Comments on: New Emigrant Direct Website, Access Code

By: Jeff Dettmers

Jeff Dettmers — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 06:09:32 +0000

Have been trying to access Emigrant Direct for two days still unable to conect

By: Mike McCurdy

Mike McCurdy — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 23:13:26 +0000

Now, I’m having a problem with Emigrant Direct closing and deleting my account (it’s been over a month now since I initiated the request) – basically, they won’t do it – they are accomplished foot draggers.

My guess is that management does not want uppoer management to see a slew of account closures.

They truly s**k.

By: Closing my Account

Closing my Account — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 21:00:55 +0000

The online problems at Emigrant Direct are still not fixed. The server was down again today, unable to transfer funds, Customer Service standard reply “server is down, you have to wait”. No, I’m not waiting! After all the problems I encountered after the website update fiasco last month, and now this, I closed my account out today. This is simply an unforgiveable way of doing business, so no more for me!

By: Sheryl Kabowski

Sheryl Kabowski — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 14:47:24 +0000

Funny how some blame the performance of the website on outsourcing. When things work great – i.e: google, citibank, yahoo, microsoft, etc… the outsourcing is not credited.

Wake up and smell the roses – most of the business portals and software (good and bad) is outsourced in one way or another!!

By: AB

AB — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 15:19:35 +0000

Is it me or did the ED website just got faster? I tried to access their website a couple of times in a row, and each time it was very fast. It can be a coincidence of course, and hence I would like to know if everyone is experiencing this welcome change

By: Wizzzer

Wizzzer — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 11:56:22 +0000

I had a hell of a time canceling my account. I transferred all of the money out, but the empty account with a link to my checking bothered me. After trying to get thru to Emigrants for 3 weeks, I got a 4 word e-mail yesterday from “accountfulfillment”: “Your account is closed.” No mention of Emigrants or any signature. Typical of the way they do business. BTW, I’m VERY happy with the GMAC 5.1% MM w/free checking (It also links to my Scottrade accounts). It’s a class act!

By: Disappointed customer

Disappointed customer — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 04:10:50 +0000

Since the change over, I’ve been able to access the site only twice, both times were early AM hours. Just now I tried to log on and it just hangs there, many minutes go by, and nothing. I too am a dialup user, and wonder if they reject slower data connections or something? This performance is unacceptable.

By: Mike McCurdy

Mike McCurdy — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 17:43:09 +0000

Final followup – I now have all of my funds out and have submitted a request to close my account and remove my info from all of their databases (good luck).

An ammusing sidenote – they now are echoing (not encrypting) the extra random 2 ’security’ questions that are asked at login (people are probably complaining about not being able to see what they are typing, making mistakes, getting locked out, and then having to call customer support (and sit on hold)). One of the security items is the last 4 of your SSN = probably not the best thing for them to echo on the screen – duh.

By: Mike McCurdy

Mike McCurdy — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 11:53:38 +0000

Followup – very very slow but I finally got in and get this:

Attention!

There has been a problem processing your request. Please contact Customer Service at 1-800-836-1997, seven days a week, 8:00 AM – 11:30 PM ET.

Error Code: PRD60001

By: Mike McCurdy

Mike McCurdy — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 11:45:51 +0000

In regards to “An Actual IT Professional”, a big institution does not mess up this type of transition this way, period. They do load balancing testing and then when reasonably sure, they put the new interface into production. These guys didn’t do that.

The increased functionality of the new interface is minimal – it looks to me like something really ‘bad’ happened (look at the ridiculous new security level) and they redid everything in whatever engine they are using, rather than respond to ‘complaints and suggestions from users’ to change the design.

This incident was enough for me and I pulled my funds (btw, my discount brokerage has rates as high as ED).

BTW also, they are DOWN at 8AM this Aug 1, Tuesday morning – perhaps an unscheduled maintenance? I’m trying to pull that last month’s interest.

By: Hilary

Hilary — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 10:57:53 +0000

08/01/06: EB Website seems OK now.
I went through the same annoying scenario.
However, 5.15% on daily available dollars is about the best around.
I too, lectured them on not being prepared with enough server space, especially when the new access codes went by snail mail, a great expense to EB. Also, the code was [10] digits long and it was hard telling a “zero” from an “O.”
On top of that, the [5] minimum “security questions” were a tad overdone, but ING is doing a similiar thing right now.
So it looks like a security account issue.
I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt… BUT, for some reason, when I tried to log on just [12] minutes ago the message came back: “The operation has timed out…. try again later.”
There is no room for these delays in this laptop world. Let us hope the EB Management got the messages!
Regards,
Hilary

By: An Actual IT Professional

An Actual IT Professional — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 20:37:54 +0000

I have been following the recent ED bashing with some amount of bemusement. Being an ED customer I also was frustrated by the poor response times and performance issues after the launch of their new web site. However having been in IT for more years then I care to count I decided to wait it out and see how long it took to get things under control. While Monday and Tuesday were horrible, it seems by Wednesday morning they had resolved most of their issues and the response time was quite good and has remained that way ever since. I see lots of talk about poor planning but I wonder how many of you have actually done projects on this scale. I am most amused by the comments by “CIO and one who is emphatically not stupid! CIO of a major ISP”. For a “CIO of a major ISP” you seem incredibly misinformed. Wherever did you get the idea that having only one “A” record means “ABSOLUTELY NO FAIL-OVER” have you never heard of multi-site BGP failover, load balancers, or Mutually high Availability load balancers, or any of a dozen other ways to achieve fault tolerance with only one IP address. If you check http://www.ibm.com, or better yet http://www.cisco.com you will find they both have only one “A” record. I guess their CIO’s and thousands of network architects and engineers are incredibly stupid as well, at least by your definitions. Having done a lot of work with both organizations I know that is not the case. While on the subject you state “I can not even ping their router” and from this you conclude that they are still saturated. I would be very disappointed in their network/security staffs if you could ping their router. First rule of network security is to disable ping. You are a CIO of a major ISP and do not know this. Please let us all know which ISP so we can exclude it from our vendor list. Does your bashing of Verizon have anything to do with your ISP’s status? I doubt you are even an IT professional, just an individual with a little knowledge, very little. If you want to bash them for launching a web site without sufficient performance tuning, go ahead, but at least get your facts correct.

By: Wizzzer

Wizzzer — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 19:37:40 +0000

I logged in, went thru the idiotic process, transferred my entire account out. It took minutes to open a new one with GMAC bank, which included checking AND a bank card good anywhere paying 5.1%. They need a new security dept. That’s the second time, (and the last time), I’ll dance with them.

By: Steve

Steve — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 04:50:05 +0000

I am able to connect to the emigrantdirect.com website fairly well on broadband, but unable to connect at all on dialup. I worry this may become a permanent feature. What about those of us who only have dialup service from our homes?

By: Rob M

Rob M — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 03:44:24 +0000

Another locked out emigrant direct user… if you got to speak with someone there you did better than me. I called during business hours and it said they were closed. Looking forward to finding a new bank.

By: CIO of major ISP

CIO of major ISP — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 02:09:47 +0000

Fail-over load balancing is ubiquitous on the internet — can anyone explain to me how an institution of such wealth could find and hire such IT incompetents as Emigrant Bank clearly has? At first I assumed they’d outsourced the upgrade to India, but the hosting traces to their own facilities in New York. Perhaps they just hired the cheapest, ahem, _emigrants_ that they could find?

CIO

By: CIO of major ISP

CIO of major ISP — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 01:58:05 +0000

Internet savvy hsbc has failover on their servers — so this kind of fiasco can’t happen (or rather is less likely to happen) to them.

hsbcdirect.com 60 IN A 161.113.0.22
hsbcdirect.com 60 IN A 161.113.4.22

Emigrant Direct however does not have fail-over and thus this current fiasco.

emigrantdirect.com 7200 IN A 68.163.112.94

These are the actual DNS records of the two domains, just as shown above.

CIO

By: CIO of major ISP

CIO of major ISP — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 01:49:32 +0000

I just got off the phone with an amazingly unintelligent Black woman, someone they had answering the support number at ED. She assured me (using mostly ebonics) that the website was up and fully functioning, and any problems that I’ve encountered were wholly my own. She then demanded my account information before answering any more questions — sitting there quiet for 30 seconds, followed by “is that be all sir?” upon which I said no, then continued explaining to someone who clearly hadn’t a clue, exactly _why_ their server wasn’t functioning as planned. Of course this was a pointless exercise, but I had to try at least, hoping to get a “They are putting a second server in the rack as we speak” or something similar. Oh well, at least we will undoubtedly see a huge interest rate increase out of this fiasco.

CIO

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 01:31:50 +0000

I was able to login on the 24th, at which time they asked me to update my security. Attempted to logon in today, but unfortunately forgot one of my security passwords. I was locked out. From 8am till now at 9:30 their 800 # has been busy. Unacceptable.

By: CIO of major ISP

CIO of major ISP — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 01:06:29 +0000

As an IT professional, I can tell you exactly what went wrong. First, only one IP is listed in the A record (however they at least outsource their DNS to professionals — worldnic — so the DNS is working flawlessly). Having only one IP in the address record means ABSOLUTELY NO FAIL-OVER should things get busy. On a product roll-out where all your customers will be hitting the server (yes I said server — singular — as in one machine) all at the same time, is _incredibly_ stupid. Not ignorant, but stupid! Also, they chose bell atlantic (Verizon) for their ISP, draw your own conclusions.

Today is Wednesday, and they are still saturated, I can’t even ping their router, it’s like a planned DDoS attack (only the DoS is coming from their own customer base!) This will cost them plenty, however on the bright side, since the federal government mandates that they MUST have a certain percentage of personal savings, matching funds they borrow from the fed (which they have already loaned out) now with everyone pulling out of ED because of this, they will be forced to offer _huge_ interest rates to get us to come back.

Does anyone else remember the S&L crisis, and the 10%+ rates they were offering back in the 80’s to comply with federal requirements? ) Expect something along those lines coming shortly. I can hardly wait! )

CIO — and one who is emphatically NOT stupid!

By: nickel

nickel — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 12:00:42 +0000

HSBC Direct is very close in terms of rate at 5.05% and I've never had any reliability issues. ING Direct is at 4.35%, but they offer a $25 account opening bonus with a $250 deposit (= instant 10% return).

By: Mike McCurdy

Mike McCurdy — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 04:43:54 +0000

With interest rates having gone up across the board, it should be easy finding comparable money mart rates right now.

It turns out, my brokerage offers a rate slightly better than ED’s new one.

By: Eug

Eug — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 04:07:42 +0000

Whats the next best thing to Emigrant Direct in terms of interest rate? Although I dont consider Emigrant best anymore.

By: Mike McCurdy

Mike McCurdy — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 03:19:00 +0000

I was relieved to just be able to get on (it looks like they actually ask you random questions (from the 5 ’security’ questions you had to complete initially) as part of the login! Unfreaking real.

I transferred most of my funds out – hope that still works as before.

It pays to spend the extra $$ and hire good IT people, believe me.

By: Mike McCurdy

Mike McCurdy — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 02:07:28 +0000

“should at the very least put something USEFUL on the page, like when they think it will be functional, instead of “due to extreme volume blah blah blah”. You can tell they are not even attempting to let people log in now, just getting that static we are sorry, please be patient page…..”

Yes. It’s outrageous that they aren’t even owning up to this. Thus, they have zero credibility.

By: Mike McCurdy

Mike McCurdy — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 02:04:59 +0000

Me too. A ‘big bank’ like them doesn’t do stuff like this – period. I am pulling our funds (if I can ever connect) because they now have no credibility. Wednesday night and they are down due to ‘volume’. ha.

What they should have done – right away – (if they allowed for the ability) was to revert to the old system until they had this absolutely fixed.

By: Scooter

Scooter — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 01:49:55 +0000

Yup, heads should roll over this one. I give them until tomorrow. If the site isn’t up by then and completely functional, my account will be closed. There are plenty of other banks out there that will be glad to take my deposit, and I bet THEIR website will work! ED should at the very least put something USEFUL on the page, like when they think it will be functional, instead of “due to extreme volume blah blah blah”. You can tell they are not even attempting to let people log in now, just getting that static we are sorry, please be patient page…..

By: Baron

Baron — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 01:33:08 +0000

I am interested to hear about how much EDirect looses in assets as a result of this problem. I am just really glad that I don’t NEED the money right now, but what about the interest I would have been earning from the money I was going to deposit?

By: Eug

Eug — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 00:45:49 +0000

Yah, its getting crazier by the minute. I just tried to log on and was greated by a “We’re sorry” page. Should I be a sucker and keep my money with them since they have the highest rate? Or teach them a lesson and leave? Their rate is going up to 5.15 in a few days.

By: Huge Security Breach

Huge Security Breach — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 00:21:05 +0000

I’m still having trouble logging onto ED website and just discovered a huge security issue!

After entering my user name on the first page and clicking Go, I got an error (a timeout error) on the page that is supposed to come up and ask the security questions.

Here’s the problem – I clicked refresh hoping the page would pop up and I could continue logging in. Instead, a form popped up with all 5 of my security questions WITH THE ANSWERS DISPLAYED!

I just pulled all of my cash from ED (luckily I can pull my money from ED using functionality at my brokerage account). I doubt they’ll ever see another cent of my money… UN-FREAKING-BELIEVABLE!!!

By: joe bunce

joe bunce — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 17:27:41 +0000

it keeps getting better. after three attempts to login when the page didn’t load, it finally did load!

only to tell me that my account had been locked because of three failed login attempts.

call customer service to unlock the account.

that’s it. HSBC here i come on aug. 1st!

By: Eug

Eug — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 16:50:59 +0000

Absolutely ridiculous. Its Tuesday at 12:50 and I still cant get in. For a bank, this is completely unacceptable. We better get something in return for this…and I’m not just talking interest.

By: Ben

Ben — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 16:38:08 +0000

Also tried to get in…no luck. Phone lines rign busy constantly. Someone did not do their project management planning!

By: Susan

Susan — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 16:00:34 +0000

I tried today at 11. I can’t get in. This is getting ridiculous.

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 03:04:27 +0000

Just got in and was able to perform a transfer. Hopefully things will settle down tonight as the site traffic dies down…

By: matty

matty — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 02:35:37 +0000

i was going to tranfer money to ED today. i could not. i believe my $10,000 is about $1.21 in interest. will ED give it to me?

By: Pam

Pam — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 01:14:11 +0000

Yes, again, this is very annoying…I managed to get re-registered and the site really looks nice inside, quite an improvement. However, that was shortly after noon and it’s now 9 PM EST and I have tried off and on the rest of the day to get back in and cannot get the site to come back up. It’s comforting to know I’m not the only one Hopefully, tomorrow…I want access to my money!

By: Eric Wilson

Eric Wilson — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 20:46:23 +0000

It is now 3:45 pm central daylight time July 24th. The site is completely down. Earlier today I got the homepage to almost fully load after waiting for over 5 minutes.
Looks like they are using a J2EE web application, don’t know which app server they are using. This is what you get for using a java web app without load testing it first. (And probably using offshore application developers) Nice one, Emigrant. Not having access to my money for 4 days should only happen in the event of the Apocalypse. They are losing my account, if the website ever comes back up.

By: Baron

Baron — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 20:40:03 +0000

I haven’t been able to get in all day!!!

By: Susan

Susan — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 17:50:40 +0000

I got in this morning with the access code but just tried to login in again to the site and could not because the site is down. Actually the site won’t even load. Sheesh.

By: Pam

Pam — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 17:11:27 +0000

I’m sure they are going to have ALL kinds of problems today and I’m also sure a simple phone call will straighten things out (I hope!)if we do have trouble. I got all the way to the end of re-registering and was printing out all their “agreements” when my browser “had problems” and shut me down…now, I will most likely have to fill out ALL that information again…my fault, I should have waited a day or two knowing there would be “trouble” today

By: Adam

Adam — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 16:46:11 +0000

Well, I waited a while then tried again. Got all the way to adding security questions when it timed out again. I hope this isn’t going to mess up my ability to log in once the site does start responding again.

By: Pam

Pam — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 16:11:46 +0000

Yes, I’m having the same trouble…got to step 1 and when I “clicked” on “continue”, NOTHING happens. I figure EVERYONE is probably trying right now Maybe later today…

By: Adam

Adam — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 16:06:14 +0000

The site is sort of up, but it’s responding very slowly on my end. I’m trying to go through the login process now, but I’m afraid it’s going to time out. Guess that’s what happens when they announce to all of their customers exactly what time they’ll be back online: their servers get hammered. Can’t say an entire weekend of downtime is exactly what I would have expected, either. Major web sites undergo renovation all the time without having to take themselves down for 2+ days.

By: nickel

nickel — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 15:51:23 +0000

Yeah, I just checked and it’s up. Sadly, I don’t have my new-fangled access code with me so I can’t check out the new interface until later.

By: Pam

Pam — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 15:47:25 +0000

Hey! It just opened up!!!!

By: Pam

Pam — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 15:44:42 +0000

I haven’t been able to get on the Emigrant site either and it’s going on noon back east.

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 15:32:03 +0000

Is it just me, or is the Emigrant site STILL down?

It’s one thing for the website to be down for the entire weekend (which we were warned about). It’s another for it not to be up when they promised (9AM ET Monday, July 24th).

Considering this is an online bank, I think this is unacceptable. I hope this is a one-time glitch for the upgrade, and not a sign of things to come.

By: Matt

Matt — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 06:59:37 +0000

Don’t assume emigrant gave it to them, though. Sometimes spammers pick up an address by random guessing. (When you own a mail server, you get to watch them trying. For every email that actually makes it to even the first stage of my spam-scanning software, I’d say about 500 are rejected because they’re sent to addresses that don’t exist and never existed.)

By: Jerry Kindall

Jerry Kindall — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 05:14:15 +0000

Sadly, I just got a spam on an e-mail address that I have given only to Emigrant. Time to close my account there.