mrvirgo said:busterbaxter
You're right it wasn't a credit card but an ACH. I sent the signature card with my paper check.
I have not gotten a welcome package. Maybe since the account was opened today?
Mary Cortez approved the account once she got my fax with my driver's license and utility bill. You might want to call her on Monday to speed things up.

thanks. Too bad I called today after they were closed. Will definitely call on Monday or maybe tomorrow morning. I guess I will also send a check too, since at least it is making interest while the check is on its way. God knows how many days the ACH will take.

I applied for the Heartland reward checking also. My app seems to be taking a bit longer for some reason. I had to call after more than 24 hours of applying to get them started. It's also taking a long time for the initial funding ACH transaction to go through. It's been about a week since I applied, and I have yet to have access to my account. It'll all probably start working in a couple of more days, though the rate I'm sure will go down very soon. Still, once it's setup, it'll be a good account. They are very friendly, personable, and knowledgeable people. They're probably just overwhelmed with the reponse.

I have an account with First Federal. They were paying 6.01% APY up until mid February. They dropped the APY to 5.51%. I sent my funds elsewhere when the rate dropped. However, since I had a large deposit with them for half the month, I still wanted to fulfill the requirements to earn the high yield. As you can see below, I made at least 12 checkcard transactions for the month, 2 online bill pays and my account is set up for electronic statements. Yet they only paid out $1.21 in interest. This is my second month with the bank. The first month, they credited my account automatically with the high yield interest. It is the weekend and I cant speak with anyone in customer service as they are not open until Monday. Does anyone know why I was only credited $1.21 for the month of February? Thanks!

02-04-2008 BILL PAY TO SALLIE MAE STUDE 5.00 24,550.89

02-04-2008 BILL PAY TO FLORIDA POWER & 11.49 24,539.40

02-11-2008 Check Card 02/09/08 CINGULAR*04522 800-331-0500 TN 0.10 24,539.30

02-11-2008 Check Card 02/07/08 CINGULAR*04522 800-331-0500 TN 1.00 24,538.30

02-19-2008 Check Card 02/14/08 CINGULAR*04522 800-331-0500 TN 0.10 24,538.20

02-19-2008 Check Card 02/18/08 CINGULAR*04522 800-331-0500 TN 0.25 24,537.95

02-19-2008 101 CHECK NUMBER 24,400.00 137.95

02-21-2008 Check Card 02/19/08 CINGULAR*04522 800-331-0500 TN 0.10 137.85

02-22-2008 Check Card 02/20/08 CINGULAR*04522 800-331-0500 TN 0.05 137.80

02-25-2008 Check Card 02/23/08 PAYPAL *NCSCHO 402-935-7733 CA 0.01 137.79

02-25-2008 Check Card 02/23/08 PAYPAL *NCSCHO 402-935-7733 CA 0.01 137.78

02-25-2008 Check Card 02/23/08 PAYPAL *NCSCHO 402-935-7733 CA 0.02 137.76

02-25-2008 Check Card 02/21/08 CINGULAR*04522 800-331-0500 TN 0.05 137.71

02-25-2008 Check Card 02/22/08 CINGULAR*04522 800-331-0500 TN 0.05 137.66

02-25-2008 Check Card 02/23/08 CINGULAR*04522 800-331-0500 TN 0.06 137.60

02-26-2008 Check Card 02/24/08 CINGULAR*04522 800-331-0500 TN 0.04 137.56

02-29-2008 Interest Paid 1.21 138.77

gwu1986 said:Does the bank require your transaction amount be greater than $1.00?
Also, do they require POS transactions where you physically swipe the card?

beethovengirl said:gwu1986 said:Does the bank require your transaction amount be greater than $1.00?
Also, do they require POS transactions where you physically swipe the card?
Also, what about the Direct Deposit or ACH Auto debit requirement? Is that Billpay?

glxpass said:gwu1986 said:beethovengirl said:gwu1986 said:Does the bank require your transaction amount be greater than $1.00?
Also, do they require POS transactions where you physically swipe the card?
Also, what about the Direct Deposit or ACH Auto debit requirement? Is that Billpay?
According to the First Federal website, there is no ACH requirement, just two online bill pays. Also, unlike other Reward Checking accounts I've seen, the transactions made during one calendar month qualify one for the bonus rate on the next calendar month. So the February 2008 transactions nathanielp shows are actually for the bonus rate in March 2008.

The questions are: When was the account opened, and what does January 2008 look like? From First Federal's Moolah Checking FAQ:

To give you enough time to get started, we will automatically qualify you for our Moolah Checking bonus rates for the first full calendar month after you open your account!

Assuming nathanielp was past the waiver period in January 2008, and that he didn't meet the requirements in January 2008, then the earliest he could earn the bonus rate is in March 2008.

This is an interesting way to discourage rate chasing by moving funds between accounts. I hope other financial institutions don't adopt this method!
Gotcha. I misread. Thought he had First New England Federal Rewards...which requires the DD or ACH. Your post explains the problem...deferred qualification. Yes, let's hope other RCs do not follow this method.

ThursdaysChild said:glxpass said:Just random musings... Now that Provident Credit Union has lowered its 5.51% APY to 5.01% APY effective today, I've been pondering applying for another Reward Checking account that offers 6% APY, in order to have a backup for AAFCU, if and when that rate decreases. <snip>

... the growing popularity of Reward Checking accounts, especially nationally available ones, seems to also have had a negative impact on their rates. IOW, the more popular a specific Reward Checking account becomes, the more likely the rate will go down. <snip>

If I had a choice -- I don't as of yet -- I'd choose a Rewards Checking account that was available locally only. <snip>
I'm not sure that your reasoning here is correct. To the best of my recollection, you and I are the the only FatWalleteers who have mentioned having the Provident SuperRewards checking account. It's not as popular as some of the others, and given the fact that Provident dumped most of their SoCal accounts by selling them to a SoCal CU I'd call Provident the next best thing to local. Yet they've dropped their rates twice -- in large steps (6.01% to 5.51% to 5.01%).

I, too, am pondering applying for another Reward Checking account, but so far I've done nothing but ponder....
I'm not sure either about my reasoning, and I didn't know about them selling their SoCal accounts. I am sure the biggest factor behind the rate drops of any Reward Checking account is that the Federal Funds Rate keeps going down; any other factor is probably a very distant second place compared with that one.

I was just generalizing about these other factors, and not every financial institution will be affected the same way by those factors. It's quite possible that Provident has beome very popular in its local area (where I live). I see constant advertisements for their Super Rewards Checking Account in the local papers, they've set up information booths at various street fairs in our area, and so on. The Bank Deals post about Provident's Super Reward Checking was created on 7/6/07, and has 46 comments, with many of the commenters apparently local to Provident.

The rate drops at Provident have been large, but spaced out -- although with decreasing intervals between rate drops -- and not so bad compared with SBoT (which dropped a full point at around the same time as Provident's first rate drop of .5%, and who knows when SBoT's next drop will be), or FABaT, which dropped 1.62%. I hope Provident will keep its 5.01% APY even after the 3/18 FOMC meeting, but I think it depends on how far the Federal Funds Rate will yet again be cut.

It seems that nationally available Reward Checking accounts have cut their rates more severely than local-only Reward Checking accounts, but that may simply be an illusion. Assuming the Federal Funds Rate keeps plummeting, I think it's only a matter of time before 6% and probably even 5% APY Reward Checking accounts become a thing of the past.

naas said:nathanielp said:As you can see below, I made at least 12 checkcard transactions for the month, 2 online bill pays and my account is set up for electronic statements. Yet they only paid out $1.21 in interest. This is my second month with the bank. The first month, they credited my account automatically with the high yield interest. It is the weekend and I cant speak with anyone in customer service as they are not open until Monday. Does anyone know why I was only credited $1.21 for the month of February? Thanks!

The same thing happened to me at my local credit union (Verity). I just paid them a visit, and after humming and hawing they determined that it was an error in their system and they would correct it (and I wasn't the first person to bring such an issue this month, and it also happened to them the first month they implemented the rewards checking). Before coming to this conclusion, the teller had suggested that the statement closed on the 25th, the day of my last 2 qualifying purchases, and she thought that meant they didn't get counted; she also says she recommends to everyone to get their qualifying purchases in in the first 3 weeks of the month to avoid this problem. But the manager told us both that the statement closes on the second to last day of the month, not the 25th, so that wasn't the problem after all.

same here. I have a Verity CU account and I had the same issue. Just called and turned out some of my check card transactions were not coded correctly. They said they had a list of people being affected and would fix this tomorrow.

nathanielp, you might need to call your bank and see if your check card transactions were coded as qualified.

My Heartland account is setup. I'm just waiting for the bank to setup an external linked checking account so I can continue to fund the account (I'll use one ACH Debit to pay my utility bill instead of the direct deposit.

glxpass said:Just random musings... Now that Provident Credit Union has lowered its 5.51% APY to 5.01% APY effective today, I've been pondering applying for another Reward Checking account that offers 6% APY, in order to have a backup for AAFCU, if and when that rate decreases. Heartland would seem a good choice except for three factors:

First, their rate appears to have been effective since 10/1/2007, and thus hasn't yet experienced any impact from the subsequent FOMC meetings and rate cuts. And the upcoming meeting on 3/18 seems to promise yet another rate cut.

Second, the growing popularity of Reward Checking accounts, especially nationally available ones, seems to also have had a negative impact on their rates. IOW, the more popular a specific Reward Checking account becomes, the more likely the rate will go down. I'm sure if deposit account rates in general weren't plummeting, this second factor wouldn't be so significant.

Third, accounts with higher caps seem more vulnerable to seeing a reduction of those caps and/or a reduction of their rates. Again, this factor is probably magnified due to the lousy rate environment we have.

If I had a choice -- I don't as of yet -- I'd choose a Rewards Checking account that was available locally only.
I'm also pondering about another RC account and Heartland is top of the list. I still have SBoT and FABaT in addition to AAFCU. After moving some of the money up to the 70K cap back to SBoT because it looks like gold again after the recent rate cuts now wouldn't it be ironic if FABaT also starts to look good in the next few weeks/months providing no more rate cut or atleast not a big one...
The suggestion to wait until after 3/18 is good though I think I'll delay as well. The thing is that my CDs are maturing and the current CD offerings are rather poor compared to 6%/5% RC accounts so there is not much choice out there for cash.
I don't have a choice of local RC accounts but I don't know if these are safer from rate cuts than national accounts. I think it's the 25K cap that mostly protect them.