Apply now to get free checking with this exclusive online offer. Please include the offer code FREECHECKING in your application to take advantage of this special promotion. MyAccess Checking® has no minimum balance or monthly maintenance fee when opened online.1 Plus enjoy these valuable extras free of charge: 1.No opening balance required 2.Free Online Banking service with Bill Pay and Online Statements 3.Unlimited Bank of America ATM, Online, and Bank by Phone access to your funds 4.Check Card with Total Security Protection™ 5.Overdraft protection service available from your savings or credit card account
Edit: Now free for everyone... Thank Himali
http://www.bankofamerica.com/promos/jump/freechecking2/ Text
codename47 said:Really? I might give it a shot then. I have a few cards with them.
Edit: Nope, you are wrong, they stated on the website they pull a report.Yeah, I have a checking acct and simply added my name to my wife's checking and they pulled a hard through Experian. Didn't think it was necessary, but they obviously thought otherwise.
codename47 said:Really? I might give it a shot then. I have a few cards with them.
Edit: Nope, you are wrong, they stated on the website they pull a report. When I opened my first mainland (no- CA) account, they pulled TU. Not since then. I have an older CA checking account (different system), they pulled a TU when I opened a savings next to this, I assume it was because I moved from that address.
Great, they finally came out with FREE CHECKING! How lame is Bank Of America.
Put your money in HSBC, Citibank OR Wamu and get 5% and then link it to a checking account with them!
Bank Of America has the WORST rates of all the banks out there, so while everyone else is now adding 5% accounts at a minimum, they come out with free checking. How nice of them!
Keep all the money in a high rate account and you can use your ATM card. Assuming a 5k balance in checking, you just forked over $250 to the bank EACH YEAR.
Over a 20 year period you paid a total of $2000 + compounding interest. Nice work folks!
Get in the habit of USING a 5%+ account with ATM FROM THE START. I cant stress this enough.
With MULTIPLE banks in my market offering 5% and up accounts (AT LEAST 3) there is NO reason not to use this.
If the billpayment service is NOT to your liking with the alternative bank, you can use mycheckfree.com FOR FREE or other FREE BILLPAYMENT WEBSITES.
When banks seed you with $200 promos for depositing, if you use it for the long haul, you actually forked over a total net to them of $2000 + compounding minus $200. Promos are great if you take advantage and cancel them out immediately however so you make it work for YOU.
Update: Promotion is only for Texas and Georgia as per Bank Of America representative. I was just curious as to where it was available.
Told them the FREECHK code........ They said it was just for Texas and Georgia.
Which code did you use? I don't want a Bank Of America account because of the reason's I stated. But for others who MUST have a Bank Of America account and refuse to heed the warnings.
I had fun with a chatroom session with Bank Of America. I spoke to a 2nd person this time. Went through everything and she said the application will be rejected if it is not from Georgia or Texas.
The code FREECHK is NOT good for states other than Georgia or Texas. While the code will work, the applications will be REJECTED.
All people from outside Georgia and Texas: Please let us know if the applications were approved because the representative is saying they will be rejected. While you shouldn't be dealing with BoA in the first place, but if you do let us know. I am betting that they will be rejected.
BoA is horrible. Think twice about opening an account with them. Just about every bank out their has a free checking account but at BoA you need a promo code to get one. They will fee you to death. Make sure you don't need direct deposit. Also, if you're going to open an account at this horrific bank, get a larger bonuse than $35. I opened several accounts and received or I'm in the processing of receiving a $125, $100 and $100 bonuses. Once I get the money, I'm getting out. Also take them up on their "keep the change" but again be carefull because they fee you on the savings accounts as well. Their business phylosiphy is simple: Charge high rates on loans, pay the lowest rates on savings and charge the most fees.
ajulius said:Which code did you use? I don't want a Bank Of America account because of the reason's I stated. But for others who MUST have a Bank Of America account and refuse to heed the warnings.
Since you insist on making every thread into an Anti-BOA thread, I will say again what I have said before: its great if you live in NYC metro where the competition has caused three huge banks offering linked 5%+APY savings, but that isn't the case for the rest of the country.
So what do you suggest? That people drive an hour away to make a deposit in the one ATM in the state that takes deposits for HSBC/Citi/Wamu (if it even exists)? That for every check they recieve in the mail, even $10 rebate checks, they spend 39c mailing it in and waiting 3-4 days for it to process? That we don't use BOA, despite having such large ATM coverage, simply because you say so, and go with another local bank with fewer ATM's that still doesn't offer high rate savings? I know you will respond to go to fdic.gov and find a bank. My zipcode is 01602 - go ahead and do that for me and show me the banks that offer me 5% interest - unless I missed one, there aren't any. bankdeals.blogspot.com has a pretty good listing of banks with 4%+ APY savings accounts, and none of those banks are local to me.
Honestly, people aren't banking with BOA because they like to piss you off. I would use Citi, HSBC, Wamu in a heartbeat if they had branches out here, but they don't, so I use BOA, because it isn't worth my 39 cents to mail HSBC a $10 check, when I can deposit it in a BOA ATM, and ACH it out the next day. Most people here aren't keeping several thousand dollars in their BOA accounts, they move it over to whatever their favorite savings account is.
Some people do use BOA for their great billpay, because their time is worth more than the $2000 over a lifetime that they loose in interest. I don't measure my free time at the same rate as I do my work time, and find this as sort of a hobby, so I don't use their billpay, but some peopel do, deal with it.
And if you are so anal about getting every cent of interest, why don't you have an interest checking account that you can next-day ACH your funds to for bill payment, etc?
I'm not using BOA because I am stupid, I am using it because it is what makes sense. I have to make my deposits somewhere, as I do take money in that isn't through ACH. Although their hold policy isn't great, unless you trigger something (out of state large check, $5k+ checks, etc), fund avilability is usually next-day (and if you make the deposit at a bank, you can usually get the bank manager to waive a hold for you if you really need it), and depending on how much I've hit my citibank next-day ACH maxes, I can usually be earning 5% APY on it two days after I deposit it (I can always use ED instead, but that doesn't have an ATM card).
Don't give me the crap about ACH loosing money either, because WE DON'T HAVE A CHOICE. We have no local banks that offer high yield savings. Wamu, Citi, HSBC are the only big banks that I know of which offer it - perhaps because of the competition of the NYC area. However, they don't cover the rest of the country, despite what your mind may think.
I don't think your solution is perfect either, as I've said before. You are loosing interest on the money that is sitting in your checking account waiting to pay bills. You should be using an interest bearing checking account (I'm pretty sure Everbank has no min despite a $1500 initial deposit) with next-day ACH between that and a high yield savings account. Hopefully the interest checking account debits bill-pay's when they are cashed as well. I am thinking of moving towards this, but when I know a deposit will not trigger a flag with BOA, the quickest way to get my money will still be to deposit it there and ACH it, not to mail it (Everbank, Netbank, UFB Direct all have postage paid mail in envelopes).
Will you stop bringing this up in every thread? Your solution works for your location, but that isn't how it is through the rest of the US.
Xeon852 said:ajulius said:Which code did you use? I don't want a Bank Of America account because of the reason's I stated. But for others who MUST have a Bank Of America account and refuse to heed the warnings.
Since you insist on making every thread into an Anti-BOA thread, I will say again what I have said before: its great if you live in NYC metro where the competition has caused three huge banks offering linked 5%+APY savings, but that isn't the case for the rest of the country.
So what do you suggest? That people drive an hour away to make a deposit in the one ATM in the state that takes deposits for HSBC/Citi/Wamu (if it even exists)? That for every check they recieve in the mail, even $10 rebate checks, they spend 39c mailing it in and waiting 3-4 days for it to process? That we don't use BOA, despite having such large ATM coverage, simply because you say so, and go with another local bank with fewer ATM's that still doesn't offer high rate savings? I know you will respond to go to fdic.gov and find a bank. My zipcode is 01602 - go ahead and do that for me and show me the banks that offer me 5% interest - unless I missed one, there aren't any. bankdeals.blogspot.com has a pretty good listing of banks with 4%+ APY savings accounts, and none of those banks are local to me.
Honestly, people aren't banking with BOA because they like to piss you off. I would use Citi, HSBC, Wamu in a heartbeat if they had branches out here, but they don't, so I use BOA, because it isn't worth my 39 cents to mail HSBC a $10 check, when I can deposit it in a BOA ATM, and ACH it out the next day. Most people here aren't keeping several thousand dollars in their BOA accounts, they move it over to whatever their favorite savings account is.
Some people do use BOA for their great billpay, because their time is worth more than the $2000 over a lifetime that they loose in interest. I don't measure my free time at the same rate as I do my work time, and find this as sort of a hobby, so I don't use their billpay, but some peopel do, deal with it.
And if you are so anal about getting every cent of interest, why don't you have an interest checking account that you can next-day ACH your funds to for bill payment, etc?
I'm not using BOA because I am stupid, I am using it because it is what makes sense. I have to make my deposits somewhere, as I do take money in that isn't through ACH. Although their hold policy isn't great, unless you trigger something (out of state large check, $5k+ checks, etc), fund avilability is usually next-day (and if you make the deposit at a bank, you can usually get the bank manager to waive a hold for you if you really need it), and depending on how much I've hit my citibank next-day ACH maxes, I can usually be earning 5% APY on it two days after I deposit it (I can always use ED instead, but that doesn't have an ATM card).
Don't give me the crap about ACH loosing money either, because WE DON'T HAVE A CHOICE. We have no local banks that offer high yield savings. Wamu, Citi, HSBC are the only big banks that I know of which offer it - perhaps because of the competition of the NYC area. However, they don't cover the rest of the country, despite what your mind may think.
I don't think your solution is perfect either, as I've said before. You are loosing interest on the money that is sitting in your checking account waiting to pay bills. You should be using an interest bearing checking account (I'm pretty sure Everbank has no min despite a $1500 initial deposit) with next-day ACH between that and a high yield savings account. Hopefully the interest checking account debits bill-pay's when they are cashed as well. I am thinking of moving towards this, but when I know a deposit will not trigger a flag with BOA, the quickest way to get my money will still be to deposit it there and ACH it, not to mail it (Everbank, Netbank, UFB Direct all have postage paid mail in envelopes).
Will you stop bringing this up in every thread? Your solution works for your location, but that isn't how it is through the rest of the US.
First report Applied for it on the California system. Since I don't live there, it was attached to the other BofA system (I have other accounts here). Too bad only California has the option for funding from a credit card. Although I chose this option, the balance is zero. But... on the PenFed Card there is a $1K temp charge...
Xenon if you read my comments I said that the only reason to use BoA is if it is FORCED on you because you need to do banking and it could be the only bank available.
It is very unfortunate you are in this situation. Is Bank Of America the only bank by you? Look on maps.google.com and other such services because you could be surprised at what you find. You may be able to find a 3 or 4% account if you cant find that magic 5%+. If every online account in your area is .50% (in most areas it is higher with other banks other than Bank Of America) or Bank Of America is the only bank in your area then you have no choice but to use Bank Of America.
Disclaimer: By providing links to other sites, FatWallet.com does not guarantee, approve or endorse the information or products available at these sites, nor does a link indicate any association with or endorsement by the linked site to FatWallet.com.
