Rotten Oranges at the Tangerine Bank

Yep, it’s now old news … ING Canada has been bought by Scotiabank:  and they renamed it the Tangerine Bank.  I was never an ING customer, but was lured to open a Tangerine account by their “I’ll give you $50” to open an account bargain.  Plus, I like the color orange.  I received my $50 and was pleased with them.  That was my first dealings with them, and if I had written this then, this article would swoon about their awesomeness;  I’m easy that way, give me some money and I’ll like you.  However, cost me some money and the honeymoon’ll be over.  How long did it take them to cost me some money?  Surprisingly quick actually, on my second dealings with them. 

I transferred some money into my Tangerine account from another bank.  Tangerine indicated it had received it, and under the“My Accounts” of their website (in my saving's account) the money was happily displayed. 

Saving

Account name                                                   USD        CAD

Tangerine Savings Account -                                      $0.00     my transferred money

Interpretation: I had zero american dollars in my account ($0.00), and the money i had transferred was indicated in Canadian dollars under CAD.

I then transferred `my money’ to my Tangerine Checking’s account.  And voilà, it appeared clearly in Canadian dollars:

Checking

Account name                                                   USD         CAD

Tangerine Checking  Account -                                   $0.00     my transferred money

Life’s good.  I’m happy.   But now’s the part where Tangerine really sucks sour oranges.  With the confirmation of my money in my account, I transfer it out of the Tangerine bank to an online investment company (Credential Direct), so that I can buy some stocks.  Unbeknownst to me, the transferred money was not really in Tangerine:  despite it saying it was.  So I transferred money my screen said was there, despite it not being there.  And Tangerine was happy to comply and encourage this deception.   So Tangerine transferred imaginary money and never indicated that anything was wrong.  Later their `oops’ protection kicked in and they emailed me to inform me that my account was in the negative.  How can you have less than zero dollars?  But that's what it said, and the money I transferred out was now indicated as a negative number.  I checked their logging records which indicated they adjusted the negative to $0 and hit me with a nasty $25 fee.  Credential Direct never received the money and also fined me $40.  To add insult to injury, the online bank I originally transferred the money out of to the Tangerine fined me $45.  Ouch!!

There was two mistakes made.  The first was at my other online bank.  I phoned it and they recognized something went wrong and waved their fee.  They had received a transfer request from Tangerine and never complied: my money was not transferred and still remained with them.

The second mistake happened at Tangerine.  They accepted the money that was never transferred and placed it into my saving’s account.  Thinking everything was fine, I then moved that imaginary money to my checking account.  And Tangerine happily adjusted my saving’s account to reflect this.  My checking account balance likewise reflected this new deposit.  Then I moved the apparently imaginary money to my investment place (Credential Direct):  which they never received.  A couple of days transpired before Tangerine adjusted my accounts to the negative (I’m still not sure how it became negative; I did have some money in there before this fiasco – it's truly mind numbing to sort through all this rubbish).  The point is, if my account didn’t say the money was present, I would have never have had transferred it.

So seeing as I’m a new customer and their logging and reporting systems seem to be flawed (or purposely convoluted to generate fines) I decide to phone them to correct this $25 fine. However, they politely laugh in my face.  “It was the other banks fault” they informed me.  Yes, there was a mistake at the other bank, and it was rectified quickly and I was reimbursed.  But Tangerine had also made a mistake, one for which they charged me for. 

Tangerine customer support informed me that it takes a couple of days for the money to transfer (I knew that).  I told them my account balance plainly displayed the transferred money (it was in my account).  They disagreed and told me that it wasn't in my account.  I guess they called me a liar?  We bickered back and forth on these nuances.

Bottom line:  They were either lying to me, incompetent, or confusing transaction logs with “My Account’s balance status (which would still fall under lying or incompetence).  Transaction logs come later (in my case, 4 days later), and you have to go looking for them.  Long story short, they said it wasn’t their problem.  They indicated there was money in my accounts that was not there, they transferred that money that did not exist two times, they dropped my account balance into the negation, and then charged me for having that negation.  And it’s not their problem.  They suck rotten oranges!

If you’ve read my warning and still want to open an account with them, then use my Orange Key.  If 3 people do this I’ll make a couple dollars to put towards my lossesJ

Orange Key:  4206928s1