CD maturity issue

[Susie]

Last year I opened a 12 month CD at Lending Club, which matured today.  Although I get all my statements paperless from Lending Club, a month ago I got a paper form Notice of Certificate Maturity to fill out to instruct them on what to do with the CD funds at maturity.  Options included transfer to an existing account, open a new account and transfer funds there, roll it over to a new CD with same terms, etc.  The default was rolling over to a new CD with same terms.  I filled it out requesting transfer to my existing high yield savings so I could use it to pay off financing of a major home improvement just before expiration (in Dec) of 0% financing.  

There were no electronic methods of submitting this form.  I looked.  There were also no other notifications, either electronic or paper.  The whole thing felt kind of shady and and prone to "oops! we didn't get it!", so I scanned it and saved a copy before I mailed it back the next day.  Sure enough, I logged in today saw they rolled the CD over in spite of my request, with a new maturity date of 10/6/24.  Uggggggh.  

They were nice enough when I called, and had me email the copy of what I had mailed them.  They're going to cancel the new CD and honor the instructions within 10 days.  But that's a long time for them to be holding onto almost $50k, and it still seems like an intentionally shade trap for the unwary that they made it so difficult to extricate the money from being tied up in a CD with them.  The combination of a single mailed notice (when they don't mail anything else), no notifications in the online account, no ability to communicate the instructions electronically/in kind with other communications, and then the default in their favor of rolling it over, feels like they're setting people up to fail to achieve a different outcome.  

I was not expecting this to be so difficult, so this is part warning of my experience, and part question - is this typical with CDs at other institutions?

ETA:  the other thing that bothered me is that the notice - which again, thank goodness I kept a copy of - says "Please inform us of your plans for reinvestment of the above mentioned certificate of deposit.  If your response is not received by the end of the grace period listed above, your certificate will automatically rollover at the rate offered at maturity and for the same term as above."  The grace period is maturity + 10 days, so 10/16/23.  That date is printed right on the notice.  They rolled it over on the maturity date of 10/6/23, rather than waiting until the grace period end date of 10/16/23.  WTF.

[archiethedragon]

Thanks for the heads up. What is lending club?

[Susie]

Oct 6, 2023 14:40:22 GMT -5 archiethedragon said:

Thanks for the heads up. What is lending club?

A bank:  www.lendingclub.com  

I've had a high yield savings account with them for a while, because it was paying a higher rate than Capital One 360 and FNBO Direct, although right now my FNBO Direct account has the highest rate (5.15% vs. 4.5% at Lending Club).

Once this CD issue is settled I'm pretty sure I'm closing my account here.

[Mrs.Syntax]

Thanks for the heads up on this. We got a couple Lending Club CDs in the past month, and don't have any prior experience with them.

[Susie]

Update:  it took a full week, but today I see the funds have been deposited into my savings account from the CD.  Good outcome.