Does Perkstreet Financial Use Chexsystems?

It occurred to me that I haven’t been doing “Reader Questions and Answers” for a while, at least not publicly. I mean, I’m always happy to answer questions as best I can via email or whatnot, but sometimes it makes more sense to answer them here so more people can find the info. Or something like that.

Anyway, today’s question comes from Nathan in Pensacola, FL.:

Hey Mike, I’ve been seeing ads for PerkStreet Financial ^SM for a few weeks. Who are these guys? And do they run Chexsystems?

Man alive, these Chexsystems folks are really stressing a lot of people out! For those who don’t know, Chexsystems is a reporting agency for banks. When you apply for an account, most banks pull your Chexsystems file to see if another bank has reported a bounced check, overdraft, closed account, etc. Basically, if you mess up with one bank, Chexsystems will report it for five years. They don’t decide whether a bank will open an account for you, but it you have a negative entry, your chances of opening a new bank account are greatly reduced.

One other thing. They’re pretty much untouchable. Supposedly, you can dispute negative entries, but I’ve never heard of anyone getting anywhere by doing that.

Anyway, back to the question. PerkStreet Financial is a partner of Bankcorp, and is another entry in the lineup of Internet-based financial service companies. It’s not a bad deal, with up to 2% cash back on debit card purchases and up to 5% cash back on purchases at certain retailers during promotional periods. They also have a healthy network of surcharge-free ATMs – in my zip code, I found 26 surcharge-free ATMs, both in typical places (gas stations and groceries) and goofy places (Waffle House and a bowling alley).

PerkStreet Financial does use Chexsystems reports to evaluate applicants, according to a representative there who was nice enough to take my call at 1 AM. I’m not sure which entries will result in a decline. When I called, the representative told me they manually review each application.

There’s a low opening balance (right now, $25), so it might be worth a try to see if they’ll accept you. Again, I don’t know what criteria their system uses to accept or deny applicants (and they’re not going to tell me) so I obviously can’t guarantee it won’t be a huge waste of time.

If you can’t get an account with PerkStreet Financial because of a Chexsystems entry or a negative credit entry, I’ve written about other options in the following posts:

Getting a Checking Account While On Chexsystems

Can I Get a Savings Account While On Chexsystems?

Oh, and if you don’t know what’s on your Chexsystems report, you can visit the Chexsystems website to get it for free (once per year or when you are declined for an account). You can order the report online, but you won’t get it instantly — they’ll mail it to you.