A couple of weeks ago I saw that Wells Fargo allows transfers to other banks, and my immediate thought was “WOW! That’s cool! Now it will be that much easier to move money over to ING Direct!
I started the process to get that in place, since I wanted to be able to push money to ING Direct where I have several savings sub-accounts.
That was all set up and over the weekend I decided I would move some money from Wells Fargo to ING Direct. I got logged in and began the process. After choosing how much money I wanted to move from and to which accounts, I was taken to a screen which asked if I would agree to the $3 fee to transfer the money to ING Direct.
That was a complete surprise, I never read anything about that when setting up the option.
ING Direct doesn’t charge anything to pull money from Wells Fargo, so I guess I need to move money by pulling from Wells Fargo.
I went to ING Direct, but I only have Wells Fargo Checking Account #1 (external account) linked.
This is where it starts getting complicated in my head.
Do I just move money from Wells Fargo Checking 2 into Checking 1, or from Wells Fargo Savings into Wells Fargo Checking 1 in order to move to ING Direct?
Or should I set up sharing for all three accounts at ING Direct. I clicked on Transfer Money and then there was a little link that said, “Connect your accounts for instant transfers”. So I clicked on that and now I have to go through some process again.
Well, “connecting my accounts” requires me to sign in to or sign up for ShareBuilder.
So next I went to the account which I wanted to pull money into at ING Direct and I see a link called My Links.
Kind of cryptic, but I clicked on it and found that is where I want to be if I want to link another account.
However, we can only link checking accounts. Not savings accounts.
I just don’t know if I am ever going to fully utilize ING Direct because this just seems too complicated to me.
And Wells Fargo is going to charge me $3 every time I try to push money that way.
Unfortunately I may end up keeping our sinking fund accounts right at Wells Fargo, earning practically nothing.
Today I told Mr. A I’m getting real sick of taking care of the bills and the budget. He asked if there was anything we could do so that he could take it over. Unfortunately there really isn’t.
I’ll just have to spend a bit more time thinking this through.
Yours Truly,
Mrs. A, you should simplify your life and your checking accounts. I did so a year ago and have never been happier. Sure I lose a few dollars on interest, but it has been SO worth it to not have to hassle with linking accounts and keeping track of seven different balances. If you can pare down to a business checking/savings and a personal checking/savings all at the same bank, you’ll make your life easier.
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What a bunch of crap! That is so stupid. $3 for what? I hate unnecessary bank fees. I do agree- it’s a pain to have to move money around sometimes!
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I still haven’t opened my ING account even with all the glowing reviews. However, I do have Wells Fargo checking and savings and a Capital One Savings account. When I transfer money to my Cap One savings, I use the Cap One site. I’m not charged a fee from either bank doing this way. I wonder if there’s a way to transfer money INTO the ING account using your Wells acct and not be charged a fee?
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Inter-bank transfers….. I have been using Bank of America for business accounts in one state with some personal(domestic) accounts in another. The inter-bank transfer service has been a great convenience since I started using it five or six years back. The transfer fee is nominal and has been well worth the cost for the convenience; eliminating the cost of money orders and registered mail. Such fees should not come as a surprise to any thinking person; there ain’t no free lunch. The bank executives have to have nice cars, too……
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Steve Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 7:52 pm
@Bill, I live in the UK, I’m surprised after helping a friend to learn you can’t move your own money around for free, I’m even more surprised to learn that transfers between banks are problematic.
Wow, I can transfer money to any UK bank account automatically for free within 2 hrs (20 mins typically) and to any bank in any other country within Europe same day.
I dont see why you think this should be a free lunch – the banks are using your checking and savings funds to loan money which they earn interest on.. why should they be charging customers at both ends?!
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Maybe I didn’t understand your post correctly, but why can’t you do a pull from ING Direct?
(From Ing, link WF account, do a pull).
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Mrs. Accountability Reply:
April 22nd, 2011 at 6:42 pm
@MoneyCone, I can do a pull from ING Direct. It’s a matter of convenience since I’m logged in to Wells Fargo almost on a daily basis. Since I don’t visit ING Direct very often (and this is intentional so that I leave that money alone as much as possible), I don’t know the password by heart and darn it they make you mouse the numbers in, which just bugs me. Sometimes it’s been such a long time since I’ve been to ING that I have to revalidate my computer and answer questions again and it just takes longer to do stuff via ING Direct rather than through Wells Fargo. So yes, your suggestion is the way I do it. ING doesn’t charge to push or pull, thankfully. The feature at Wells Fargo was new, or at least new to me and it was a surprise to me that there would be a charge since ING doesn’t charge. Thanks for asking!
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Moneycone Reply:
April 22nd, 2011 at 7:21 pm
@Mrs. Accountability, Ah! Got it!
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Mrs. A:
Wells Fargo advertised that charge months before in one of those little pamphlets you get in snail mail, but most people throw them away without reading them. I saw it, and then questioned the people at Wells Fargo. It’s a $3 charge if you transfer money TO or FROM a Wells Fargo account to an ING account. The pamplet also said that Wells Fargo can “waive” fees, but they refused when I asked (not surprising). I switched to PNC, which has no fee for a transfer between two different banks or an ING account.
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