ING Orange Savings accounts, Pop’s Bottom Line recommendation: AVOID ING Savings.
Who hasn’t seen the ‘Big orange ball’ commercials and ads for ING banking, boasting an easy way to “make your money work harder for you”? So have I…and I did something about it.
Not long after this Canadian-based bank began splattering televisions, magazines, and various other ad mediums with their orange balls I opened two ING Orange savings accounts. This was about 2004, and I made an initial deposit of $50 into each acct.
*( A little background info before I proceed. We are an older blue-collar couple living in Martinsburg, West Virginia.
I am a Vietnam-era veteran who now works in the coal mining support industry and my wife works at a local Walmart. Having raised our six children in Baltimore, we moved to WV in 2000 seeking a quieter second-half of our lives.
As older Americans with 16 grandchildren, we always have one eye open for Investment-grade options in order to better prepare for our pending retirements, and this Canadian bank attempting to break into American markets by offering a unique savings account seemed at the time to fill that bill.
The point is this: While our budget has grown some slack since the kids moved out, we’re not financially able to just throw money around…or to have it legally stolen from us, which was the final result of this experiment with ING Savings.)
OK, the first few months with these two new accounts (one for my wife and one for myself) were actually pretty cool to watch. The Orange savings account applies the interest monthly, which means you can watch your balance change on a month-to-month basis and simply verifies one of ING’s original promises…so far, so good. In fact, I was so impressed that I opened a checking account as well.
Not long after that point I began bumping the savings accounts a bit, about $50 at a time. While my memory is a bit sketchy on the dates and such, my last verified transfer from my BOA checking was for $1,000 in 2007…and here’s where it gets a bit weird.
Having “tested the waters” enough to satisfy my natural ‘city boy’ suspicions, I simply filed the ING accounts away as yet another retirement investment option, with the intention to check back in five to ten years for an update…and if they’re doing well, we can bump them further to increase the projected returns. That brings us to now, 2012, and my discovery just last week.
My Accounts Are GONE.
Yes, GONE, Vanished, Stolen. Both of my savings accounts, as well as my checking: Consumed and Deleted by ING’s banking fees.
The primary culprit was apparently a “dormant account fee” ($25) which continues to feed on the account until it is depleted…but I would like to point out the faulty logic in this charge:
The first and coolest thing I noticed way back in 2004 about the Orange Savings account was the fact that the balance changes every month as interest is applied. This may only amount to a few pennies at a time, but the balance is changing every 30 days. Does that sound like an inactive or dormant account to you? You’re right…Sounds active to me as well.
ING however, has a different opinion…and saw fit to steal every last cent that these grandparents had entrusted to their care.
So, here’s my recommendation: Avoid ING Orange Savings accounts
Trust is an extremely rare commodity these days, and if you can’t offer complete faith to the bank that holds your money, then you’ve chosen the wrong bank.
ING has a few positive points to offer with the Orange accounts, but if you’re planning long-term savings you’re better off elsewhere.
