No, ING Direct, I’m not ok with this
May 6, 2009
Has anyone else had a problem with their account aggregators of late? For the past 3 months, Yodlee has given me error messages for my ING and ED accounts and I’ve been growling at it under my breath. They finally told me that the contact was being limited at ING and ED’s end today. ING’s reply to my inquiry into the veracity of this statement:
I understand that you recently had an issue trying to connect to our website using Yodlee. This service is commonly referred to as an account aggregator. While this service may have worked in the past, most users are finding that their aggregator does not work with our New Sign In Process.
The security of your information is very important to us. Once your personal information leaves ING DIRECT, we have no control over your information or how it is used by third parties. Because we have no way of monitoring how account aggregators address security, privacy or the use of cookies we are unable to support the use of these services.
To best protect your personal information and your funds, we recommend that you do not share your personal information (including your Customer Number and PIN) with any third party.
Thank you,
XXXXING DIRECT USA
This pretty much infuriates me. Why did it take Yodlee this long to tell me what the real problem was? Why did I keep getting useless “we’re working on it” and “the problem has been resolved” messages?
And ING! And ED! Why do ING and ED get to arbitrarily decide that they’re not going to allow you to allow access to your own accounts?
I feel like I’m being flung back into the personal finance era of 2001 before I discovered account aggregation and had to sign into every single account manually.
I am not a happy ING Direct customer. Why can’t we have the choice about whether or not we’re going to share our personal information with a relatively secure third party? Is it my account or not?
And while I’m on my soapbox about losing personal control to a faceless entity that “knows what’s best” for me:
This Reuters article about The End of Personal Finance really put my back up. Of course individuals can’t take care of, plan for, or be prepared for every single possible disaster in life, and expect to succeed. But to suggest that “personal finance” primarily consists of hot stock tips and therefore, personal responsibility was simply a pipe dream? *deep breath* And the implication that taking responsibility at all – under the “guise” of a misdefined personal finance – is actually usurping the “rightful role of the government?” That has me sputtering in outrage. Ridiculous.
The government is not our life-support parental unit! Heck, my actual parental units don’t expect to support me for the rest of my life, as well as my kids’ lives. And you bet that I’m disabusing brother of the notion that he’s got the right to that as well.
*grumble*
*throws a stale muffin bottom at account aggregators and people who think personal finance is a bunch of bull*
No one wants to take responsibility for anything….especially when their tweeting actions lead to this.
I read that article and another one on Slate that said that PF advice was worthless because it can’t predict the future.
In the absence of another bout of swine flu, they have nothing else to write about.
Uhm… If there was a point to that Reuters article, what was it, really?
That we have no control over our destiny? (NEWS FLASH!)
That we might as well not bother to try to manage our finances, because sooner or later some catastrophe is going to collapse our house of cards? (Let’s not bother to wash our hands and clean off the countertops, either, ’cause sooner or later we’re going to get the flu or diarrhea anyway.)
That in 1997 we should all have invested in gold? (Did Our Intrepid Reporter smoke the same stuff then that he smokes today?)
That journalists make damnfool mistakes and later feel bad about them?
WhatEVer. The piece is all over the place. It’s a prime example of why Internet-driven journalism needs editors! The good old-fashioned managing editor who climbs up on a chair in the middle of the newsroom, waves a piece of claptrap in the air, and shouts WHO WROTE THIS???!?
FB: Good for you. Esp just using the muffin bottom since we all know the top is the best part.
And … never mind. š
paranoidasteroid: I don’t know why I give them the click-throughs. That just occurred to me.
Funny About Money: Essatamente! Whole thing was infuriatingly pointless. As PA pointed out, it’s filler material.
HEY! you’re mentioned on MSN Money’s smart spending blog, in case you didn’t know (but more than likely already do):
http://blogs.moneycentral.msn.com/smartspending/archive/2009/05/06/layoff-the-emotional-journey.aspx
awesome!