That's ironic.

I had opened an account with NetBank when it first opened in the late 90s (as I recall), and used it for on-line bill pay for credit card accounts and the like. It was very handy when it worked right, since the payments were by EFT and deposits could be made cost-free using their business reply envelopes. I figured they had a good business model (and judging from the banks that have followed suit, it appears they did).

I lived with their growing pains, and was pretty satisfied on the whole until late last year when because of some unknown glitch the access to my account was blocked for nearly a month. Of course, you couldn't get it "unfrozen" on the phone, and you couldn't log into your account to get it unfrozen that way.

When the mess finally got sorted out, they couldn't give a good explanation of what happened, nor was I satisfied that they had it under control and something similar wouldn't happen again. ING Direct had a good reputation, and were just starting their "Electric Orange" bill-pay program, so I closed the NetBank account and switched to ING's Electric Orange.

Now it appears everyone else is following me, but without planning to.

P.S. For those of you who do not already have an account with ING Direct, you might want to open one now (since it looks as though you're soon going to have one created for you anyway) to get the $50 bonus. See link. Hurry, though -- offer expires 30 September.