Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) is making it difficult for Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) customers to withdraw money from their savings account.
Apple’s savings account partnership with Goldman Sachs launched in April and now customers are reporting being unable to take their money out of the bank.
Nathan Thacker, who lives outside Atlanta, had been trying to transfer $1,700 from his Apple account to JPMorgan Chase since May 15.
Each time he called Goldman’s customer service department, he said, he was told to give it a few more days, per WSJ.
But JPMorgan is also under scrutiny for freezing customer bank accounts in May.
Others said they also had trouble transferring money from their new Apple accounts.
Customer service representatives at Goldman, which holds the deposits, sometimes gave differing responses about what to do, they said.
Sometimes, their money appeared to have simply vanished, not showing up in their Apple account or in the account they were trying to move it to.
“The customer response to the new savings account for Apple Card users has been excellent and beyond our expectations,” the bank said in a statement.
“While the vast majority of customers see no delays in transferring their funds, in a limited number of cases, a user may experience a delayed transfer due to processes in place designed to help protect their accounts.”
Read: Goldman Sachs Gets Ready to Fire Hundreds of People
Goldman Sachs Apple Savings Account Case Study
Min-Jae Lee, a lawyer, was curious to try out the Apple account and intrigued by its high interest rate.
She deposited $100,000 in April, but soon decided she would rather have her money elsewhere.
On May 1, she tried to transfer it out; it took more than three weeks for her to get it.
Lee said Goldman told her to contact JPMorgan Chase, where she was trying to move the money.
Then, on Goldman’s advice, she tried sending the money to her Vanguard account.
The $100,000 moved there before going back to Apple the same day, she said.
Goldman then called her, she said, and told her that the money could be transferred only to the account from where she had sent it.
She initiated a transfer to Ally on May 16.
A few days later, Goldman told her that her account was under a security review.
Her Apple account showed a zero balance, but the money wasn’t in her Ally account either before finally showing up there on May 25.
It is reasonable that a bank would delay a transfer to do enhanced due diligence, but the length of the delay in these cases is surprising, said Dennis Lormel, who worked on financial crimes for the U.S. government for three decades and now is a bank consultant.
The Apple savings account has attracted people searching for a high yield savings account.
It pays a 4.15% interest rate, but weary investors say banks are scouring for liquidity.
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