Ing Bank--Wooden Shoes Clattering down the Halls of American Net Banking
ING Direct's acquisition of NetBank.com Oct 12 '07 Pros None that are not also provided by competitors, e.g., Citibank, Bank of America, EverBank, etc. Cons Total disdain for their customers. Does not allow use of paper checks. Full Review ING Direct recently acquired many of the assets of NetBank.com, the latter having gone under due to their “subprime lending” practices. An ING Direct customer service (haha!) rep with whom I spoke today confirmed that, in the takeover process, ING cancelled all NetBank customers’ lines of credit WITH NO ADVANCE NOTICE.
(Yes, she explicitly confirmed the “no notice” part of the preceding sentence, saying that “notice was not required by law”... or, I inferred, simple “customer relations”.)
As a consequence, I’m sure that I’m not alone in having had several payments “bounced”, as well as incurring NSF fees at $30 a pop, plus charges from the merchants who didn’t receive payment. To me, whether notice is required or not, this constitutes outright fraud on the part of ING Direct for the apparent purpose of imposing unwarranted fees, and I will soon be taking my business elsewhere. ____________________________________________________________________ The FDIC was no doubt so relieved to find some bank that would take over NetBank, that they didn't require much beyond ING Direct not specifically breaking U.S. banking laws. ING Direct has consistently lied to NetBank account holders in the run-up to finalizing their takeover. The Blogosphere is full of rage. The Dutch are used to it, in their long-lost days of empire, half the world was under their wooden shoe. Thank god New Amsterdam is now New York and the worst ING Bank can do is pick off crippled U.S. banking units. Meanwhile, you can bet that ING Bank is looking over its shoulder and checking its own portfolios to see how much asset based securities are in actuality sub-prime mortgage derivatives.
* For more in-depth articles by Jim on Taking My Country Personally, check out Opinion-Columns.com