PerkStreet Financial℠, a relatively new online checking account is now offering 2% cash back when using the PerkStreet Financial Debit MasterCard for signature (non-pin) purchases if you have an account balance of $5,000 or more, or 1% back if your balance is less than $5,000.
Plus, you can earn 5% cash back for the rest of June and July(2010) when you:
- purchase ice cream at Ben & Jerry’s, Culver’s, Dairy Queen and Cold Stone Creamery
- make home improvement purchases at Lowe’s, Home Depot and Menard’s
- buy gas by paying at the pump
5% cash back for gas and at home improvement stores is a great deal, PerkStreet also says there will be more opportunities to earn 5% back throughout the year.
Cash Back Debit Card
A cash back debit card tied to an online checking account is a great alternative for those who choose not to use credit cards for all of their purchases or don’t use credit cards at all and want to stick with cash based spending, still allowing you to get rewards back for your purchases which are on par with that of many rewards or cash back credit cards.
About PerkStreet Financial
PerkStreet Financial is an online financial services company offering online checking, offering “perks” in the form of cash back, music, or coffee when you make purchases with your cash back Debit MasterCard.
A PerkStreet checking account lets you:
- Buy things with your PerkStreet Financial Debit MasterCard, cash or checks
- Withdraw money without a charge at 37,000 ATMs nationwide
- Find an ATM from your computer or mobile phone
- Withdraw money without charge at any merchant that allows you to get cash back when making a purchase
- Transfer money online between your other bank accounts and your PerkStreet checking account
- Pay bills online
- Check your balance online or over the phone and receive balance alerts via email or mobile phone
- Get help over the phone any time of the day – we answer most calls within 30 seconds
Your money is FDIC insured up to the current limits (currently $250,000).
PerkStreet has no account minimums, and no monthly fees, save a $4.50 inactivity fee for months when you do not use your account at all- you can avoid this by making a transaction with your debit card, writing a check that clears the account, using Online Bill Pay, initiating a withdrawal or making a deposit to the account.
Opening an Account at PerkStreet Financial
The account opening process is relatively simple and only takes a few minutes- you enter your information, fund your account with a minimum of $25.00 (you can use a bank transfer from an existing account). PerkStreet will send you an email confirming they have received your application, and say they will contact you within 2 business days to notify you of the status. I just signed up myself over the weekend, and the entire process took less than 10 minutes.
ATM Usage-
PerkStreet gives you access to the largest free ATM network in the country (STARsf®), located in the at CVS®, Walgreen‟s®, Target® and 7-Eleven® and more. Usage of ATM’s withing this network are totally free.
Also, according to the FAQ page, they do offer checks for usage with your account, and the 1st book of checks is free, for times when you may need to write a check instead of using a debit card.
Visit PerkStreet.com to sign up for your free online checking account and the PerkStreet FinancialSM Debit MasterCard.
“The PerkStreet Financial Visa Debit Card is issued by The Bancorp Bank pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc.”
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
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.
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. IM- I hope you’ll give us a shot. We aren’t perfect but I can assure we have many customers who love us. And I don’t know many other banks that have their COO writing a lengthy reply to an irate customer on a Saturday because he genuinely cares about making banking better.
Any customer or potential customer can contact me directly if they have questions or suggestions: jhenrichs -at- perkstreet.com
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