GTE Financial Add on CD - changing the rules

Dtail said:
Okay I visited the GTE brick and mortar location.

Summary:
The highest level manager stated that there has been a separate department set up to handle this situation and they will most likely call me today.
She indicated that she had no idea of what they will say.

Details:
I overwhelmed the local rep plus the high level manager. Stated that we have a legal agreement of which there is no language written anywhere on the site which allows changes of terms.
Basically stated that there are many sophisticated investors which bought into this deal due to high rates and more importantly the prospect of adding on locked in rate monies in a declining environment. GTE exposed themselves to interest rate risk. Too bad.
Additionally threatening them with tremendous bad press, plus many legal documents will be sent to the NCUA, plus there is precedent (actually FDIC) of overturning decisions such as this one.
Made it clear that any stonewalling call delays won't work with me, as I live literally 5 minutes away and being retired I will visit them everyday until it is resolved in my favor.
We shall see.
Click to expand...

Excellent Dtail. I called and spoke with a lowly rep. She gave me the talking point about it stating clearly on the website that they could change the terms at any time. I gave her the talking point that nowhere on my disclosure did it say that they could change the terms at any time and that I would be reporting this action to the NCUA and she should report that fact to her supervisor. She took my phone number.
 
Not sure where it will end, but because I have non stop access to a local branch 5 minutes from me, I suspect that they won't be able to stonewall me forever with "We will get back to you".
@PB4USKI - LOL I am sure that if wished to add more monies, you would join my "dog biting" actions. haha
 
I wonder if it would help or hinder for impacted people to contact GTE and complain. I don't want to slow things down by interrupting their personnel.

However this turns out, I question their competence and I'm not looking forward to dealing with them in the future for withdrawing/transferring funds.

Dtail is a hero!
 
pb4uski said:
That language seems pretty clear and definitive to me... though I'm sure that they didn't intend that... or perhaps they are more stupid than I am giving them credit for.

Moot point for me since I don't care to exceed the NCUA limits... though I can see it is important for those who started a certificate to access the high rate and planned to add on later with proceeds from other maturing CDs.
Click to expand...
My emphasis.

Just the situation for me. I opened to lock that rate because we have Navy certificates maturing tomorrow, Marcus savings freed up Nov 1, and NASA and Andrews certificates maturing in December. Didn't plan to lock it all up for five years, but did plan on close to $250k.
 
calmloki said:
My emphasis.

Just the situation for me. I opened to lock that rate because we have Navy certificates maturing tomorrow, Marcus savings freed up Nov 1, and NASA and Andrews certificates maturing in December. Didn't plan to lock it all up for five years, but did plan on close to $250k.
Click to expand...

Similar version for me. I have a 100k CD at 2.85% with Ally maturing in March. No way would I get 3% rate with them based on current rates.
 
Ditto, 100k in my brokerage IRA maturing 10/30. I would've broken it to add to initial deposit in GTE account if I'd understood this change in terms was possible.
 
Yep. $50,000 maturing in December and another $50,000 maturing in Feb.
 
Just this minute got an e-mail from GTE saying disregard previous e-mail, they will honor the terms of the prom certificate allowing for unlimited addons


GTE Connect
To:
Oct 3 at 8:50 AM
Dear

While the promotion is no longer being offered for new share certificates, GTE will continue to honor the terms of the share certificates that were opened by members during the applicable promotional period and allow for additional unlimited deposits.

If you have additional questions regarding your certificate, please reach out to Member Care at 1.813.871.2690 from 7am to 8pm. Thank you for being a GTE member and for trusting us with your deposit.
 
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RetiredAndLovingIt said:
Just this minute got an e-mail from GTE saying disregard previous e-mail, they will honor the terms of the prom certificate allowing for unlimited addons
Click to expand...
Just got the email. Thanks Dtail.:flowers:


You can bet I've printed that sucker out and filed along with my original disclosure.
 
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Dtail said:
Okay I visited the GTE brick and mortar location.

Summary:
The highest level manager stated that there has been a separate department set up to handle this situation and they will most likely call me today.
She indicated that she had no idea of what they will say.

Details:
I overwhelmed the local rep plus the high level manager. Stated that we have a legal agreement of which there is no language written anywhere on the site which allows changes of terms.
Basically stated that there are many sophisticated investors which bought into this deal due to high rates and more importantly the prospect of adding on locked in rate monies in a declining environment. GTE exposed themselves to interest rate risk. Too bad.
Additionally threatening them with tremendous bad press, plus many legal documents will be sent to the NCUA, plus there is precedent (actually FDIC) of overturning decisions such as this one.
Made it clear that any stonewalling call delays won't work with me, as I live literally 5 minutes away and being retired I will visit them everyday until it is resolved in my favor.
We shall see.
Click to expand...



You go DTAIL! Sounds like you gave them the New Yorker treatment! Ha. We all appreciate your efforts and the email we all got with the revision of their lame attempt.
 
Just got this email from GTE. to quote Emily LaTella, "never mind..";

While the promotion is no longer being offered for new share certificates, GTE will continue to honor the terms of the share certificates that were opened by members during the applicable promotional period and allow for additional unlimited deposits.

If you have additional questions regarding your certificate, please reach out to Member Care at 1.813.871.2690 from 7am to 8pm. Thank you for being a GTE member and for trusting us with your deposit.
 
OP here. Dtail, you are awesome! Actually this whole forum is awesome. One post and the whole issue gets resolved in a day.
 
Earl E Retyre said:
OP here. Dtail, you are awesome! Actually this whole forum is awesome. One post and the whole issue gets resolved in a day.
Click to expand...
No disrespect to Dtail but this has been an ongoing issue on another website since 9/27 with many irate customers visiting their local offices and filing complaints with the authorities and threatening to remove their money. They had no choice but to cave, they made a huge mistake offering this promo and it will cost them a ton of money but the alternative could have put them out of business. Some VP is probably clearing out his/her desk right now.
 
RetiredAndLovingIt said:
No disrespect to Dtail but this has been an ongoing issue on another website since 9/27 with many irate customers visiting their local offices and filing complaints with the authorities and threatening to remove their money. They had no choice but to cave, they made a huge mistake offering this promo and it will cost them a ton of money but the alternative could have put them out of business. Some VP is probably clearing out his/her desk right now.
Click to expand...

Interesting. But we didn't get the email attempting the term change until yesterday afternoon. I assume it was a blast email. Were they trying to change the terms individually, one at a time? I had two conversations with them regarding correcting the disclosure, the latest of which was 9/17 and they did not have a problem correcting it for me.
 
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RetiredAndLovingIt said:
No disrespect to Dtail but this has been an ongoing issue on another website since 9/27 with many irate customers visiting their local offices and filing complaints with the authorities and threatening to remove their money. They had no choice but to cave, they made a huge mistake offering this promo and it will cost them a ton of money but the alternative could have put them out of business. Some VP is probably clearing out his/her desk right now.
Click to expand...

Where? I tried googling it and couldn't find anything.
 
They gave up

Immediate response from y'all and myself definitely got to them. Received an email today to disregard the last email, and they will honor their terms!



Definitely spent close to an hour on the horn today explaining how jacked up this was and quoting back language that is still up on their website, and know many of you have as well. Guess I can ditch draft to the NCUA
 
Thank you all for your kind comments. Just came back from a day trip and saw the email.
I am sure I was just one of many New Yorker type ahem strong complainers who would not back down in person.
I checked their interest calculation now too and it was fine.
BTW - no one did call me but a moot point now.
 
Thanks to Dtail and others on DepositAccounts forum for making this happen!

I had/have a $500 CD opened as a possible place to move funds to capture the 5 year rate. Ironically, I have some funds free up a couple weeks ago which has been parked in SNSXX at Schwab while I figured out whether to transfer it to a 2 year 3.25% flex CD (with about 1.5 years left on it) which allowed a deposit equal to the initial amount, or to just move it to GTE Financial @ 3% for (almost) 5 years. When GTE decided to stop new funding, I went the route of my 2 year CD. (Honestly, I probably would have done that anyway as my thought process was to take the 3.25% for 1.5 years and then put it in the GTE CD for the remaining 3+ years.)

I now have to do a similar decision for some more money. I have one more CD @3.25%, again for about 1.5 years remaining. What I'm trying to estimate is whether they (GTE) will try to do more games (and thus maybe I should add the funding to it now).

Edit 1: FWIW, my cash holdings: Weighted % 2.868%, weighted days till maturity: 290 (.79 years), 27% of funds immediately available (available w/o breaking CD)

Edit 2: This does not include "cash" in a stable value fund (mega-corp 401k) which has earned 2.31% YTD, +3.08% YoY. I am always conflicted as to whether to treat it as cash vs bond.
 
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I don’t know what gte exposure is on this financially but if interest rates do sink significantly and a rush of people do the add on, depositors could find themselves getting their principal back via ncua insurance. Not a prediction just a possibility. And I can tell you that ncua can break a cd of a failed cu. I am not thinking or saying this is likely but people should be aware it is possible.
 
The discussion on https://www.depositaccounts.com/blog/bank-accounts-survey/#comments outlines quite a bit of detail on the process that a CU must go through in order to change terms. Without reading the links supplied in the string and relying on the descriptions of the author who supplied the link, a CU can change the terms of a CD, but must first provide 30 days notice of the change. If this is true, then it is possible that GTE will utilize this backstop to stop the bleed, at some point in the future.
 
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On a somewhat related question to this issue, in terms of FDIC/NCUA insurance coverage, is the following statement true?
GTE Bank:
DGF has a TIRA in CD's worth 145k
We both will have Taxable CD's worth 125k held as a joint account.
Even though the total is 270k (over the 250k limit), isn't my DGF covered for the whole amount, since the coverage is for 250k each for different ownership type accounts?
 
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