E*trade apparently wants out of the CD business. They have implemented a policy of not auto-renewing CDs, and instead issuing a check on maturity.
No problem. They've sent out plenty of emails and letters giving notification.
However, they should probably work on the back end.
I recently received a letter detailing the policy change, with a suggestion to call an 800 to talk about options, including transferring to another etrade account.
Great. I'll just set it up to transfer to another account I have at etrade simple enough.
I call the 800 number, and get a voice response system. Hmm. Just stuff about balances. No options for CD maturity. Maybe another account. Nope nothing there. It seems to be a black hole zone.
They didn't mention any option to speak with a customer service rep, but 0 usually works. Yep. Got through to somebody quickly.
The account was set up to automatically send out a check on maturity. Could they transfer to my other Etrade account?
Uh. No they can't. I have to call back closer to maturity.
Don't you love the system.
Thirteen Bankers describes the control that bankers have managed to btain over our current financial system. It begins with a history of banking and moves towards the "innovation" that has occurred in banking. Only a few generations ago, banking was a relatively low paying conservative industry. However, bankers introduced more and more complex instruments that allowed them to make more and more money. Bankers are also heavily involved in the regulation of banking, making it difficult to implement some needed regulation. Big banks have also become "too big to fail" The government's willingness to let institutions fail at the start of the 2009 financial crisis ended up "forcing" the government to bail out the remaining banks. There was a huge liquidity crisis that could not be resolved. The perverse impact was that the big risky banks end up getting bigger, while the small diverse banks were wiped out. "Too big to fail" banks take riskier and riskier bets because they know they can get bailed out.
