Clarification of Ally Early withdrawal penalty (help please)

[floatingdoc]

In an earlier thread, there was a discussion of whether Ally can change their early withdrawal penalty on CDs for EXISTING cd account holders. I currently hold 340k in CD's at ally, one of the reasons for holding some money there is because they have the most generous 5 year cd given the short penalty. Well, they recently dropped from 6 months to 2 months penalty on all cd's over 1 year. I began thinking this was a (very smart) marketing move to attract new long term deposits. When I opened mine, they are paying 3.15% APY. Currently paying 3.10% apy. I called a rep yesterday and confirmed that, should they change the penalty, which they CAN DO TO EXISTING ACCOUNT HOLDERS, they would "do right by me" and allow me the option to exit under my current terms of contract (2 month penalty).

That certainly seems fair. I was wondering if any interested parties might call and confirm that this in fact would be an option for existing account holders. I would appreciate you posting your results here. Thanks. Obviously, the 4 month "penalty savings" comes out to about 1.2% additional yield should I break for a Higher rate.

 

[smjsl]

When I discussed it with them, I also got the impression that they would notify the customers before this happens and customers would have some time (30-days? 20-days?) to break the CD at that point at the original penalty, i.e. until the new penalty becomes effective. I personally don't like the idea of having to break the CD and pay 2-month penalty just because the bank changes their terms, but I guess those are the rules.