By doing so, an individual will have the chance to look at different terms and conditions, loans and rates, as well as the benefits of signing up for a particular date or credit union. Once a final decision has been made, a person may find themselves signing up for one, two, and sometimes even for bank accounts; and this is absolutely okay. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to experience if a financial institution is worth loyalty, fortunately by doing research, an individual will also be able to take advantage of free gift cards or money instead of walking away with nothing when everything is said and done. Depending on the local area, there may be different bank checking account bonus that are better than others; the point remains that all of these take little to no effort to obtain and receive therefore there should be no excuses. While saving money at home is a viable option and generally safe, the fact that a bank account is even safer should be enough reason to become an account holder.

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Chexsystem is a company that aggregates the names and information of all of the people that default on their bank accounts.  They then share this information with the traditional banks so that they can understand the risks involved with a new bank account applicant.  This paints a clearer picture for them than if they had run a credit or background check since they can see if you had issues with banking in the past.  Fortunately, you aren’t on this list forever, and after 3-5 years you are back in the clear and can get a normal bank account once again.

So what are you to do in the mean time?  That’s where second chance bank accounts come into play.  These work just like a regular account, but cost a little more and use a company that you’ve probably never heard of.  Companies like Vision Premier and Rush Card are the most popular and reliable in this industry.

Rather than using a bank to deposit money, you will use direct deposit for any recurring checks and money can be deposited at your local check cashing store.  You get all of the regular banking benefits like a card, online banking, and overdraft protection.  Fees associated with this type of account are a bit higher than those with regular banks, but when it’s your only choice it’s a pill that has to be swallowed!  The fees will vary from company to company, but are usually a flat monthly fee.

Second chance banking is a great way to manage your money until you’ve been cleared from Chexsystem.  You won’t be stuck there forever, so take advantage of this great alternative.  It’s a heck of a lot better than carrying around cash all of the time!

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Right off the bat, you should carefully read and then (maybe) opt out of your account protection benefit package. Banks have lots of different names for these and they claim to offer you some kind of protection but sometimes they offer the banks the opportunity to charge more fees when you dip into the negative side of your balance. That’s not really protection.

In the old days banks would bounce checks when your balance couldn’t cover them, charge you a fee, and that was that. Now banks often “arrange” your checks and debits to suit their revenue agenda before they process them. This gives them the ability to break your balance so to speak by allowing your transactions to process but then to charge you multiple overdraft fees. If your particular plan opens the door for this, cancel it.

The next thing you can do to avoid bank fees is to link a savings account to your checking account. That way when you make a debit or pass a check that runs your checking account into the negative it will be covered by a transfer from your savings. Of course the bank will charge a fee for this transfer but that’s okay. It will be much smaller than any overdraft fee would have been.

Another way to get the upper hand on bank fees is to sign up for automatic account alerts. These can usually be configured to come to your email inbox or even to your phone. The value here is that you’ll always have a way to look up your balance and see what transactions have and haven’t cleared. That way you won’t be caught flat-footed when you want to make a purchase but a previous charge that hasn’t cleared yet or a deposit that hasn’t credited yet. Knowledge is power.

Finally, if you want to avoid bank fees altogether you can start changing your spending habits. Move away from the bank and move toward one of the prepaid debit cards on the market today. They work just like MasterCard and Visa cards do but you load them up before you spend. They don’t have overdraft fees because you can’t spend more than your balance because those transactions are simply rejected.

Reloadable debit cards do have their own fees but they’re simpler to understand than bank debit cards and bank account fees. And an added bonus is that when you spend down your balance on a prepaid card you can simply choose not to reload it and walk away. Banks are a little tougher to free yourself from.

Bank fees account for more than 50% of bank revenue today. That’s up from 35% a mere 10 to 15 years ago. Fees are a multi-billion dollar revenue stream for banks and they’re going to always look for new and (shall we say) “creative” fees to apply to your account. Keep your eyes open and guard your money well.

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Though it may not seem realistic on the surface, having two bank accounts can help protect you against theft, if you need to give out your details for a wire transfer or write a lot of checks.

In 2009, I was the victim of identity theft and bank fraud that totaled to about $20,000. What happened is that a person or persons had set up a fake account on my behalf on the popular job web site called Monster.com They then went about sending out checks to various people for some very large sums of money, from $800 to $4,000.

All they needed to be able to do this was to get the routing number and bank account number of my bank account. Guess what is printed on every one of your standard checks? That is correct – both the routing number and bank account number are right there for anyone to copy. In addition, you can pick up printable blank checks from any office supply store and simply add the information to the blank check and print it yourself.

Even though they did not have my correct address and the signature was nothing close to mine – my bank still allowed people to get away with cashing these checks. In the end, I got my money back, but I had to fly all the way from Asia to California to meet with my bank. I also had to fill out a headaches worth of paperwork and meet with bank managers who tried to figure it all out – naturally they got it all mixed up and this caused me to waste more of my time, fill out more paperwork and have more headaches.

By the banks orders, I had to close down my account and open a new account. Therefore, the first lesson you can learn is to ask your bank in advance, what they will or can do in the event of such a situation. But don’t believe what they say, get it all in writing. Another step to take would be to open two accounts.

Open one account and use it as a cash in only account. This account could be a passbook savings account where you don’t write any checks or let any money go out of this account except online transfers to savings or accounts that are related or connected to this account. It will be safe for you to give out the bank information in this case. And always remember to look for a good savings and checking account promotion, and also good checking and passbook savings account rates.

Then you have another account for cash out that you control. You only give out the bank details of the first account for accepting wire transfers, deposits etc. However, if someone steals your bank details they will not be able to take any money out. It isn’t foolproof, but it is a step forward and in my case it was the only option as my bank wasn’t smart enough to figure out how to protect me. The real solution would be to find a bank that will solve this problem in the first place.

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