Once upon a time, maybe a month ago, I blithely opened an Eloan savings account. Call it stupidity, call it basic human error, but I did not note my security answer. Little did I know, this would be the start of all evils....
It turns out that to make ANY transaction at Eloan, you need to type in that answer. Either my clumsy butterfingers slipped and inadvertently inserted a typo somewhere, or I just can't remember the damn order of upper/lower case letters, but bottom line is, I can't remember my answer.
So, what to do? After getting frozen out of my account for mistyping three times, I called the 1-866- number. Ok, turns out you can only call them during business hours (Pacific Time) so I had to wait the entire weekend. No problem. I called and got the inevitable wait....and wait....and wait...and (15 minutes later) wait....finally got a human on the line, who unlocked my account. So I tried again. Minutes later, I'm frozen out again. Alright, I call once more but this time never get a human on the line.
Next choice is to send a Secure Message which will be answered "in one business day." THAT IS THE MOST BLATANT LIE IN HISTORY OF CUSTOMER SERVICE. I did not hear back from them until 4 days later....that's actually record time, because all they did was unlock my account, not reset my security answer (or even acknowledge that) as I'd requested. Back to the phones....got a human being after 5 minutes (woah!). She unlocked mya ccount again, then "promised" to send my request to the IT department, who would "respond in one business day." FIVE days later (I have much patience) no response. And, of course, I've locked myself out once more, trying to see if I can unlock my security answer on my own.
Phone call....email....it's been nearly a MONTH since I first contacted Eloan with this problem. The last human I've spoken to was back on November 2nd. He even sent a follow-up email, again with that promise to get the situation fixed in one or two days. I've sent them three emails and just tried calling them yesterday and today. Guess what? 25 minutes of waiting each time and not a human to be found!
I'm lucky I don't need that money, it was just my savings that I'd hoped to add to, to take advantage of that high interest rate. Now I think I'd be lucky to even SEE that money again.
This is my warning to you...Maybe it is my fault in the end, but customer service should not be this horrid PERIOD.
Eloan My A@# (this is a rant)
November 15th, 2006 at 12:08 am
November 15th, 2006 at 12:23 am 1163550221
November 15th, 2006 at 12:30 am 1163550638
November 15th, 2006 at 12:31 am 1163550674
November 15th, 2006 at 03:16 am 1163560586
November 15th, 2006 at 05:03 am 1163567032
November 15th, 2006 at 05:55 am 1163570141
November 15th, 2006 at 12:54 pm 1163595251
i chose the grand yield direct online savings account, because it's the online 'arm' of a birck & mortar bank in NY. my thoughts were that hopefully i would get the best of both worlds...
November 15th, 2006 at 03:38 pm 1163605118
You can also do some search on epinions.com and see what people's experiences are with different banks. This is why I decided to stay away from emigrant and ING & ESPECIALLY etrade. I didn't research eloan but you might want to relay your experience on epinion.com as well, to warn others. Though if they treat there customers like this I am sure there are a lot of epinions already.
Good Luck!!!!
November 15th, 2006 at 03:57 pm 1163606240
November 15th, 2006 at 03:58 pm 1163606338
November 15th, 2006 at 07:13 pm 1163618024
Other people have also noted that they're having trouble with e-loan in other ways in the forums.
If I had to make a decision about where to open a savings right now, based on what I know now, I would have opened it with GMAC. However, since I've already opened mine with them, and since I haven't had any problems yet (although I rarely every touch the account either), I'll leave it alone for now.
November 20th, 2006 at 04:00 pm 1164038426
December 22nd, 2006 at 02:39 pm 1166798346
January 8th, 2007 at 03:54 pm 1168271696