out there, I feel that I don’t have to stick to a bank that has caused me so much trouble so far, even though maybe nothing is the bank’s fault. I like simple.
Finally, I told Laura that I was initially attracted to Ally Bank because it had better rates. Now, after less than two months, that’s no longer the case. What bothers me even more is that Ally Bank adjusts its rate every week. I am not aware any other bank does this on the savings/CD/money market accounts. When I open a savings account, I want a good rate and I want it to be relatively stable. Unfortunately, I have neither from Ally Bank now.
Do you have any issue with Ally Bank?
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It is true that the customer service at ally bank is downright rude and jam packed with condesending illiterates. The rebranding was a complete mess. The could not accommodate logins greater than 20 characters even though GMAC had no problems with that. It took over a month for me to even access my account on ally’s website. This month I was notified by a debit on my account statement that I was being subjected to Backup Withholding Adjustments. Apparently I never signed new signature cards for ally bank, even though they were filed with GMAC. I was never notified of this requirement or the potential withholding. The CSR said that they sent the information in the welcome kit that I never received. What is interesting is that on line they do not show the debit, just in the written statement.
The CSR Manager when asked why this was the case, explained indeed it was shown, for if I added the interest to the previous balance I would note a discrepancy in the new balance and that discrepancy is the amount of the withholding. Outrageous.
I pulled my money – well asked that that be done – whether or not I ever get my check is yet to be seen. I was informed that I will get the 5 days interest from 7/5 – 7/13 – thats another one yet to be seen.
They also violated the law which says that a payee must be notified of the backup withholding; they never did. What irks me most that they have no interest in any customer service. I know that my measly $60k isn’t much to them, but they proved it by, in a sense saying that my account was not important to them, my business was not important, a good company would have contacted me by mail or email saying that my business is important and that if I didn’t send the signature cards I would be assessed with the withholding. But of course that never happened.
I have spent more time with these clowns over the phone than any other financial institution and it has never, ever been a pleasent experience. Now it is my one-man-crusade to tell everyone I can. I hope that others experiencing the same withholding due to ally’s ineptness will contact me at todd.gundlach@gmail.com – I plan to contact the IRS and the Massachusetts Attorney General on the withholding to see what happens. It is also worth the $20 to file a small claim, and who knows maybe it will snowball.
STAY AWAY FROM ALLY BANK, THEY ARE NO ALLY OF YOURS.
I have opened web accounts at 8 banks over the past 4 years and Ally is, by far, the most user friendly I have ever used. This includes initial opening for multiple accounts (which most do not offer), adding on additional CDs (also difficult at some banks) and movement of money within (account to account) and to/from Ally.
I also experienced the same screen you mention (when logged in) when I went to open a new CD. While initially confusing, I just went right past it. Ally should correct that for logged in clients so they do not see the screen.
One problem you mentioned previously was adding to a CD that you already opened. You cannot do that at any bank for a traditional CD once it is open and intially funded.
I am not sure if your issues are “user error” or Ally system caused issues. Other than the one screen, I have had zero problems with Ally.
Unfortunately for most bank depositors, rates are moving down and Ally is still competitive. I still have online savings at other banks at or just above Ally’s current rate of 1.95%.
Todd: Your experience seems to be worse than mine. Actually, it was quite OK when I opened my first account. No issue at all. It’s only the second time that gave me a bad taste.
Josephine: As I said above, maybe nothing is really Ally Bank’s fault, except this one: I didn’t complete the process of opening the CD account in my first attempt, but the account was opened anyway. But I feel that the bank can sure make things a little clearer so there will be no confusions leading to potential human errors.
In my first post, I indeed said that it’s convenient that Ally Bank allows customers to open multiple accounts at the same time rather than doing so one by one. As for adding additional fund to existing CD account, I was surprised initially that the bank doesn’t allow me to do so (believe it or not, this is the first time I have a CD account), but then I later realized that adding more money to a existing CD account doesn’t really make sense before the term difference and, maybe, rate changes. So I didn’t list that as an issue.
Every bank has its own ways of doing business. For the nearly a dozen bank accounts I own, some are extremely easy to deal with. Unfortunately, Ally Bank doesn’t belong to that category from my experience (the fact that it doesn’t allow me to change a pending transfer separates it from other banks).
Sun, I will have to side with Josephine on the “user error” statement- sorry. And one can never add to a CD unless its a special CD with add-on features.
General advice from personal experience…if you hit issues with an online application,STOP,and EXIT gracefully the current session. LOGOUT and then LOGIN and VERIFY.
If you see our wrong application online call CSR and get a live agent.Do not “click twice’. Meaning – do not re-do the application ‘hoping’ that someone (without calling CSR) will see the 2nd one and will cancel the first one.
Jm: The CD account is not a problem. However, I do think it’s the bank’s error to let the first account be opened even though the process was never completed. How it did it, I don’t know, but I was on the phone with the CSR who told me I needed to log out first and log back in to start the process again. Could this be the problem? That’s entirely possible, right?
I just called Ally to ask about the signature card. The existing GMAC signature card should be left in the new Ally database. As long as no one removes the database entry, the backup withholdings, etc should not occur. Also, apprarently a signature card is expected by GMAC / Ally within 60 days of “account opening” before withholding starts. Although, account opening may mean something other than expected with the conversion to Ally.
Also it’s hard to tell from bankrate whether Ally is now 1.95 or 1.70% yield. Dollar Savings Direct is 1.70% though.
mkchiu: You just reminded me about the signature card. I received it in the mail, but haven’t sent it back it. I don’t want backup withholding.
Hi Sun,
You just gave them about $50K’s worth of User Interface Design analysis for free you know. And they’re not going to bump up your CD’s rate to compensate you for the professional GUI analysis you did for them.
Ok I’m all the way to the top of the Executive Resolution Team and they are just as bad as the CSRs – The term they use for the poor woman on the other end of the phone is the “voice of the customer” 215-734-6649.
So I get my check and deposit it into my local bank for safe keeping. The day later they mail me a letter that I receive 4 days after that – they put a hard hold on the check even though it is an ‘official check’. I am furious at the CSR mgr on the phone last night, happens to be the same poor sap that I berated on the 13th. He finally capitulates with the above number and information.
I call the number this morning, message says the lady will be back on Monday (duh it is Monday – change your message – but her message leaves the number of her supervisor – 215-734-6287 – this is the Executive Resolution Team Supervisor). I want to talk to them because the CSR mgr says that all I have to do is talk to my bank to release the funds overnight – there is nothing Ally can do.
I sit with the poor Asst. Branch Mgr. this afternoon for 2 hours and 10 minutes as she tries and tries to get the check verified, none of the phone numbers above come up on their “411″ system as official bank numbers, therefore anyone they talk to cannot be verified as actual bank people (I am not kidding you). I enable a quasi-conference call between the local bank and Ally’s Executive Resolution Team Supervisor, and still the local bank cannot verify the anything to do with Ally, the numbers on the bottom of the check are not typical. The poor Asst. Branch Mgr. eventually gets to other branch managers in other towns as the locals are all on vacation, she breaks through to the hard hold department (she won’t give me that number)whom informs her (and I am not kidding here and the quotes are genuine), “Ally Bank is no ally of Citizens and we have problems verifying Ally Bank funds”. I am livid. My money will now be out of Citizens within a week and back to a good old credit union – check out harborone.com – their i-savings is getting 1.70 with zero hassles.
Very unsatisfied with Ally. I scheduled ACH transfer and it initiated. Next day it returned to original Ally account as a deposit, Ally could not explain why. Ally agreed to Bank Wire the amount to destination account but required a form. They emailed form I completed form and my local institution faxed it to them including extra forms to help Ally to complete transfer. The Bank Wire failed to complete. This all occurred on a Friday before Labor Day weekend. I had this and other transactions scheduled for this day as a way to pool funds into a CD before the Holiday, four banking institutions were involved only Ally failed me and twice. Ally can’t explain what happened with the ACH transfer but with the Bank Wire the excuse was employee training. Ally has caused loss of interest income and much aggravation. I will be moving away from Ally and recommend all to avoid this institution.
I was considering opening an accout with ALLY BANK but after reading about what takes place I have had second thoughts.
I have never felt so irritated at any bank! I opened up an account, per my client’s request, with Ally. It took 3-4 days for approvals just to open the accounts. My client (a LARGE bank in the US) deposited money into the accounts. It took almost 1 week for verification (this is a LARGE bank transfering money into Ally)…go figure…ONE WEEK to verify this. NOW they will not let me access the money…and it’s been TWO WEEKS since it was verified by Ally. I have called and called and “chatted” and called and I get NO ANSWERS as to why this is going on! I can not get my money and NO ONE WILL GIVE ME AN ANSWER and NO ONE CALLS ME LIKE THEY TELL ME THEY WILL. This has been the WORST experience I have ever had with any company or bank.
I have been a customer of GMAC/Ally for 2 years and have had no issues. I used to bank with ING and have slowly transfered almost all my money from ING to Ally since ING’s rates keep going down. I think Ally is just a better bank and I really like their No Penalty CD product in particular since it is a good place to park money until we figure out where interest rates are headed.
No doubt the No Penalty CD is a good product with attractive rate (if you lock in the good rate). However, I was more frustrated by the frequency of Ally Bank’s rate change than by the issues I described here. Seriously, what’s the point of a savings account adjusting rate every week?
Rates will keep going lower, even though the Fed will keep the benchmark rate at the current level for a while. Some banks are rather quick to move rates up when the overall environment moves to the direction of raising rates.