West Gate Bank 6 Month CD: Earn 10.38%*
Wow. Where most accounts today earn only a few percentage points of interest, this bank is offering a rate from yesteryear: 10.38%.
Are you going to make a killing with this interest rate? Don’t bank on it.
For one, you have to visit a particular branch of West Gate Bank in Lincoln, Nebraska.
What else?
*MOUSE PRINT: “Minimum and maximum amount of $500 only.”
So how much money are we talking about really earning here? Six months’ worth of interest on $500 is approximately $25.95 (maybe a bit less). At their regular rate of interest (4%), you would earn about $10. So despite the attention grabbing headline of 10.38% interest, this offer is worth less than $16 in extra earnings.
Whats the limit on the amount of accounts?
Comment by bg fitz — August 21, 2006 @ 1:21 pmIn in answer to BG Fitz’ question concerning the limit on the amount of accounts. Don’t worry, BG; West Gate Bank has already thought of that. And it too is in the mouse print: one.
Comment by Dan Kap — August 21, 2006 @ 9:42 pmThere is an online bank, Emigrantdirect.com, with a savings account that is
Comment by Carolyn — September 26, 2006 @ 7:37 amcurrently earning 5.15% interest with no minimum balance.
Interest rates are at an all time high. By the way, I take offense at Carolyn’s post being a banker. The bank I work for offers a rate even better than that, but I’m not going to advertise on these board.
Comment by Ben — September 26, 2006 @ 9:32 amThe ad isn’t about a savings account. It’s a CD (certificate of deposit). CDs are sold in set amounts…$500, $1,000, etc. This is a legitimate advertisement. Anyone should be thrilled to receive over 10% on a $500 CD! Many people don’t make that much in the stock market, a much riskier venture to say the least. (And, no, I don’t work for this bank.)
Comment by Kelly — September 26, 2006 @ 10:00 amHey Guys. I really like your site and the info it presents, but please, let’s get real on this one. The issue is NOT the difference one would gain between 4% and 10%. The issue is what THIS bank is providing vs another bank. This is a good deal and legitimate advertisement. And the ad seems pretty clear to me!!
Comment by Harry — September 26, 2006 @ 11:14 amThis isn’t a bad deal. ETrade offers 5% on their 3-month CDs, but the minimum is $1000, if I remember. If you buy a couple of these $500 CDs at 10%, you’ll make more than average for that amount. If you have $5000 to store up, heck, buy 10! Trouble is you have to travel to that location? Sucks.
Comment by Jubz — September 26, 2006 @ 1:43 pm“If you buy a couple of these $500 CDs at 10%, you’ll make more than average for that amount”
The small print excludes this. You can only have 1 CD per person. Buy 10? I don’t think so
Comment by Archangel — September 26, 2006 @ 6:36 pmExcuse me but the whole point of this is,
Comment by Cindy — September 27, 2006 @ 11:46 amwhere can consumers go with these misleading advertising
complaints. Yes the public needs consumer protection for us all.
We should all care about Americans enough to have consumer protections in place and for us all to not be exposed to business lieing proctices.
Anytime a person sends money for a product and is dissapointed the shouuld always call to get their money back, the reason is because when a business gets away with sending shoddy merchandise out to the public, they are banking on some people not wanting their money back, the problem for us all with this is that if you multiply that by millions of people and take a small percent that dont request a refund, then there lies the incentive for companies to continue that kind of practice – hence it is profittable for them, though the profit is a percentage.
I think this is a good deal. And luckily, I live in Lincoln, Im gonna go cash in!
Comment by Tom — September 27, 2006 @ 12:06 pmAlthough I appreciate this site, this particular example is poor. The print is not small where it indicates that the CD’s are only sold as a $500 account. I think this is actually a great deal and a good way to set aside a small amount of money to earn a nice interest rate.
Comment by Samantha — September 27, 2006 @ 12:32 pmI work for this bank, the 10.38% CD special was a huge success and, in my personal opinion, a great deal! To clear things up, yes, you could open as many CDs as you want. The only down side is if you are an employee… cashing out all of these CDs in January.
Also, the small print was hardly “mouse print”. We made everything very clear.
Comment by Anonymous — October 1, 2006 @ 5:25 pmAlso, I should note that the amount of CDs one can open is relevant to the amount of people in your party. One per person, in other words.
Comment by Anonymous — October 1, 2006 @ 5:27 pmSeems like an acceptable deal…not deceptiive, but certainly limited.
Also, the FDIC usually allows you to have multiple accounts treated as different accounts if they have different combinations of ownerships.
For example,
Husband Joe opens a solo account, that’s one.
Wife Jane opens a solo account, that’s two.
Joe and Jane open joint account, that’s three.
Jane and Joe (in that order) open a join account, oops…that money counts the same as number three.
Add kids and you can get lots of combinations.
That’s how you can get around the limits with the $100,000 FDIC insurance if the bank goes under…or at least it was that way when I worked at a bank in the 80s.
So my question to the “Anonymous” banker is…do join accounts count as separate?
Comment by RS — October 14, 2006 @ 11:00 pmC’mon, who would turn down $16 free money? This is hardly a scam.
Comment by trentblase — April 26, 2007 @ 7:56 amDoes a $500 Max/Min mean that once the interest is paid once, bringing the total to $516, you will no longer receive the 10.38% rate?
I expect that there is a high likelihood that I will be made a fool of because I don’t understand banking.
Comment by Alex — October 18, 2007 @ 10:08 pm