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continuing my saga...

We are now trying to open a joint account.

My spouse, who does not currently have an account with motus, decided to try to initiate this.
Spouse naively checked off "joint account", as that was what was wanted.

After doing all that was required, motus message was that they would send me an email and that I could then confirm that I wanted the joint account.

They did send the email, which included a unique code number.

I followed the instructions which accompanied that email.
This resulted in the motus site "recognizing" me as a client. Because of that, I was told to, instead, just sign in and open the account there.

So, I signed in. There was no option to open a joint account or confirm that I wanted one or to insert the unique code number anywhere. Dead end.

So, I phoned motus and was told that essentially none of he above was relevant!
The way to open a joint account, I was told, was for spouse to open a single account first; then both of us are supposed to send a secure email advising them that we want a joint account.

While this method is not unreasonable, what on earth was the point of going through the previous process? And why can't they simply convey this in the first place? It seems the unique code has no function whatsoever.

Spouse is now in the process of opening the single account. I expect we will have to wait a couple of days for a transfer-in to get the account fully activated. Then we can go back to our original purpose of opening a joint account.

Thanks, Loonie, for your earlier reply yesterday afternoon to me. That's fair enough, though I'm surprised you didn't look at Alterna Bank's seniors chequing account, which gives free cheque books, no? Might not be able to open the seniors chequing online, but I imagine the Contact Centre could do this. In this way, you could open the e-Savings account online then open a joint seniors' chequing account by phone. Rates are not as good with Motus (*provided Motus keeps their rates as is) and they do have that bizarre $250,000 maximum, per depositor balance limit, but their EFT processing is faster & more efficient than Motus Bank and their CEO seems friendlier & folksier than Motus/Meridian's CEO. As well, their back-end systems seem better.

As for your problem opening the Motus joint account, it sounds like they don't have their front end systems working properly such that when you sign in with your existing Motus account, the link on which you clicked to enter the confirmation code disappears and there's no way to access it! On the one hand, it's good that they prevent you from opening a duplicate, sole customer profile, but things don't seem to be "in sync," if you know what I mean.

Boy, talk about frustration!

Cheers,
Doug

Loonie said
I was not aware of Alterna Bank Seniors chequing but suspect it may be part of the AlternaBank system which is only accessible in-branch; and thus I may have ignored it. …

The Alterna Bank Good Life chequing account was indeed part of their in-branch portfolio.

The account was discontinued last year. See previous thread Senior account Good Life chequing to be discontinued June 1, 2018.

I do hope Motusbank holds the 3% 18 month GIC for a while. The reason is that as I commented in other places the slowness of the transfers. I started for my wife's account a transfer on June 14th that finally made it to the account as of yesterday, June 20th! Now I see reading their site info since it is over $1500 it will have an 8 day hold on it?! Since the July 1st weekend is coming in this time period it will probably add another day. To me this is ridiculous in 2019. I suppose I can call in and do something BUT I like to do it all online in a timely fashion...so Motusbank is failing for me. If they drop their rates soon I plan to drop them too.

The above example is transferred from within Motusbank taken from EQBank. I started another from Tangerine from within Motusbank to see if its faster.

Probably I could speed it up if I did the transfers initiated from EQ and Tangerine but was trying to keep maximum interest.

krwilson said
I do hope Motusbank holds the 3% 18 month GIC for a while. The reason is that as I commented in other places the slowness of the transfers. I started for my wife's account a transfer on June 14th... 

I'm pretty sure I read that they will hold their rates for one month. I know that Meridian does. You should be able to get that, even if the rate drops before mid-July.

Loonie said
Continuing my own story...

Today was the 4th business day since we requested joint accounts. Since a response was promised within 2 business days, we phoned them. After a delay, we were finally connected with someone who was able to open the accounts over the phone, since we had already submitted secure messages to that effect last Thursday.
Everyone we spoke to today was efficient and pleasant and was able to get on with the job eventually, so that our joint accounts are now open.

I asked how long the cheques would take to arrive, and was told I must request them. So I did. Should take less than 2 weeks to Toronto, she said. You get 25 free cheques.  

So strange. So, what was that chequing account you opened in order to do the now abandoned RIF transfer? Had you just opened a sole Motus chequing and/or savings account, to establish a profile?

Bizarre that they they were able to open them by telephone yet there were so many problems with you and spouse trying to open online.

Bottom line: Motus Bank earns good marks from good customer service, when they want to practice it. Their website and customer-facing online banking interface seem slick. Back office and internal processes likely earn a failing grade (or at least a C- or D).

Cheers,
Doug

I wish I hadn't initiated a transfer into motus.
Money was taken out of my external bank but hadn't shown up in motus account.
I called and told them if it's doesn't show up going into the weekend, because its friday will they back date the interest, because you will have kited my money.
Csr just said to call tomorrow morning, which will be Saturday.

I pulled it into motus .

I kind of wonder if the functionality is a bolted on solution which just generates an email or something for someone to then manually go sort out.

It felt like my money was out there flapping in the breeze, no credit to match the debit.
Motus extracted my funds from my account Friday morning, nothing in my motus account on Friday.
I called Saturday and asked for next level. They did manage to get funds in my account on Saturday, and back dated my deposit day.
I did complain about their speed of transfers and it seemed to me that there was some kiting of my money going on, they dismissed it as the transaction was just slow getting to motus once they extracted it.
I'm so used to lightning speeds by tangerine, eq, wealth one ect. , that motus was painful .