Is it discrimination to cancel a customer’s checking account for their bad credit? ING Direct has done so to Nick, who emailed me (and Consumerist) a complaint forwarded to the ING Direct ombudsman. ING Direct has closed his Electric Orange account, a checking account that earns 0.20% – 1.10% APY currently.
Evidently, ING Direct performs periodic account reviews and will close accounts from customers who may abuse their overdraft protection based on credit reports. Nick admitted he had been “living in” the $1,000 overdraft protection (more like a cash advance). That could have triggered the account review.
I must express that I am heartbroken!! Yes, I have credit that is less than desirable, but I do not feel that is a basis for your discriminatory actions. Your decision has left me heartbroken, and also feeling foolish for all the recommendations that I’ve made to people for ING Direct…
Also of note, I have received two letters from your company regarding making more than “six transfers” from my savings. After the first letter, I carefully planned my transactions in such a way that I would use 2-3 transactions on each of my savings accounts, after which point they would be used for deposit only. ING Direct does not to tell people that they count transfers among ALL the savings accounts for a customer number toward the six each month.
As someone who received a similar six-transfer-maximum letter, I am sure Nick is misinformed on this point. The limit is six per account, not per SSN, as confimed by an ING Direct customer service representative. Nick probably received a second letter after changing the withdrawals because these letters are delayed by at least a month.
But this issue is unrelated to the closing of the checking account. Was this done fairly? Continue reading for ING Direct’s initial notice and Nick’s full response.
This letter was sent from ING Direct to Nick.
Dear Nicholas,
Customer Number: XXXXXXXXXXBased on your credit score, which was provided by a consumer-reporting agency, we have decided to close your account. We have reduced your Overdraft Line of Credit to zero ($0). We feel this action is in your best interest as well as ours.
Because we want to make sure you have time to manage the transition of your account, we will leave the deposit portion of your account open for the next 30 days. Please use that time to:
* Change any direct deposits you currently have scheduled for your Electric Orange.
* Update any bill payments that are currently set up for your Electric Orange.
* Repay any outstanding balance you might have on the Overdraft Line of Credit.
* Allow any pending transactions to clear.After 30 days, you will not be able to use your Electric Orange – it will be restricted from all account activity. This means you will not be able to transfer funds in to or out of your Electric Orange or use your MasterCard(r) debit card.
Any account balance plus any interest earned on your Electric Orange will be transferred back to your external, linked checking account five business days later. However, if we know of transactions that have not cleared within those five days, we will wait to transfer funds until those transactions have been processed.
Please keep in mind, that while information from a consumer-reporting agency in whole or in part influenced our decision, the reporting agency did not make this decision and cannot provide information about it. However, if you have any specific questions regarding your credit report, you can contact that agency directly using the following information:
Equifax
Consumer Services
Atlanta, GA 30374-0241
1-800-685-1111
www.equifax.comUnder section 612 of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, you have a right to obtain a free copy of your credit information on file at the agency, if your request is made within 60 days of receiving this notice. Under Section 611 of the Act, you also have the right to dispute the accuracy or completeness of any information contained in that report.
Please note this does not affect any other accounts you may have with ING DIRECT. In addition, you are welcome to re-apply for another Electric Orange again in 30 days. If you have any questions, you can give us a call at 1-888-464-0727 from 8 AM to 8 PM any day of the week.
Thank you.
Here is Nick’s full response. Is it warranted?
When I first opened my ING Account, the rates, services and products were unlike anything I’d encountered in the banking world! The ING Direct website is fantastic, easy-to-use and VERY helpful. If one calls your call center, the representatives are always helpful, enthusiastic, and definitely one of the better customer service experiences out there. You deserve a great kudos
for that!However, I have enclosed an email that I received yesterday, and I must express that I am heartbroken!! Yes, I have credit that is less than desirable, but I do not feel that is a basis for your discriminatory actions. Your decision has left me heartbroken, and also feeling foolish for all the reccomendations that I’ve made to people for ING Direct. You can bet that has ceased, and will be replaced with a stern warning for anyone considering opening any kind of account with your company. I have also re-advised people to whom I have reccommended ING Direct to in the past, as I wish no one to have to go through this terrible situation. I’ve also advised several finance ‘blogs as to ING Direct’s new practices, as they have spoken very highly of your company in the past.
Also of note, I have recieved two letters from your company regarding making more than “six transfers” from my savings. After the first letter, I carefully planned my transactions in such a way that I would use 2-3 transactions on each of my savings accounts, after which point they would be used for depost only. ING Direct does not to tell people that they count transfers among ALL the savings accounts for a customer number toward the six each month. This practice is misleading, and should be clarified in future letters sent out.
I have closed out my CD’s, and all but two accounts. I will eventually be closing all of my accounts, and using only my local Credit Union.
Thank you for your time, and I wish you the best of luck in the future.
I still hold a good portion of my cash at ING Direct, though in a few months I plan on simplifying my finances and reducing the number of banks I do business with.
Updated October 13, 2011 and originally published May 10, 2007. If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the RSS feed or receive daily emails. Follow @flexo on Twitter and visit our Facebook page for more updates.
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It seems most everyone here is being responsible. Just another arrogant remark from a Fico snob. I have an average Fico score not excellent. Various reason, none which include irresponsibility. I have had a very high Fico score before and proberly will again one day when this storm of life passes. But I do know for sure I have never bragged or would base my character or spiritual being on a score based used for credit rating.
The ING closings made no sense or have rhyme or reason to the people they choose to keep open or close. They have kept my account open?
Comment 154, “Rob”
You should be thanking God they don’t lock up people without empathy.
Let me clue you in on something…Not having the ability to put yourself in others’ shoes, and viewing life from their vantage point is a horrible lack of information.
Also, “Rob”, poor reading comprehension in addition to lacking empathy must make you one cold kinda guy; sort of like a neo-conservative authoritarian. Makes me wanna see what happens when YOU lose your job, have a medical problem, or someone in your family experiences it, and exceeds your insurance coverage, OR lose your job, and THEN have a major medical issue balloon your debt. Is that where the rest of us normally human, warm-hearted types can go “nener nener told ya so!”?
Seeing things in black and white must be a terrible way to live…sort of lacks a 3 dimensional view of human life.
What part of “closed my account because of credit score”, not OLOC, did you miss?
Sorry man, but your chastizing others for situations that you have no idea actually exist takes big cojones, and little brains.
For now, ING has paid a price for their previous policies, and many consumers have learned a valuable lesson in what can happen at any time when you agree to certain terms.
I hope for everyone’s sake that some day we all can reach a point in life where everything is fair. Until then, I wish you all good luck dealing with how nasty life can be.
Recently it became possible to “freeze” your credit with the credit bureaus so no one can access it. Wonder what ING would do then? They request a SSN to report interest to the IRS and then abuse having it by accessing your credit report. Sounds like dirty pool to me.
I have recently closed my ING DIRECT accounts after their shady business practice, i would recommend anyone who’s thinking of converting to an ONLINE BANK from their traditional B&M to hold that thought.
John
I don’t know anything about this specific case. But I do know that ING has lied to me and that they are, in effect, stealing money from me. Serious charges I know, but hear me out.
I was one of my customers that ING “inherited” when NetBank went belly up. I received documents from ING shortly thereafter (fall of 07′). I had 4 CDs at ING. Once I received those docs I called ING and their customer rep told me that, because of the special circumstances of the funds transfer (over which I had absolutely no control!!) I would be allowed to “break” my CDs at any time (not just within 30 days, but anytime!!), without penalty. I wanted to adjust the maturity date of the CDs to more conveniently create a CD ladder for my son’s college education, making all of them come due in early June in anticipation of paying tuition over the summer of ’09 thru ’12. So I made a reminder in Outlook to call ING in early June of ’08 to do just that. The reminder came up…I called ING…and they told me that I would have to pay a penalty. Needless to say, I am removing all funds from this bank.
They lied…plain and simple. And they are stealing money from me by making me pay a penalty for “breaking” my CDs…after they had told me they would do no such thing.
Do not do business with these people.
Hi Joe, I can absolutely 100% sure that netbank customers were not told that they change their CD terms at anytime. You were suppose to either take your cd’s out at the time of conversion or wait till it matured. Why would you call 7 months later to change the CD when the takeover occured in Dec. I am sure there is more to your story, please do not bash when without telling both sides.
I was told that. Why did I wait?…because I wanted the maturity dates to be in June…so the funds would be available at an appropriate time to pay college tuition, etc.
How can you be “…100% sure…”??…you weren’t listening to my conversation with the ING rep who told me that. The take away lesson is…if it ain’t written down, it hasn’t been said. What bothers me is that the ING rep was slimy enough to lie to me in order to keep my funds for another 6 months. In don’t treat clients like that.
Both sides? What is the other said except lies…a lie 7 months ago…and a lie now denying the lie 7 months ago? If you wish not to believe me, so be it. I have no proof. But I can tell you that after that conversation, I set up a reminder in Outlook, reminding me to “break” my CDs and set up a new CD ladder in early June…now why would I do that if I hadn’t been told I could break the CDs sans penalties? Do you think me delusional?
Believe me, if the rep hadn’t told me I could “break” penalty free at a later date I would have cashed them in right then.
Some bankers do lie…I know that for a fact. You are, of course, free to believe as you wish. But sometimes, someone has to say…”the emperor has no clothes…” when all around us everyone says how beautiful his gown is…and he’s really naked as a jaybird.
Joe and Christine.
I was an employee if ING Direct at the time that they aquired Netbank directly involved with the Sales and Service side of the business. There were multiple times that information was told to customers that were correct at the time and then policies changed. From what I understand, Joe should be at no fault for a penalty. ING is known for policy changes to protect the bank quite often. I can honestly say that the only safe product they offer is the Orange Savings Account. Because there are no strings attached.
— Joe that is rediculous that they can not make an exception for you due to the issues that you have had to deal with the Netbank conversion. It ended up being a partial disaster for all parties involved.
—Christine, I would check where you recieved your information from. It is 100% incorrect.
All of the phone calls are recorded so you can actually call and have the conversation listened to and in some cases you can listen to the call yourself.
To Anon or anyone who feels the way he feels: If you’re going to help, then help, if not, shut up. You sound like the type who would callously say to a drowning man “why are you screaming, you should have learned to swim while you had the opportunity”!! I’m also willing to bet that you will even defend your right to act so cold!! “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks”
Hello.. Its been 18 months since my account was closed. I wasn’t happy. But eventually I got over it. There were MANY other banks begging for my business. Maybe its time everyone else moved on as well. ING will eventually pay for what it did to many of its customers. They won’t get my business anymore and I won’t recommend them. End of story.
This is crazy. ING makes money on overdaraft fees. anyone who thinks that ING is looking out for their customers by filtering out the “deadbeats” should buy this bridge I’m selling in Brooklyn.
No I am correct but I guess one too many errors would explain why you are a former employee.
When you open the electric orange account online or by phone it clearly states that your credit will be pulled and your credit must meet the requirements before the account is open. It also states that your credit will be looked at randomly to make sure you still qualify for the account. ING is great! Sorry Nick but it is your fault. People who make this mistake probably didnt listen to the associate or didnt read the terms and agreements ( by the way you have to read the terms and agreements before the account is opened as well). If you dont believe the associate didnt tell you that the credit would be pulled then call and have the call pulled to found out. Its that easy.
Aann: You probably didn’t realize this, so I’ll forgive your ignorance, but that was NOT in the TOS when I signed up for this OVER A YEAR AND A HALF AGO!! When you are on the internet, please look at the DATE of a posting if you are going to reply to something, so you can remember to look at things in context, and you will make a more informed post.
When the EO accounts were initially offered the terms said Overdraft Protection WITHOUT ANY credit check. I guess you didn’t read the entire blog or didn’t understand the point of it all. The terms were changed and the people who had an under the previous terms were never “grandfathered” in.
I read the terms and agreements before I opened an account. “No Credit Check” were the origional terms. That was the entire point of the blog.
I’ve had a series of hitherto inconceivable violations of policy committed against me and my accounts there. I had two CDs, a savings account, and a checking account. My husband had one CD, and a checking account which we shared [both names and both social security numbers attached].
Today, I have one CD, one savings account, and one jointly held checking account. My husband closed my other accounts and opened new accounts in his name alone with the proceeds, then [destroyed all my shoes, most of my clothes, books, and furniture, broke my foot and knee, destroyed the surgical recontruction of my previously injured right hand and ruptured ligaments and cartilage of my left, and tried to push me out of the house we shared, leased in my name. then he went to jail, for two hours, which is when I discovered the changes made at the bank and immediately changed my passwords, but] attempted to gain control of my remaining accounts, which accounts were frozen as he’d made the maximum allowed attempts using incorrect passwords. ING froze my access to my accounts, not just his access: they required that I use a new ING generated PIN, and delayed providing it for 10 days. When I received the new PIN, I was advised that they were holding all of my accounts, at my husband’s request, pending submission of a document granting him ownership and total proceeds of all but the jointly held checking account.
I won’t quote the diverse written policies broken here, but merely offer that ombusman reps repeatedly deny knowledge of any policy at all. Their manner is so unprofessional that one might presume they are not an accredited, insured financial institution headquartered in NL at all but are more likely a Romanian laundering outfit. Every request for information, every attempt to provide documentation, every single encounter with ING Direct’s fraud unit is not just time wasted; it’s engagement of the sort of obstreperous bullying covered by 8 different State of CA civil codes. And that’s likely how I’ll recover / spend the funds in question.
I have been with ING for over a year now and never had a problem until last week. I am presently deployed in Iraq. I use sharebuilder linked in my ING banking account and when I tried to buy some stocks last week, I was blocked from the sharebuilder account. I called ING and they said because I am overseas I cannot enter the ING/Sharebuilder website. We really sucks because I have thousands of dollars in their brokerage and have no access to it. I am presently trying to figure a way for my attorney to gain access to my stock account to remove all my investments and money markets from ING and transfer them to other brokers. When I called the man just said sorry but the computer picked up you were not in the USA and so access is denied. I told him I needed to withdraw my funds and he said sorry sir but you can not do that from overseas. I do not have R&R for 5 month so cannot get to my money unless my attorney can access my accounts. As soon as I remove the money from ING brokerage I intend on removing all accounts from ING and transfering to E-trade.
Have you tried USAA? They work with the military, including if you are deployed overseas and they have multiple products and great customer service.
Do not get an ING Direct mortgage – it is classed a Predatory Home Loan in Massachusetts, due to their 3% prepayment penalty! ING Direct may be a Predatory Lender in your state too. I held my loan for 3 years and did not miss a payment, upon selling my house ING took 60% of the profits as a fee without any warning, which is illegal under Mass State Law. I’m trying to recover the thousands ING decided to keep for themselves and I’ll let you know what progress I make…
You know an easy way to control whether or not they can check your credit and then close your account? I’ve placed a freeze on all of my credit records, you can’t pull them at all without specific authorization which I have to call in to the credit agency they are trying to pull my record with. I have to pay a small fee to the credit company to life the freeze for a limited time, if I choose to let them. This prevents so many problems. They can’t close an account based on credit if you don’t allow them to check your credit. I personally see no reason why any company should touch your records without approval from you first. If they hit your credit when it’s frozen and it comes back that it’s frozen, and they approve your account anyway, you now have legal ammo if they close your account and use that “we checked your credit” BS. Then you’d know it’s just a lie they’ve used to close your account down.
Although, I doubt in 2010 this will be a problem anymore. There have been several new bills passed into law in regards to credit and banking thanks to banks being unable to handle themselves as a private enterprise. They need someone to hold their hands apparently. I’m all for strict regulation on banks. I personally don’t think they are able to balance their own check books let alone yours.
Stay away from ING. If you login from outside the US (like from Canada), they can lock your account and keep the money for up to a year. They are great until you run into a single problem. Only then you’ll see the true face of this nasty bank. A friend of mine also had a very bad experience with ING. They blocked his account because he used PO box as a mailing address (While moving to another state). If you change your mailing address it raises the ‘red flag’ automatically and they pull your credit history to verify that the mailing address is already part of your credit report. If not, then say good bye to your money. Stay away from this “bank”.
I hate to read these negative comments about ING. I’ve been a customer for 5 yrs and I haven’t had any problems. I was in Korea for 12 months and accessed my ShareBuilder account with no problems whatsoever. I was only shocked that I was able to make free withdrawals at a Bank of America ATM.
Sorry to say but people with the low credit scores are the ones that drove the economy into the dirt, but the people that allowed them to take out credit are the ones at fault, the customer is always right, sometimes. All I know is that if i were a bank and someone walked through the door with a low credit score i would NOT let them overcharge their account because what if i never get the money back and get defaulted upon. Stop seeing things from the little one’s point of view and see it from the ones who actually have money on the line.
As stated in the Account Terms and Conditions you agreed to when you opened your ING DIRECT account(s), we can close Customer accounts at any time, for any reason and without advance notice. After reviewing your activity, we’ve determined it’s in the Bank’s best interest to close your account(s).
Your Electric Orange(SM) and Debit MasterCard® will be closed 30 days from the date of this email.
That is the letter I got. They closed my account for no reason. Also, they refused to inform me of why they closed the account. DO NOT USE THIS BANK!!!
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