Emigrant Direct?

Not a personal endorsement for or against Emigrant Direct, but a way to help you evaluate the bank from here

I have had an account with Emigrant Direct for a few weeks. During that period of time, I have made a couple of transfers in, and received interest. I have not made any transfers out. I download my activity into Quicken via webconnect. I haven't experienced any particular problems. In order to log into your Emigrant Direct account, you have to enter a User Id and Password, just like most banking sites. Once in the site, everything is fairly straightforward. Deposits are insured up to the usual maximums. I don't use a download accelerator. I don't think you need to have any concern regarding account access. The issues seem to be the download accelerator, which has nothing to do with account access, only to Quicken downloads. This type of account will probably not see lots of activity, so any Quicken issues should be minimal. I don't see any real problem here.

"Z Man" wrote in news:C59ue.1044$ snipped-for-privacy@fe11.lga:

Emigrant DIrect was mentioned first (I believe) as an alternative for ING Direct. I just want to mention that my transfer of money for a new (used) car went pretty fast. On-line directions issued on Saturday, money was in my Citibank account Tuesday evening. Just to give them a fair shake.

Thanks everyone, I've just initiated a transfer of my emergency fund to Emigrant Direct. I do so much business over the Internet (and am comfortable doing it), that I was surprised I'd be a bit nervous about Emigrant Direct. But I did a little research, and apparently they're part of a bank (Emigrant Savings Bank) that's been around for hundreds of years. My dad (a banker before he retired) knows of them. So I guess they consist of more than a mailbox and a pay phone. ;-)

Regards,

Margaret

I have accounts with a bank that basically consists of a mailbox, an

800-number and an email address (American Express Membership B@nking), and I get ok service from them. I must just remember to move something in my accounts every six months or so to stop the account from becoming dormant. If it does, they send a little paper notice that I have to snail-mail back.

Every time I call them to close my accounts, they remind me that they are totally free, and that they even refund my foreign ATM withdrawal fees and I relent and keep the account open. How they make a profit out of me I don't have the vaguest idea.

Heheh, I guess I should have said, "I guess they consist of more than a mailbox, a payphone, and someone with a duffle bag and a plane ticket out of the country." ;-)

Your bank must be loaning out your $$, who knows how else they could make a profit. But that's my uninformed guess, worth all of what you paid for it. ;-)

Regards,

Margaret

Sadly, they don't support direct download, which is surprising because Amex credit cards have about the best one step update performance of any card I have ever used.

They recently implemented Web Connect. At least a step in the right direction.

Yes, but I've only managed to get the web connect to actually work once out of three tries (even with my download acccelerator turned off). ING's web connect works every time. Still not the end of the world, especially considering the rate they pay. :-)

Regards,

Margaret