Adding a Joint Account Holder at Ally Bank - Bargaineering

Adding a Joint Account Holder at Ally Bank

Posted: 28 Jun 2010 09:13 AM PDT

When I opened my Ally Bank account, I set it up as a joint account because it would be easier to manage. While I manage the bulk of our finances, it’s always easier when there is more access because then anyone can make adjustments and changes as necessary. We subscribe to the joint finances philosophy so a joint account is very natural for us.

However, when I started opening certificates of deposit at Ally, I erroneously made them single accounts. This left me as the single account holder on record and only I could make changes to the accounts. Normally, this isn’t an issue but if changing it is easy, I’d prefer it the other way. Here is what you need to do to add a joint account holder to your CDs at Ally Bank.

Why does it matter if my wife is a joint account holder? 99.9% of the time it won’t matter. But let’s say that there’s some reason why she needs to make decisions about those CDs and I’m unavailable, having her as a joint account holder makes that process much easier. There’s also the issue of FDIC insurance, increasing our coverage to $500,000 from $250,000, which may or may not be an issue.

At Ally, you need to provide the following information:

Name, date of birth, and Social Security Number of the current account holder,
Instructions on what to do – “Add Jane Smith to XXXXXXX11111″ (sanitized account numbers are acceptable)
Joint account holder’s name, date of birth, and social security.
Who is to be named “Primary” accountholder on the accounts.

Template

Here’s what I wrote, so you can feel free to copy this template, replacing the information as necessary:

Ally Bank,
My name is [YOUR NAME] and I’d like to add [JOINT NAME] to the accounts listed below. She is currently a joint account holder on our online savings account [OSA ACCOUNT NUMBER].

[YOUR NAME] DOB: [DOB]
[YOUR NAME] SSN: [SSN]

Please add [JOINT NAME] to these accounts:
[ACCOUNT NUMBER] Account Name
[ACCOUNT NUMBER] Account Name
[ACCOUNT NUMBER] Account Name
[ACCOUNT NUMBER] Account Name

[JOINT NAME] DOB: [JOINT DOB]
[JOINT NAME] SSN: [JOINT SSN]

Please leave [YOUR NAME] as the Primary on all accounts.

[YOUR NAME SIGNED]
[YOUR NAME]

[JOINT NAME SIGNED]
[JOINT NAME]

You can adjust to for your needs, they can figure it out if you spell it out very clearly. The letter must be signed by both individuals (you and the joint) and then faxed to 866-699-2969. I used FaxZero without incident. I realized afterwards that I used their service to fax my sensitive data but the document lacks any specific account data and only the name, DOB, and SSNs are considered sensitive data so I feel fairly confident our data is safe. (incidentally, anyone know of any free secure fax services? )

I faxed the letter in on Monday afternoon around 4:45pm when my wife came home. The CSR told me it would get processed in about 3 business but it was processed the following day. I confirmed this in my account as both of our names are listed in the Account Title. One day service… pretty awesome.

Adding a Joint Account Holder at Ally Bank from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

How to Cancel a Credit Card

Posted: 28 Jun 2010 04:51 AM PDT

MasterCard Visa Wallet In the last year, literature in personal finance focused a lot on “financial defense.” There was a lot of talk about credit, credit reports, and your credit score because it’s one of the cornerstones of the modern financial life, whether you like it or not. During that time, many card issuers started canceling cards, reducing credit limits, and otherwise reducing their overall financial risk. Rampant foreclosures and sinking home prices, issuers were scared and started cutting people based on where they shopped!

Now that the economy has recovered, many people don’t want to be in the position they were a year ago – feeling like the card issuers held them and their credit score hostage. The easiest way to do this is to reduce how much credit you use and the quickest way to do that is to cancel credit cards.

How do you cancel a credit card without significantly hurting your credit score?

Don’t Do It

If you are planning on buying a home or car (or otherwise need a loan) in the next year, avoid any changes to your credit unless it’s fixing an existing problem. If you aren’t planning on a large loan in the next year or two, a little financial housekeeping might be in order. You won’t help your score by canceling cards but you could simplify your financial situation and that always helps.

Paying Down Debt

The first step in any credit card reduction strategy is to reduce your outstanding debt. The main reason why canceling a credit card is bad for your credit has to do with credit utilization. Credit utilization is your outstanding balance divided by your total credit limit across all debts. A higher number means you’re using more of your existing credit, which is a bad thing. Canceling cards is bad because it decreases your total credit limit, thus increasing your utilization without increasing your risk (all you did was cancel a card).

Don’t cancel a card that has a balance. If you do, the debt becomes due immediately and you may find yourself in a difficult spot trying to pay it off. Don’t let the issuer know that you plan on canceling the card after paying off the debt because they might boost the interest rate on you (under the auspices of “risk”).

If you have little or no outstanding debt, then your credit utilization number can’t go up significantly.

Cancel Newer Cards First

The second reason why canceling a card hurts your score has to do with the average age of your accounts. This is less important than credit utilization but if you have a choice, cancel the newer cards first. If you have two cards to choose from and the newer one offers better rewards you will use, then cancel the older one. You want to pick the card that fits your needs, you don’t want the credit score industry to do it for you.

If you aren’t sure which card is newer, you can review your credit report to find out how old an account is.

Convert or Consolidate Cards

If you have two cards from the same issuer, consider consolidating credit lines. Ask to have the newer line consolidating into the older line. This, in effect, cancels the newer card but does not affect your credit utilization because your total credit limit remains the same. This is the best result you can have out of canceling a card because you keep the total credit line and you increase the average age of your accounts.

Likewise, if you prefer the newer card’s rewards, consolidate the credit limits and then ask to have the old card converted to the newer one. This can get a little tricky because you want a conversion that doesn’t require a credit check (which hurts your score) and you don’t want a new account. If you request this, be clear with the CSR that you don’t want them to cancel your old card and open a new one, you just want a conversion. Some issuers will do this, others won’t.

Call to Cancel

When you cancel your card, be sure to ask the credit card company to report the closure as “Closed at the customer’s request” and to send you written confirmation. You’ll need to confirm in about 30 days, when the closure is reported, on your credit report and retain the letter in case there is a dispute. You don’t want the report to say “Closed by creditor” because that looks bad.

Canceling a credit card account can be tricky but as you’ve just read, there are only a few moving parts to keep an eye on. In the end, you need to do what makes sense for you and I’ve laid out all the potential land mines along the way. We’ve been trying to simplify our finances for the last year, consolidating cards, canceling bank accounts, and otherwise just keeping our books a little smaller. In that time, I’ve learned that there may be a lot of pitfalls but they’re easy to navigate.

(Photo: thetruthabout)

How to Cancel a Credit Card from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

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Monday, June 28, 2010