[EXPIRED] 3.25% (for everybody) or 3.35% (for group benefits) for 6 months in new Advantage Accounts | Page 8 | Manulife Bank | Discussion forum

rk said
I have a question for manulifebank ... I have Manulife Group Benefits, so I am eligible for 3.35%. If I open the account, can I add a joint account holder? If yes, do I need to call in, or can I do it online? My spouse does not have Manulife Group Benefits, so if I add her as a joint account holder, will the rate go down to 3.25%?
Thank you in advance.  

Thanks for asking that, rk. To Manulife Bank, thank you for responding to this thread in the forum. To build on what rk asked above at post # 140 and where you specify at post # 130 that the Group Benefits 3.35% promotion includes Group Retirement Services clients, does that also include both Manulife's original Group Retirement business and the Group Retirement business acquired from Standard Life Canada a few years ago (which is accessed via a separate VIP Room website)?

And to rk again, other forum members have reported successfully signing up for the Group Benefits 3.35% promotion via the separate link in the OP of this forum thread, so you should be able to sign up that way and then, presumably, Manulife may adjudicate your entitlement at a later date.

Cheers,
Doug

manulifebank said

Hi rk! To add a joint owner on your account, please give us a call at 1-877-765-2265.  

Hi manulifebank. Thank you for the feedback. I opened my account using the 3.35% link (as I mentioned, I do have group benefits with Manulife). The account shows the 3.35% rate, so that is good. As instructed, I called the number that you provided and talked to the CSR, asking to add my wife as a joint account holder. He explained to me that in order to do that, my wife needs to also open her own advantage account, with a rate of 3.25% (because she does not have Manulife group benefits). The CSR said that once my wife's account is also opened to call back and then they can add my wife to my account, and that the rate will not change (e.g. it stays 3.35%). However, they will verify that I am eligible, indeed (as the online process has never asked me for my group benefits Plan Contract number nor for my member certificate number). My wife can at that time either keep her own account open or close it. I thanked him and proceeded with opening my wife's account. Then we called back ... and got the message "our offices are now closed" ... so we will try again tomorrow.

I have got this email from Manulife: We have received your request; however, we are unable to process it.
It appears that you must have old fashioned cheques if you want to link an external account. A downloaded form containing the institution number, branch number and account number seems not to be enough.

Hi folks, first, many thanks to the people who maintain this website and bring such useful infos available all in the same place! I opened yesterday an Advantage accnt w Manulife using the french version of their interactive form, as described by other users it went well for me too. I scanned a void Desjardins check before start so it would be readily available when needed, i.e. once I entered my new account and chose the corresponding item in the menu. They say the inter-banks link will be active within 2 working days. Maybe the manulife team are constantly changing small things so the website is still not "stable"? Anyway the french current rates page I got before clicking the agree conditions box was not "minimum 1000$" as mentioned several times on this thread, but... 2500$... Called them, was confirmed it's 1000$. The rep told me they'll ask somebody to have a look at this document. This rep was a gem, he added plenty of new infos, so here they are. First in case some don't notice, the access nbr is NOT the accnt nbr. It will be in the 1st msg you recieve. Also plz note the psswrd has to be 8-12 characters (nbrs, ltrs, caps and lowercase), but NO spcl symbols and NO SPACE. Regarding the Debit card: after activating it on the phone, 1st time you use it at an ATM (Laurentian bnk and Nat Bnk), you'll be prompted to enter a new psswrd. He highly suggested me to then make a small debit or deposit so that both sides will know it works (he said smthng like « to consolidate the activation process »). Max per day debit with the debit card is 1200$ in the context of at least 2 different visits, plus max per day purchases of 3000$. Cheers.

Doug said

That's unfortunate, rk. Simplii Financial is like this, though they'll take account verification forms if they contain a teller date and branch domicile stamp. See if Manulife will accept either a teller date/branch domicile combo stamp or a branch domicile stamp. If so, then you could just reach out to your FI to see if they'll provide that.

Note, though, that this is for additional bank accounts to link. If this is your first account to link, the cleared cheque deposit also acts as one of your two pieces of ID verification (the other being a credit report pull).

Interestingly, for additional account links, some FIs are surprisingly strict (I suspect because they don't want to make it to too easy to transfer money out) as they could simply require you only enter your external account's banking information on their prepared form but instead so many require either a VOID cheque, account verification form, e-Statement, or the like.

Cheers,
Doug  

Manulife isn't as strict as you are suggesting. I linked two accounts easily (my first & second accounts linked). One was a scan of a voided cheque, the other a PDF generated by EQ Bank. I have not used the mobile app, nor sent them anything in the mail.

I understand some people are having problems, but the speculation for the reasons do not seem to be accurate.

It probably helps me that I have a unique name and it is easy to do a match with the credit agencies. But, I too am speculating with this.

jtfrogger said

Manulife isn't as strict as you are suggesting. I linked two accounts easily (my first & second accounts linked). One was a scan of a voided cheque, the other a PDF generated by EQ Bank. I have not used the mobile app, nor sent them anything in the mail.

I understand some people are having problems, but the speculation for the reasons do not seem to be accurate.

It probably helps me that I have a unique name and it is easy to do a match with the credit agencies. But, I too am speculating with this.  

One thing that Manulife bank does not tell you up front when applying is that you can link external banks without sending in a cheque for $1. As Doug points out earlier in this thread, you can easily link accounts using void cheque from those external accounts, which you can easily get from each online and upload to Manulife.

I did exactly that and was up and running in 1 day with no trouble. (Manulife Bank does not notify you when this is done; you just have to keep checking). Was then able to perform online transfers for $50K x 2 within the same day (BTW, that is how you can get around the $50K limit per transaction).

I wanted to relay my experience with this offer/bank-- I opened an account with no issue, though never received the confirmation email with access number and therefore wasn't aware the account was actually opened. It was near month end in April when the account opened however and I did receive a monthly summary alert email on April 30 (despite not knowing my account had been activated), so I called in and the CSR confirmed it was opened and was ready for in-transfers of funds. I would have transferred funds in earlier, but since the rate offer was significantly better than any other accessible high interest account it was still worth this inconvenience.

My wife experienced a larger issue with her account-- she did receive notification of account activation, set up the external link, including a copy of her void cheque, and within a day the external account appeared in her manulife account.

Funds were transferred in, and the funds appeared in her account the next business day. Fast forward about three weeks and she went in to check her account, only to find the balance was showing as if the previous external transfer had never occurred-- the funds were showing as being transferred back to the originating account on the same day they were transferred in. For some reason a second advantage checking account (with zero balance) was also showing as having been opened, which she never opened or authorized.

She spoke with a CSR, who explained that the fund transfer was reversed because the last two digits of her external account # had been transposed. This makes sense, however after reviewing what my wife provided to link the accounts in the first place, it doesn't seem possible that the error was made at her end-- she uploaded a PDF of a void cheque when creating the account, as well as (correctly-- our computer auto-filled the proper numbers when we relinked the accounts to try this again) manually typing in the external account # to actually link the accounts. The external account was correctly entered by her, and confirmed by the printed void cheque, or it would not have been linked in the first place. The fund transfer was then initiated electronically via drop down menu, so again, the correct external account # was the only option available to pull funds from.

Now, the transposed digits appear in her account summary, as does the funds reversal, but since a drop-down menu showing the correct account # was used to transfer the funds, the incorrectly entered digits could only have been transposed at the bank's end. Seems strange that any of this would be done manually by a bank, but with confirmation from both the void cheque and drop down menu that the digits were correct when originally provided, I'm not sure what other explanation there would be. This would have been unfortunate but understandable if we'd been informed of this happening in the first place, it was strictly coincidence that my wife checked her account and saw the reversal, but instead she's missed out on 3 weeks of interest to do a bank error and the CSR she spoke with yesterday didn't provide much feedback.

The rate is still good, but at the risk of coming off as paranoid I'd suggest taking screen shots confirming funds have arrived periodically to limit the lost interest in this kind of scenario.

rk said

I did call them. The CSR suggested to send them an email attaching a statement, as well as the signed transfer form, which I have just done.  

The good news: my wife has appeared as a joint account holder.
The bad news: although I did exactly what the CSR asked me to, I have got an email stating that they are unable to process it, implying that the reason is that they need:
"A pre-printed void cheque, or a bank-stamped confirmation letter".
Here is where I give up.
Having said that, I have successfully linked our only joint chequing account, for which we do have old fashioned cheques, so that is good.
However, I am not sure if it is worth transferring money from the FI where it currently is to the FI where we have cheques and then from there transfer it to Manulife (a few days of lost interest). On a 100K savings account, the gross extra .35% for 6 months is $175. After deducting the lost interest for moving money between 3 FIs and the income tax, there is not much left.

rk said

The bad news: although I did exactly what the CSR asked me to, I have got an email stating that they are unable to process it, implying that the reason is that they need:
"A pre-printed void cheque, or a bank-stamped confirmation letter".
Here is where I give up. 

If it makes you feel any better, it isn't just you. Last week in my Manulife account I tried to add a link to an old TD savings account. Since I have no cheques for it and obtaining a PAD from TD would be a nightmare if not outright impossible, I tried uploading my most recent bank statement for documentation. The link request got rejected just like yours did.

However, since this TD account is linked to my EQ Bank account (which offers a simpler linking process that requires only the correct bank routing numbers), I first pulled the funds in question out of TD from the EQ side, and then pulled them onward from the Manulife side a few days later when the EQ hold was released. No lost interest at all since EQ pays 2.30% while I was waiting