Just a quick headsup: Ally Bank has stopped allowing us to break a No-Penalty CD online. You now need to call in to do an early withdrawal. Strange that they made this change, but worth knowing.
We’re only processing early withdrawals by phone right now. Call us at 1-877-247-2559. We’re here 24/7.
Hat tip to reader Sid and to thefinancebuff
I tried to close a CD today by chat. Ronda in North Carolina said I couldn’t to that. I’ll probably try again with a different chatter later. But I expect I’ll use Marcus (Goldman Sachs) for any future no Penalty CDs. Not as good interest rate, but that difference isn’t worth the aggravation.
Has anyone closed their Ally CDs early? Is the transfer from CD to your Ally checking account immediate?
Ugh, I hate the new process. This is a real bait and switch. Even though I could find better rates elsewhere, I always used Ally as my “hub” since their online services were reliable and fast. I had never had to call Ally for any reason before today. What a waste of time.
They’ve been displaying that message since at least 9/21. I sent them a secure message and was again told I could only close by calling. I used the chat on 9/28 and was able to close one of my CDs that way. It did take almost 30 minutes of actual chat time to have the person close the CD, so something to keep in mind that it still might be quicker calling in to close it.
Do you have to pay tax when you close a CD?
No
Ally gets worse and worse, especially their customer service.
I closed mine a few weeks ago via chat. I wonder if you can still do that.
Same. Took them all of 60 seconds via chat.
Mkay. Well, well, well. Ally has a lot of crap from subprime car loans on their books (Cap1 too). They have been okay so far, but this makes me even less comfortable holding a couple of my CDs there. Or they might be dealing with a data-breach, Penfed style.
That reminds me, time to change the password, just in case.
You have more than 250K in CDs?
Exactly. Ally could pump every dime into levered investments into funds offered by Madoff, Elizabeth Holmes and Trevor Milton, and he’d have no reason to care.
Is there any reason to not put most of my Ally Savings into a no-penalty CD? Sure I’m only getting like $0.10 in interest but I mean…
The time to do this was before the pandemic happened when rates were still in the 2% range.
Glad your crystal ball works better than mine.
I agree that the prior comment wasn’t exactly helpful, but Ally’s CD rates were still 1.9% in mid-March of this year, when savings rates were dropping.
A lot of DoC readers, like myself, got in on the 11-mo No Penalty CD with 1.75% APY + 1% bonus on up to $25K offer that was taking place around Feb-Mar 2020, if I remember correctly. Until my HMBradey 3% rate kicks in on Q1 2021, I’ll be keeping my money with Ally.
That’s what I did- put about 2/3 of emergency savings into the no-penalty CD right as the pandemic hit- when it became obvious the Fed was going to be quickly pushing rates down. Ally stayed with the 1.9% rate until around March 20- was surprised how long it lasted at that rate.
There’s really no reason to put the money in a no-penalty CD when their savings account is the same rate. Sure the savings rate might go down but you’re hardly making any interest with the CD anyways.
but, but, what if we go to negative rates like in Europe and Japan????
I think the NP CD rate has generally been close to the savings rate, but as you point out correctly, the reason for “locking in” a CD rate is to protect against falling rates. It may not be much, but on this site some people do a lot of work for free food or a tiny cash profit, so spending a bit of time optimizing the return of a portion of my fixed income portfolio and near-term spend funds is worth it for me. Spending 20 mins on the phone to get my money back is not worth It, however.