Comments on: Time Magazine Story about ING Direct

By: Tim

Tim — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 19:50:44 +0000

ratechaser, i’ve had the exact opposite experience with Igobank. my CSR’s sounded like little old ladies in white tennis shoes to me. i had a small issue opening the account, but ever since then, i have had no problems. maybe it will be different if i ever have to call them again. BTW, just because they have an accent doesn’t mean it is being staffed outside the US. don’t get me wrong, I like ING. i’m just not nuts over their indifference.

By: ratechaser

ratechaser — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 01:29:04 +0000

personally i consider customer service to be the most important part of any ebank. After all if you are going to trust 3-15k of liquid cash in an institution you cant visit it makes sense that quality customer care should be a priority. I am an Etrade, Igobanking and ING customer and the few times that I have called Etrade and Igobankinig the customer service was obviously being staffed outside of the US and the quality of help was poor. To their credit ING can afford to do this because their website is simple and the whole process is very streamlined. So in summary while ING cant please all rate chasers for the majority of America that just wants to bank simple it works fine.

By: Tim

Tim — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 07:17:13 +0000

I did the same thing emptying out ING in favor of Igobank. ING is helped because of the signup bonuses, and the fact it has done some good marketing. what troubles me about ING is the CEO’s “knock your self out” comment. indifference from a company with your money is not a good sign for me nor does it give me confidence in the company. i have to wonder about the signup rates and defection rates posted; however, I agree that there are probably more defections in terms of moving money out to get higher rates, rather than complete closure of accounts. ING has been my fall back account, but I think I’m just going to close it now. it doesn’t make sense for me to keep minimum in that account since I get the a better rate out of my MMA, which I can use as a fallback account to Igobanking.

By: junger

junger — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 01:17:55 +0000

When I read the article, the most interesting part that jumped out was the fact that ING realizes that not every customer is “right” for what they offer.

Quality, not quantity, in action.

By: zeron

zeron — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 20:09:45 +0000

“…customer service doesn’t play a decisive role in choosing an online bank. What matters the most is rate.”

you maybe right on the first statement but not on the second one. for me what matters the most is security infrastructure of the bank both the online(web) and the backend. small banks may offer best rates but small banks don’t have the best security. with identify theft,
web hacking, phishing, etc. that’s growing at rapid rate, security will play an important role in my deciding for an online banking.

i like to chase rates but i don’t want to give my social security number just easily.