Get $50 Free from PerkStreet Financial

8 Responses to “Get $50 Free from PerkStreet Financial”

1. 1
   SavingEverything Says:
   November 23rd, 2009 at 10:10 pm

   First, Why is PerkStreet website owned by some lawyer firm based in Boston, MA but the bank it associates with (and described in all the Disclosures) is The Bancorp Bank in Wilmington, DE? Second, this is a different type of product but similar to Bancorp’s products; it’s mostly an online commercial bank that gives various financial services and products through private-label, partnerships nationwide. Plus, they offer other services such as healthcare HSA, payment, and other solutions for companies. Third, making deposits and withdrawals seem quite amazing! Deposit by mail, by ach, or at UPS store. Forth, Perkstreet is actually offering several different bonuses; people have to use their search engines periodically like Yahoo, Google, Bing, to see the types of deals. Fifth, the ugly: the fees are high; $4.95 for inactive accounts per month; you gotta be careful with your spendings so you dont overdraft; your deposits do not earn interest; if you’re building credit and credit history, then you need to use credit card not a debit card. It’s a trade-off: ideally, consumers want high-yield checking account, no fees, no ATM fees, reimbursed non-bank ATM fees, and 1% cashback or equivalent to most credit cards. Finally, I would estimate 2 out of 10 people like to have overdraft protection, so plus may be good. How much would credit score drop with a “hard-pull” from opening a checking account? My guess, 10-20 points?

2. 2
   Dana Says:
   December 2nd, 2009 at 9:46 am

   There is no hard pull on your credit regardless of the account type you choose (Overdraft Protection or Standard Checking). Yes, if you choose to the Overdraft Protection your purchases/checks will be paid up to a certain amount but you will also receive a fee because you are using funds that you do not have available to you. It is all clearly stated in the Account Dislcosures.

3. 3
   Nickel Says:
   December 2nd, 2009 at 11:22 am

   Dana: Thanks for clarifying!

4. 4
   dave Says:
   December 4th, 2009 at 11:09 am

   Watch out for these people.

   You more then likely will not get the bonus.

   There system is junk. Bonus does not get applied to every account because of software glitches.

   “Thanks for your email; I apologize for the trouble. Please provide your full name or account number and I will reset your information. I think that there was a processing error in our New Accounts department as several other customers were affected as well.

   Best Regards,
   Steve
   Customer Correspondence
   The Bancorp Bank
   409 Silverside Rd
   Suite 105
   Wilmington, DE 19809
   302-385-5000″

5. 5
   Curt Says:
   December 11th, 2009 at 6:03 pm

   Full disclosure here: I work for PerkStreet Financial and wanted to respond to Dave’s post above. The correct bonus was applied to his account but there is a slight lag between when an account is first opened and when the offer details appear in our customer service system. This caused some confusion, but we have reached out to Dave and resolved his issues.

6. 6
   dave Says:
   December 12th, 2009 at 12:46 am

   The first post I made dec 4 was jumping the gun. Since then I have spoke with perk street and they made it right. It was my error and jumping the gun. I would for sure tell anyone to sign up for the account it will kill any rewards checking account you can find.

   Sorry Dan and the perk street team.

   This company has some very nice stuff in the pipeline.

7. 7
   AV Says:
   August 9th, 2010 at 5:22 pm

   There are several problems with this bank, so I would warn potential customers to be aware of the fine print. Although PerkStreet’s website has the appearance of being clear about their policies, I found that not to be the case. These “fine print” policies seem designed to (1) make it difficult to move money out of the account, and (2) to limit the cashback that you can earn. Below are examples.

   (1) They have a limit of $1500 on incoming online transfers in an entire *month*! They don’t tell you about this anywhere except when you actually try to move money into your account. When I called them about it, they said that they have this restriction for new customers and I was still in my first month. After a couple more calls, I realized that they will increase this limit to $2500 after six months.

   Stated reason: Security.
   Suspected motive: To limit the amount of money you can spend to get cashback.

   (2) They have a limit of $500 on outgoing online transfers. So, say you move $5000 into your account to get 2% cashback. You are stuck with that money with them for the rest of the month (unless you adopt a slower paper check route).

   (3) They have a limit of $1500 on daily expenses and explicitly say on their website that it can be waived simply by making a phone call. I had to book two one-way international flight tickets that cost a total of over $1500. I booked these and called them to waive the limit. They refused to do so because I was still in my first month. There is no notice about waivers not being allowed in the first month anywhere. As a result, I have to now spend much more money re-booking that ticket just because PerkStreet does not allow me to spend my own money.

   Stated reason: Security for new customers. They claim that all banks have spending limits on debit cards. Really? Bank of America did not.

   Suspected motive: Limiting spending => limiting cashback.

   (4) When I tried to circumvent the limitation in (1) above to move more money into my account using FedEx, there was another surprise! The first FedEx check takes not 1 day as stated, but about 9 days for some reason. Again, some vague security reason that is incomprehensible to rational beings is given as an explanation.

   Bottomline: It is not easy to get much cashback because of their restrictive policies on what you can do with your money. And they make it harder to move money out of the account while not giving any interest on it. As for the 5% cashback, they are on such specific and tiny items that I have never been able to get 5% cashback so far.

8. 8
   Jason Henrichs Says:
   August 17th, 2010 at 8:38 pm

   My name is Jason Henrichs and I work for PerkStreet. I’ve corresponded with AV since his experience and also worked with our customer service team to improve the information he was delivered. We are always working to improve the experience and any customer’s feedback is appreciated. We are taking action on the areas of AV’s experience that can be corrected, but there are several parts of his claim that I’d like to better explain.
   Unfortunately fighting fraud is a tremendous burden that has several impacts not just for the bank but for the customers as we establish a relationship. For AV’s first point, the limit does go up over time and with the deeper relationship. There are several ways you can get money in the account besides our free online transfer- by pushing the money from the other account, setting up direct deposit or sending a check. We recognized that this would limit a new customer’s ability to meet the $5,000 threshold which is why we put in a 90 day grace period where you earn 2% no matter what. If we were looking to bait and switch to keep your balance captive we certainly wouldn’t have done that. We keep a small share of the interchange earned when a customer uses the card and give most of it back to the customer. It is in our best interest to make sure customers can spend as much as they want while balancing the fraud exposure to us and to the customer.
   On the daily limit, I’ve worked with the customer service agent on how to better handle the situation and apologize that it was not a stellar experience.
   For your last point on the check, it is clearly stated in FAQs what the hold times are but let’s face it, wading through FAQs is a pain so you naturally picked up the phone where the representative was not clear in her explanation. Again, I’ve worked on the education that she should have inquired whether you were a new customer because their is an extra hold time for the first 30 days.
   Unfortunately banks have done little to engender trust so we’re fighting little by little to do better and earn that back.

   Any customer or potential customer can contact me directly if they have questions or suggestions: jhenrichs -at- perkstreet.com