[EXPIRED] 3.25% (for everybody) or 3.35% (for group benefits) for 6 months in new Advantage Accounts | Page 5 | Manulife Bank | Discussion forum

You people are a lot luckier than me if you got your account opened as fast as you say. I filled out the online application early on the 7th and got an acknowledgement email about an hour later, telling me to expect another email with setup instructions within 1 day. Nothing further had arrived as of this morning, so I called the number in the acknowledgement email to see if there was a problem I might be able to help fix.

Unfortunately, the rep I got was someone who evidently does not like their job. It started with him responding as if I was bothering him by even calling in. Since I am not yet an official customer, it also took a bit of cajoling but eventually I got him to go ask somebody who might know something about any delay. A few minutes later he came back on, but the response was borderline rude. Rude as in, he didn't say "sorry, we're still busy working on it, please be patient", but instead I got "it's still being processed, now get off the line, there are clients waiting."

I was a bit perturbed at his tone but I didn't want to call him out on it until I knew who he was, so I asked for his name. However, he did not provide it and instead just said "goodbye" and immediately HUNG UP ON ME. That's never happened on a business call in my entire life. I use a phone app that automatically records all my telephone calls so this one is going to be a real keeper.

Should we take a poll on whether I should bother reporting it to Manulife?

Londonguy, that is an unfortunate incident, but I do think you should report it. I agree with dougjp in that a poll is likely not necessary as I'm sure you'd find easy consensus among this forum's users. I would just add that I think you should be diplomatic in your report, and stress that this employee, perhaps, needs some remedial coaching but that you don't want to see him fired.

If he said those things, he needs to be corrected. It may be a matter of being over-stressed, but at a minimum, he needs his manager to raise the issue with him and offer some tips. At most, a Performance Improvement Plan, with threat of more severe consequences, may be needed.

Cheers,
Doug

Londonguy said

Interesting that you've also experienced a delay beyond the 1-day pitch they make in their acknowledgement email. I guess it's just marketing BS and I should know better, but I still hate it when organizations make promises they can't keep.

As for the poll thing, I've developed a pretty thick skin over time and was only looking for feedback as to whether that kind of behaviour is acceptable in call centre land these days. I know enough to know that working the inbound lines means there's a lot of pressure to handle and pass calls off quickly, and I probably buggered his stats for the morning by not taking no for an answer until he finally lost it and hung up. He's now probably more frustrated than me at this point  

I like that you look it at from that positive perspective, in that a large part of the problem is operating conditions banks (and telcos) place on call centre workers.

Cheers,
Doug

Londonguy said
Nothing further had arrived as of this morning,   

Sounds like Manulife had a good run for a few days then the bottom fell out.

My experience is similar to yours, and now it's three days since the original email was received.

I've given up on Manulife and sent the funds they would have gotten to Peoples Trust for their 3.1% 15 month GIC.

Based on poor customer service, my current ignore list now includes Manulife, EQ and Tangerine.

Plenty of others with excellent customer service to get my deposit business.

Stephen

Doug said

I like that you look it at from that positive perspective, in that a large part of the problem is operating conditions banks (and telcos) place on call centre workers.

Cheers,
Doug  

My wife just received 'the call', her authentication questions were set up. They said she would get a finalizing e-mail in a day, or two..... It appears my earlier suspicion may be correct that with Manulife being a processing agent for her pension triggered the review when answering no accounts with Manulife Bank.

She had a brief discussion with the lady, who said they have been completely overwhelmed and everybody is now required to work through the coming weekend.
I guess so with these rates.

Update FWIW -- I received my 'second stage' email about an hour ago assigning me an access code, which enabled me to make my initial $1 qualifying deposit by phone after installing their mobile app. Worth noting is that Manulife has a better/easier photo interface than other mobile bank apps I've used. I was also able to use the app to complete a request to add an external account, thanks to the helpful tips posted upthread on that topic.

There's a caveat in this second email that it can take 6 business days before I'll get a third email confirming that my account is ready for use. As such, I'm not sure if I can make any more deposits in the meantime or initiate a transfer-in from the external link before the confirmation email arrives. I'm not ready to do anything today anyway, but I'm interested in hearing what happened if anyone else found themselves in the same situation

Londonguy said
Update to my update -- cynic that I am, it occurred to me that there could be an argument later about my balance being under $1,000 on Day One and have that disqualify me from free service charges for May, so to avoid it I just deposited another cheque for $1,500 using the mobile app. No problemo, and it will post today because it was deposited before 400pm.

At first I tried to use the transfer-in function, but it has no source accounts listed yet so I had to go the cheque route. That also answers my own question about having to wait for Manulife to update my external link profile before I can use the transfer-in feature.

I could and perhaps should have just given them a $1,000+ deposit in the first place, but I wanted to activate and gain access to my account detail first to verify that I would be getting the 3.35% before stepping up to the plate (the cynic again). Now that I have screencap evidence of the 3.35%, I can pile in next week  

Not having a smartphone, my wife has to mail in a cheque for $ 1- and also some existing bank or RRSP account statement? Unlike myself where a rep got me into my account and created a linked account and attach a scan of a voided cheque, which was active the following day, this process was refused for my wife. All just to create a joint account? FAR too complex and unnecessary with the roadblocks to dealing with them. Parts of the process don't make any sense/add any value or security either. And I get the impression over 3 phone calls with somewhat different information that they really don't have a clear idea - certainly not consistent.

Frankly if I had it to do over, I wouldn't bother dealing with them, despite the better rates.

Also note that deposits have to be dated a day forward, not same day. This is stated when making transfers in the account online, but of course I don't know what it says in the mobile app. Not unusual ie; Tang. It will be interesting to see what posting date your deposit is, or maybe that's not the effective interest start date...hmm.

butterflycharm said
Is it 3.35% or 3.25%?  

I noticed something like that, too. Thanks for pointing that out! The campaign promo site (http://www.advantageaccount.ca/) and the individual HISA product page both say 3.25%. Perhaps Peter could modify the original thread "subject" line to make this more clear?

It's definitely 3.25%, which is still the highest 6-month HISA promo rate currently on offer, as far as I'm aware.

Cheers,
Doug