I have a 5 figure amount in a savings account at Wachovia and I wondered what my interest rate on that account was. I learned today that it was 0.35%. I was making < $3/month on my money. I just opened an account at http://www.citibankonline.com and now make 5.25% in interest. Just thought I would share this with everyone.

7/3/2006 1:13:40 PM

That's not abnormal for a bank savings account. If you are wanting to stick with a bank, look into their money markets or CD's. Still realitively low interest rates, but better than a savings account.

My brother works for wachovia and he says there money market accounts are almost always anywhere from 3% to 5.5%, depending on a few different things.

7/3/2006 1:15:55 PM

I spoke with the Wachovia rep today and she said that their money market account is currently at 1.83%.

7/3/2006 1:21:13 PM

Wow that's better than Bank of America--
0.1% for Advantage Checking and 0.5% for normal savings.

Time to open up an Orange account...

7/3/2006 1:21:23 PM

yeah...i have wachovia for the convinience of their ATMs, but i keep my savings in an ING account.

7/3/2006 1:25:00 PM

yeah, ING have really good rates too.

7/3/2006 1:25:46 PM

They're only going to go up we've been in a period of inflation for the last 3-4 years.

7/3/2006 1:26:03 PM

SECU is around 4%

7/3/2006 1:41:16 PM

citibank has 5.0% and they are a real bank

7/3/2006 1:46:36 PM

^ with local atms?

7/3/2006 1:50:18 PM

the closest citibank to raleigh is 40 miles away

7/3/2006 1:52:48 PM

just have a checking account with Wachovia and your savings account with CitiBank.

7/3/2006 2:02:31 PM

Personally I just dislike Wachovia. Their service seems to be quite...slow. I've had two friends go into overdraft protection because the CASH that they deposited didn't go into their account for DAYS. Crap like that, plus taking a long time for checks to go through and for credit card stuff to show up...
Needless to say, I don't bank with Wachovia.

7/3/2006 2:14:23 PM

Can someone explain to me rolling CDs, I have about 20k I want to put into them. Don't need it for a year or so, but it needs to be low risk. How would you allocate this?

7/3/2006 2:16:04 PM

just this week i made the switch from wachovia to secu.

one thing i've noticed already: secu's web stuff isn't nearly as good as wachovia. oh well.

7/3/2006 2:16:04 PM

Quote :

"just have a checking account with Wachovia and your savings account with CitiBank."

yep!

[Edited on July 3, 2006 at 2:19 PM. Reason : i]

7/3/2006 2:17:28 PM

Cyper--send it to me in them mail.

7/3/2006 2:22:40 PM

You seriously need a financial advisor to sit you down, and slap some sense into you. You have NO idea what the fuck you're doing with your $$

7/3/2006 2:27:32 PM

who?

7/3/2006 2:28:28 PM

me?

7/3/2006 2:35:36 PM

Quote :

"Personally I just dislike Wachovia. Their service seems to be quite...slow. I've had two friends go into overdraft protection because the CASH that they deposited didn't go into their account for DAYS. Crap like that, plus taking a long time for checks to go through and for credit card stuff to show up... Needless to say, I don't bank with Wachovia. "

yeah i hate wachovia, secu is obviously much better...the not needing to turn a profit thing must help a bit.

sure their web interface isn't as good, but thats a pretty small tradeoff for all the benefits

7/3/2006 2:39:56 PM

Cypher: you'll do better in a money market fund for 1 year. I don't think you'll do that good with a CD for 1 year.

Check out Vanguard, Very low risk. Good for a short term investment.
http://flagship5.vanguard.com/VGApp/hnw/content/AccountServ/General/ATSMMktOverviewContent.jsp

for comparison check out Wachovia CDs. You'll see you are much better off in a Vanguard Money Market account
http://www.wachovia.com/personal/page/0,,11_481_524_2283,00.html


Although that citibank CD offer looks pretty good (comparable to a money market fund), but you'll need to check the details. The advantage of a money market fund is that you can get your money any time you want (i.e. in case of emergency) and you can even write checks from it.

[Edited on July 3, 2006 at 3:01 PM. Reason : .]

7/3/2006 2:53:39 PM

Quote :

"Personally I just dislike Wachovia. Their service seems to be quite...slow. I've had two friends go into overdraft protection because the CASH that they deposited didn't go into their account for DAYS. Crap like that, plus taking a long time for checks to go through and for credit card stuff to show up... Needless to say, I don't bank with Wachovia."

it happened to me this week, i took extra time off of my lunch break to go personally to the bank to deposit a company income check at 2pm because the lady from the branch has assured me on the phone that any check deposits made by 4pm will be shown friday night.

needless to say, that didnt happen, i went overdraft without knowing, and the charged me all those stupid fees as usually.

i threatened to switch to bank of america

the removed the fees and promised the deposit will be shown today,
that didnt happen

I just finished my bank of america new account application

fuck wachovia

7/3/2006 2:54:39 PM

I agree with the comments about Wachovia's deposits being posted slowly, however I have direct deposit with work, so it doesn't really impact me, as those show immediately.

As far as the original post, if you have 5 figures sitting in Wachovia, you are an idiot.

7/3/2006 3:01:34 PM

^I concur.

7/3/2006 3:06:18 PM

well, i haven't had 5 figures sitting in Wachovia for long. I sold my Jeep Wrangler for quite a lump of change. It was sitting in there til I could figure out what to do with it.

7/3/2006 3:12:08 PM

Screw 'em. I've noticed they used to do things faster too, and now they dont.
I'm still waiting for the deposits from ING to show up so i can finish opening that account, and then transfer about 90% of my money the hell out of that bank.

The remaining ten are only staying with wachovia till i graduate, then I'm probably going to go to BoA

7/4/2006 11:20:39 AM

I set up a money market account with the wife last week with BOFA. Basically have 2 different accounts that are both under money market. One account invests directly in stocks and averages about 8% return conservatively. Its liquid, but we'll use that as more of a savings account. The other account gives us 4.5% interest (currently) and changes according to the market. If the feds raise rates, our rate increases. If its lowered, of course, our rate goes down.

7/4/2006 11:26:11 AM

Quote :

"SECU is around 4%"

For money market accounts. Our savings rate is 1.73. We just raised the rate for CDs as well, 5% on terms up to 36mo. 5.25% on longer terms.

7/4/2006 1:28:54 PM

Your 6 month cds are 5% as well now.

7/4/2006 1:31:54 PM

As I said, terms UP TO 36mo.

7/4/2006 2:08:46 PM

which bank had the commercial where the guy was in the bakery, used his check card, went back to his table, and looked up the transaction right away on his laptop?

also, is it true?

7/4/2006 2:16:32 PM

emigrant-direct has some pretty good rates too 5% right now.... fdic insured up to $100k

http://www.emigrant-direct.com

I'd go through them or ING for savings... Wachovia for checking just because of the billion atm's

7/4/2006 2:21:08 PM

so many dave/davids posting lately.

go citibank

7/4/2006 2:24:29 PM

yeah, but I've been here for 6 yrs

7/4/2006 2:57:21 PM

no shit the rate sucks. all bank rates suck. that's the downside of having a safe investment. put it in the stock market if you want higher rates, just understand the risk goes up

7/4/2006 11:01:17 PM

I just opened a money market account with Wachovia, though after reading this thread it seems like I should have opened it elsewhere.

7/5/2006 1:06:48 AM

MONEY MONEY MONEY

BLAH BLAH BLAH

7/5/2006 3:59:41 AM

Quote :

"Personally I just dislike Wachovia. Their service seems to be quite...slow. I've had two friends go into overdraft protection because the CASH that they deposited didn't go into their account for DAYS. Crap like that, plus taking a long time for checks to go through and for credit card stuff to show up... Needless to say, I don't bank with Wachovia."

Yeah, this has been going on for years. My dad warned me to never bank with Wachovia for the very same reasons... and that was 10+ years ago.

7/5/2006 7:10:43 AM

Capital bank gives 4 percent on their checking accounts and free atm use at any atm

7/5/2006 8:38:16 AM

I have had an account at wachovia for 5+ years and have never had a problem with overdrafting because deposits didnt go in. You always check to make sure the money is there before you spend it. You people think you are so smart about money and bank accounts yet you are overdrafting? Set up overdraft protection through your savings account or a wachovia credit card. You are an idiot if you dont have overdraft protection at wachovia, it doesnt cost you anything. If you overdraft with protection the fees are very minimal.

7/5/2006 8:41:42 AM

Quote :

"which bank had the commercial where the guy was in the bakery, used his check card, went back to his table, and looked up the transaction right away on his laptop? also, is it true? "

i think it was bank of america...but wachovia comes up just as fast. i can go and take money out of the atm, and when i get back to my house, i can see the withdrawal online.

im convinced after reading all the bitching towards banks on here that 99% of the time its the persons fault...not the bank. i guess its just easier to blame something else.

7/5/2006 8:47:16 AM

actually, i think the problem is that banks don't give a shit about poor college kids/poor people.

here's my story from a couple years ago (some of the numbers have been guessed, but the general idea is true):

On a Friday I get a paycheck from work, and go to the bank to deposit it. My balance before this transaction is ~$100. The check is for ~$200. I then go about my day.

The next morning (Saturday), I get up and upon seeing that I don't have much to eat at my house, decide that I need to go to the grocery store. I check my Wachovia checking to make sure that my paycheck has gone through and to my surprise see that my balance is NEGATIVE (available balance at least).

I don't know what's going on, so I call their helpline. They tell me that the check I had deposited the previous day had bounced. "But why is my account overdrawn?" I ask. "Because the debit from your account is automatic, but the credit back must be done by a person and it's Saturday."

So I go to one of the branches that is open on Saturdays to see if I can sort this all out. And of course the manager on duty (who I had fully planned to yell at if I didn't get my way) is practically giving-birth-on-her-desk pregnant. She says basically the same thing "Well, we let a computer take money away from you automatically, but we wanna make extra sure when we give you that same amount back."

"I can't buy food to eat for the weekend. Don't you understand? I HAD MONEY IN THE ACCOUNT BEFORE I TRIED TO MAKE THE DEPOSIT."

"This is standard procedure, etc etc."

So I didn't get my money back in my account until the Monday, and my boss had apparently screwed up by accidentally not transferring the correct amount of money to the payroll acct.

I vowed that day to drop my Wachovia acct and it's taken about two years, but I've finally done it.

7/5/2006 9:07:54 AM

im confused, if you had $100 in your account before you deposited the check, how did you end up with negative money?

did they take away more money then what the check was worth?

[Edited on July 5, 2006 at 9:15 AM. Reason : df]

7/5/2006 9:14:11 AM

they debited the amount of the bounced check.

so i had a -$100 available balance until the monday.

7/5/2006 9:16:19 AM

ah, that sucks.

7/5/2006 9:17:55 AM

I don't think any other bank is going to handle that procedure any differently. The fault is on your boss for writing a bad check. He should re-imburse you for any fees that the bank charges you as a result of the bad check.

7/5/2006 9:20:07 AM

so the normal operating procedure is to take money people already have?

and my boss did cover the fee. but they still had to do it with a check, so I still didn't have any cash for the weekend. ended up just borrowing some from a friend.

I just don't like the idea of a bank that doesn't think twice about taking money away from you, but won't go out of their way to give you your rightful money back.

7/5/2006 9:25:08 AM

what are other banks procedures for this type of situation?

7/5/2006 9:28:41 AM

My bank wouldn't have even gotten me into that situation because they credit the check immediately to my balance, so my balance would go from 100 to 300. If the check then bounced my balance would just drop back to 100 minus a very minimal fee for trying to deposit the bad check. There would be no taking away of my original 100.

7/5/2006 9:45:13 AM