Popular Direct:
Online Savings Account - 5.00% APY

Worst banking exp ever. I got their 3 month CD at a rate to try to keep up with month to month inflation. I found out it's a long drawed out process next to impossible getting your money back into your funding account. If you lapse just a couple days or over a long weekend your grace period has tolled. The will auto renew the CD into their 5 year CD which pays the lowest interest. You will then be donating your money for a long term commitment. If you want to get out at this point you will loose part of your principal.
Did you see in the terms you will have to forfeit 2 years interest on an early withdrawal??

I had two 5 year CDs. Once in 2021 and again in 2022, PD claimed that my account had been abandoned. As far as I know, PD had made no effort to reach me, and I had been logging in once/month to check my balances. I had to submit paperwork to revive my account. The first time I shrugged it off. The second time, I was so spooked that I decided I had to get my money out or risk losing it all. Yes, I paid the crazy 2 years of interest penalty for an early withdrawal. I was relieved to have my money however, and since interest rates were higher when I got it, I put the money somewhere safe and at a better interest.

I would give them 0 stars if possible. I've had over 10+ CDs and bank accounts at all different institutions and never have I encountered such difficulty just accessing my account online! Just the application for opening the account was riddled with errors and I had to call them in order to move on. No confirmation emails are sent at all notifying you of your enrollment or account activity. Had to give them another call just to get my account number. You can try to sign up online to just make an account and nope. Enrollment will stall for no reason and you must call them again. For verification reasons, they've made multiple soft inquiries on my credit just to give me my own access to my online account. Wow. Then when I'm finally in, there's no way to set your maturity options. This is probably a fake company. I've never been so frustrated with opening a CD account.

No, they are not.

I opened an account a couple of years ago and had a dreadful experience. I saw two weeks ago that the rate was better than at Citizens so I closed that account for this one. I cannot access my money now or get customer service. I am not even making the .55% that is advertised. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice ... oh, well.