Interesting Money

Well, friends, every time I think I have resolved every possible issue in opening a CD at Indymac Bank, their incompetence rears its ugly head. For background information up to this point, please see:

Part I – Indymac Bank CD Account Opening Review

Part II – Indymac CD Review – Addendum – PURE GARBAGE

Part III – Making Peace with Indymac Bank?

For over a month, all I’ve been trying to do is simply open a CD account online at Indymac. As you can see, I’ve faced serious obstacles every step of the way. Fortunately, my account is finally open! Indymac also re-imbursed my $30 stop payment fee as a credit to my account. However, there is one final problem.

One last slap in the face

When I logged into my CD account through their online banking service, imagine my complete and utter lack of surprise to see that they gave me the WRONG rate. After all of this time and hassle, after solving far too many problems that should not have happened in the first place… they gave me a LOWER rate than promised. Instead of the guaranteed 5.15% APY that they assured me I would still receive, they locked in my CD at 5.00%.

It’s one last slap in the face with a dead fish.

Furiously, I speed-dialed Indymac’s customer service number and barraged the poor outsourced CSR with a one-breath summary of the entire situation. After putting me on hold (of course), he came back and told me he would raise the rate to the promised 5.15% APY. “You’re darn right you will,” I replied, with a sigh of relief.

Today I logged into my account and noticed that the rate is now correct. All seems to be settled with my account, with the exception that I still have not received a signature guarantee form in the mail from them. Without it, I supposedly won’t be able to withdraw the money from my account. The last CSR promised to overnight the form to me, but I have yet to receive it.

Indymac’s company slogan is Raise your expectations. I propose a slight change – Raise your expectations… in vain!

How to frustrate a customer, Indymac style:

Step 1 – Make the initial ACH transfer fail.

Step 2 – Sign for an overnighted check from the customer, and then LOSE it.

Step 3 – Fail to mail a required signature guarantee. Oh, promise to send it twice.

Step 4 – Be sure to hire outsourced CSRs who barely read English.

Step 5 – When you finally decide to open the customer’s account, be sure to give a lower rate than promised. Maybe the customer won’t notice.

Step 6 – At no point should you contact the customer to provide information on any “problems.” What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

Step 7 – Profit?

Needless to say, I will never do business with Indymac again.

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Photo credit – unknown. Please contact me if you know the origin of that awesome photo.