Are these Banking Practices Deceptive

[cha2307]

Is it considered deceptive for a bank to publish saving rates on their website and not be all inclusive? I recently discovered that my adult daughter was earning .30 percent interest on her savings rate when the only savings rate published on the bank's website is 4.30 percent.

She contacted the bank and their response was that the savings account she has is no longer offered.

Since she recently (a few months ago) deposited a large sum of money she asked them to credit her account retroactively at the higher rate of interest and they declined.

This experience makes me curious how many accounts might be affected by this large bank's practices, particularly for the young or elderly that may not be financially astute to what their investment is earning.

I would love to hear some thoughts from individuals on this forum. Thanks.

[Kenkat]

Is this Capital One?

I don’t think you have any recourse but there are many other choices out there. It’s not a customer friendly way to do business in my opinion so find someone better.

[CAsage]

Best advice I ever got "Don't expect no one knocking on your door to do you no favors". Banks count on inattention to pay less interest, or charge higher fees. Lots of people get shorted by having a high interest CD rollover automatically .. to a super low rate term CD. This is no different than shopping and not comparison shopping or using a coupon. One needs to stay alert.
One can compare rates for CDs at one of the online services like depositaccounts.com or ??? But it's on each of us. Frankly, I just park my real money in a big Index bond fund and move on to work my other challenges.....

[cha2307]

Is this Capital One?

I don’t think you have any recourse but there are many other choices out there. It’s not a customer friendly way to do business in my opinion so find someone better.

You guessed correctly. Definitely leaving Capital One!

[arcticpineapplecorp.]

Is it considered deceptive for a bank to publish saving rates on their website and not be all inclusive? I recently discovered that my adult daughter was earning .30 percent interest on her savings rate when the only savings rate published on the bank's website is 4.30 percent.

She contacted the bank and their response was that the savings account she has is no longer offered.

Since she recently (a few months ago) deposited a large sum of money she asked them to credit her account retroactively at the higher rate of interest and they declined.

This experience makes me curious how many accounts might be affected by this large bank's practices, particularly for the young or elderly that may not be financially astute to what their investment is earning.

I would love to hear some thoughts from individuals on this forum. Thanks.

capital one has different savings accounts with different rates. they have a kid account paying 0.30%. could she have had this account for a while? Anther account they have are high yield paying 4.3%. Can't she close the kid account and open a high yield instead?

hopefully she learned a valuable lesson about checking her statements and understanding the interest she's earning, etc. Those who don't look at their statements sometimes pay all sorts of fees (overdraft, monthly bank fees, etc) that they don't even know if they don't look.

another question is why was it you who recently discovered this when it was your adult daughter's account?

[livesoft]

Not deceptive. Go to any store and buy something. Then go back a month later and see the same thing on sale. Do you ask the store to give you the price difference? And when you do, then do they give you the price difference? Or do you expect the store to call up everybody that bought the month before and offer to refund them some money to match the new sales price?

And yes, I know Nordstrom might do things differently.

[WalkingBackToHouston]

Is it considered deceptive for a bank to publish saving rates on their website and not be all inclusive? I recently discovered that my adult daughter was earning .30 percent interest on her savings rate when the only savings rate published on the bank's website is 4.30 percent.

She contacted the bank and their response was that the savings account she has is no longer offered.

Since she recently (a few months ago) deposited a large sum of money she asked them to credit her account retroactively at the higher rate of interest and they declined.

This experience makes me curious how many accounts might be affected by this large bank's practices, particularly for the young or elderly that may not be financially astute to what their investment is earning.

I would love to hear some thoughts from individuals on this forum. Thanks.

As you state it, I would call that deceptive. Vote with your feet and let them know why you left. The world is full of this kind of thing . . . like the gas stations that advertise the cash only price without making it clear . . . and then you notice the larger credit card price as you are pumping the gas. Maybe not technically illegal, but it doesnt pass the smell test in my view.

[gotoparks]

If she has one, she will do better in a money market fund at her brokerage. Vanguard has good mmf, if she wants a HYSA look at Vio Bank. The only slight irritation is that the beneficiary form needs to be notarized.

[Beensabu]

Just switch the savings account over to the high yield one. Or to another bank.

It's annoying when people don't bother to pay attention to the rules and then demand exceptions.

Hopefully, she was graceful about being told "no". You'd be amazed how many grown adults pitch the biggest tantrums.

[Marseille07]

You guessed correctly. Definitely leaving Capital One!

They used to do this with an older savings account. With 360 Performance Savings, the APY automatically changes. She can just open 360 Performance Savings.

In any event, always pay attn to the APY.

[exodusNH]

Is it considered deceptive for a bank to publish saving rates on their website and not be all inclusive? I recently discovered that my adult daughter was earning .30 percent interest on her savings rate when the only savings rate published on the bank's website is 4.30 percent.

She contacted the bank and their response was that the savings account she has is no longer offered.

Since she recently (a few months ago) deposited a large sum of money she asked them to credit her account retroactively at the higher rate of interest and they declined.

This experience makes me curious how many accounts might be affected by this large bank's practices, particularly for the young or elderly that may not be financially astute to what their investment is earning.

I would love to hear some thoughts from individuals on this forum. Thanks.

Banks rely on customer inattention to increase profits. For example, ever notice how banks often has the best CD rates on weird terms, like 7, 13, 19 months? They do that because the part of the agreement is that the CD will auto-renew into the closest maturity. Invariably, they won't have a 7 month CD when yours matures, so you wind up in a 6 month CD with a terrible rate.

Unfortunately, you have to pay attention and be willing to change accounts or banks.

[conservativeinvestor]

No problems with capital one here. I had a money market account with them before they set up the performance savings accounts. They did something similar in that situation where you had to open the new performance savings to get the better rate. It was quick and painless but required action on my part to update it.

I like the new performance savings there is no minimum account balance to get the highest rate. I think before you had to maintain a minimum of $10k to get the highest rate.

[Glockenspiel]

Banks and credit unions count on their customer's inattention to make money.

Almost every brick & mortar credit union in my area still has savings account interest rates at 0.05% to 0.25% APY, which is absolutely pathetic.

Isn't there any pushback from customers on this? Obviously not.

[Stinky]

You guessed correctly. Definitely leaving Capital One!

Channeling the famous Capital One TV commercial:

Question - “What’s in your wallet?”

Answer - “Our greasy fingers!”

[the_wiki]

Not deceptive. Go to any store and buy something. Then go back a month later and see the same thing on sale. Do you ask the store to give you the price difference? And when you do, then do they give you the price difference? Or do you expect the store to call up everybody that bought the month before and offer to refund them some money to match the new sales price?

And yes, I know Nordstrom might do things differently.

If we were talking about CDs, you'd have a point.

This is a savings account with monthly interest. The norm is for rates to adjust with prevailing market rates and for there to be a single rate that applies to all customers. I wouldn't expect to go back to a store the next month to buy another of the same item, have a sale price displayed, but then they charge me last month's price.

It's not unexpected, but it is shady and deceptive on purpose.

[Fallible]

Is it considered deceptive for a bank to publish saving rates on their website and not be all inclusive? I recently discovered that my adult daughter was earning .30 percent interest on her savings rate when the only savings rate published on the bank's website is 4.30 percent. ...

Banks can be deceptive in how they state their offerings, putting the attractive numbers up front and the key details in fine print that more fully explain the offering, but can be hard to find and take time to read through.

[Doctor Rhythm]

Nope. My fault if I don’t care enough to shop around and read the fine print.

I don’t expect a store to tell me about a coupon as I’m pulling out my credit card, and I don’t expect my ISP to tell me that I could be paying less unless it helps them. Likewise, they have no expectation of customer loyalty from me. I prefer my business relationships to be this way.

[Wiggums]

There are capital one and capital one 360 accounts. The 360 accounts generally have better benefits but are on another platform. A brokerage account and t bills are paying even higher interest rates. I’d learn about the various options because things change overtime. That’s what makes this forum so valuable.

[cha2307]

Not deceptive. Go to any store and buy something. Then go back a month later and see the same thing on sale. Do you ask the store to give you the price difference? And when you do, then do they give you the price difference? Or do you expect the store to call up everybody that bought the month before and offer to refund them some money to match the new sales price?

And yes, I know Nordstrom might do things differently.

If we were talking about CDs, you'd have a point.

This is a savings account with monthly interest. The norm is for rates to adjust with prevailing market rates and for there to be a single rate that applies to all customers. I wouldn't expect to go back to a store the next month to buy another of the same item, have a sale price displayed, but then they charge me last month's price.

It's not unexpected, but it is shady and deceptive on purpose.

I appreciate the later comments so much. This was my thought process. I've never known of a bank having more than one rate of interest for a savings account without specifying some qualifications.

[MrJedi]

I would probably consider it a form of dark pattern.

[bargainhuntingking]

I just checked my Capital One accounts and my "high yield" money market account was now making 0.8%! Other accounts are yielding 0.3% and 0.2%.

There is a new account offered called the 360 Performance Savings account offering 4.3% with no minimums.

I quickly opened that new account and transferred my money out of the old accounts and into the higher yielding account. It took less than 60 seconds. It was more efficient for me just to open another account with Capital One rather than track down another new (and unheard of) bank.

Lame on Capital One's behalf in my opinion. They intentionally profit off of these practices knowing existing customers are too busy to constantly check this sort of thing.

Moral: Check your accounts often to maintain the best savings' rate.

[bendix]

Isnt this just par for the course? Other large banks tell you international wire transfers are free, yet they charge you a conversion fee that´s equivalent to 5%+

I think banks are all the same in that regard. Happy to learn I am wrong, though.

[02nz]

Isnt this just par for the course? Other large banks tell you international wire transfers are free, yet they charge you a conversion fee that´s equivalent to 5%+

I think banks are all the same in that regard. Happy to learn I am wrong, though.

Two of Capital One's major competitors, Ally and Marcus, do not pull this trick of creating new account types with competitive interest rates while keeping rates on existing accounts much lower. Whether it's "deceptive" may be a matter of semantics, but it's IMO a pretty clear instance of "bait and switch" and most certainly not customer friendly.

[otinkyad]

There is a new account offered called the 360 Performance Savings account offering 4.3% with no minimums.
[...]
Lame on Capital One's behalf in my opinion. They intentionally profit off of these practices knowing existing customers are too busy to constantly check this sort of thing.

I don't think it can reasonably be called "new" at this point. The Performance Savings account was introduced four years ago.

I'm not a fan of the churning, but it happens all over (e.g., Internet rates, credit card terms, and streaming bundles), and Capital One doesn't seem like a special bogeyman.