Review: ING Direct Banking: an Amazing Banking Experience and High Interest Earnings Too

In the last five years, I've had bank accounts with seven different banks. One of them I cancelled almost immediately (Bank of America) due to their exorbitant fees. One of them I cancelled last week (Washington Mutual) because of their continually charging overdraft fees that were incorrect. Four of the others are with several Thai banks as I spend most of the year living in Thailand, and I love every single one of them. The last one is with ING Direct and it has been the best bank account I've ever had. Online bank accounts definitely beat the 'real world' type.

I opened my ING Direct account a few years ago, because I wanted a higher interest rate than my two other bank accounts were paying. At that time, they were offering 3.9% when my local banks gave less than 1% (now ING pays around 4.5% - much higher than almost any other bank). This actually adds up to quite a lot of money over a year's time, so it was well worth changing banks for me.

When I opened up the account, I was thrilled to see you could do everything online. Deposit money from another bank account to ING, move your money from ING to other linked bank accounts, check balances, etc. Later on, I opened a checking account with them and could then write checks, pay bills, even book plane tickets online with the debit VISA card they sent me that was attached to my account.

Four years into having the account, they suddenly gave me a $200 overdraft on my checking account. I had never asked for it, didn't really want it or need it, but figured I would keep it just in case. You never know when you might have a small financial crisis and need an extra couple hundred bucks to keep you going till payday.

But, a month after I opened the checking account, I received an e-mail from them saying they were closing my checking account due to my 'bad credit rating'. I would have 10 days to make 'other arrangements' then my account would have the ability to write checks removed from it, no more deposits would be accepted and my overdraft protection had already been cancelled.