ING's fake-transfer trick: 4.5% to 2% depending on the customer and the day

ING’s fake-transfer trick: from 4.5% to 2% depending on the account holder and the day

The fake transfer at ING works. Or it doesn’t. It depends on the amount moved, who is named as the account holder and the day someone feels like simulating a capital flight. The mechanics haven’t changed: log in to online banking, prepare a transfer to another institution and leave it half-finished, without ever typing the password. The system reacts by offering a deposit to keep the money. What changes is the reward. And the saver’s patience.

The figures circulating range from 4.5% AER for 3 months to a 2% that doesn’t even make the hassle worthwhile, with 3.5% and 2.75% in between, subject to an early-withdrawal penalty. With that material, some argue the trick is still alive, while others have already pulled their money out. Both things are true at once, which says quite a lot about the matter.

What the fake transfer is and how to do it without being an Ibanesto customer

The most repeated recipe doesn’t require having an account at the destination bank. You just need to use the salary account —not the Cuenta Naranja, which only allows transfers to accounts already linked— and launch the operation against a test account. The most cited one is Ibanesto’s: 0030 1001 37 0000002271. You fill in the transfer as if it were for real and abandon it before entering the password. That’s when the offer pops up.

The detail matters: doing it from the Cuenta Naranja limits the movement to linked recipients, so the simulation loses force. With the salary account, the system interprets that the customer is really taking the money out and reacts. Some attempts don’t even get that far: they trigger a limit exceeded warning and force you to call an operator, who plays with an advantage.

From 4.5% to 2%: repeating the fake transfer makes loyalty more expensive

The pattern the attempts draw is more or less stable. A fake transfer to Openbank returns 4% for 3 months; repeating it weeks later drops to 2%. A fake transfer to Ibanesto gives 4%, you take it, cancel it two days later and, when you try again, it’s 2% once more. The house doesn’t reward persistence.

There are also those who have seen how a tiny transfer, of 500 euros, was enough to awaken the Cuenta Naranja deposit offer. And those who, moving 18,000 euros or 3,000, received nothing. The amount helps, but it doesn’t explain everything. There is a threshold above 25,000 euros where the fake transfer did work, according to one cited case.

One of the most striking episodes: after a fake transfer that returned 4.5% for 3 months, the website froze when trying to check whether the deposit had been taken out. The ghost customer was left unable to review their products.

The trick that reactivates when you change the account holder

Here comes the curious twist. When the fake transfer no longer offered anything from one account, the same money from the salary account of the spouse —same address, same money, different account holder— awakened the 4.5% AER for 3 months again. In that case, the system seemed to look at the account holder rather than the family balance.

And some have scraped out one more point: cancel a deposit at 3.5% and take it out again at 4.5% by taking advantage of a fake transfer to Ibanesto. According to that account, with the offer in hand, the threat to take the money away worked better than negotiating with the salesperson. The small print comes with it: if that offer is confirmed, deposits already open at 3.5% are not cancelled.

Campaigns for balance increases: the route without simulations

Not everything goes through the fake transfer. The most cited campaign is a deposit at 4% for 4 months for income received between 01/01/2011 and 31/01/2011, provided the savings are maintained or increased. No simulated transfers, no calls, no standoffs with the operator.

The flip side is offers with conditions. The 2.75% for 12 months came with an early-withdrawal penalty, and to a saver moving a significant amount it seemed like a dud. Other simulations were closed by phone: an initial 2% offer and a conversation that ended up agreeing on 3.60%.

What to do if the fake transfer no longer gives anything

The most cited alternative outside ING is Ibanesto, which maintains a 3.6% AER for those who increase their balance compared with 15 March. ActivoBank also appears, with a deposit at 3.5% for 3 months without penalties after a fake transfer, and Openbank, which has offered 3.3% for 4 months to customers who had left. At the other extreme, accounts yielding 1.25%.

Someone who tried Banco Popular and Ibanesto from the salary account got a little over 1%, the same pittance their Cuenta Naranja was already yielding. The underlying anger isn’t the rate. It’s seeing how the bank reserves the best conditions for newcomers and denies them to long-standing customers. Some people’s response has been to close the Cuenta Naranja and keep only the salary account, hoping that in a few months the institution will treat them as newly arrived.

A retention strategy, not a promotion

It’s worth saying clearly: the fake transfer isn’t a commercial offer, it’s a retention tool that is activated only when the system detects a risk of flight. That’s why it gives different results to different customers on the same day.

With this background, the trick is likely to keep producing intermittent results, increasingly tied to the account holder’s profile rather than the amount moved, and balance-increase campaigns may end up replacing the fake transfer as the ordinary route. Although, given the track record, the forecast shouldn’t be trusted either.