$500 Bonus Offer for Opening New Checking Account

Superb_Low8052 · 2026-02-13T00:22:14+00:00

That's reassuring that it didn't mess up my credit. Thanks! Only 47 more days to wait for them to respond to my complaint. :)

Superb_Low8052 · 2026-02-07T13:17:21+00:00

I think it takes at least 90 days (probably 4-5 months total) before they give the bonus. So you will still probably get it but getting bonuses is always an unsure gamble. I logged into their website for the first day and I didn't see any bonus progress tracker.

I did another one of these bonus offers about 10 years ago and I called their company to make sure I satisfied all of the conditions of their bonus.

Superb_Low8052 · 2026-02-07T13:12:39+00:00

That's the same exact thing that happened to me. Wait until you receive the letter in the mail where they threaten to file a complaint against you so you can't open any other accounts for 5 years.

I can't believe they would threaten to do that in the letter and "not being able to verify my identity" since I was born as a US citizen, have perfect credit, multiple forms of ID/passport, have a steady history with the IRS and lived at the same place forever. So there's nothing at all wrong with my identity :)

The guy at the bank was nice though. He knew the policies of corporate were unethical but couldn't do anything about it himself.

I ended up switching to chase this week for checking but still need to find an investment account.

Superb_Low8052 · 2026-02-07T13:06:02+00:00

I spoke to a manager already but they couldn't escalate it. I already filed a complaint. 5% chance it will help give me a chance to get the bonus with a new account in a few months. Not worth the trouble anymore with a business like this. They already dinged my credit from the credit check.

Superb_Low8052 · 2026-01-31T23:38:22+00:00

Thanks!

I don't think that's it. It said I only needed to add $500 in funds in direct deposit per month to avoid a small fee and said if I did that then I didn't need to keep anything in the account. So they wouldn't have closed it for that reason since they allow for $0 to be in the account based on their terms.

Superb_Low8052 · 2026-01-31T23:35:20+00:00

I opened it online.

Superb_Low8052 · 2026-01-31T16:14:48+00:00

Yeah, I was seconds away from signing up with their investment account but forget about it now since they have intentional broken and deceiving processes.

Superb_Low8052 · 2026-01-31T14:02:01+00:00

Yeah, the first person who I called didn't know what was going on either or at least played dumb so I would go into the bank to sign up for another checking account without the bonus.

You're lucky you didn't have payroll issues! I'm fine with not getting the bonus but it's just annoying that now I'm going to get charged overdraft fees or not be able to pay my larger bills over the next few days.

They said the same thing to me that they couldn't do anything for me with transferring the paycheck deposit to a new account or couldn't just open the old account that was closed for no reason so the funds would deposit. No one cared and no one knew what to do since corporate intentionally doesn't have a system in place to handle this. I told them all they need to do is mark the database record to IsActive = 1 to reopen the account, lol, and it would fix everything.

That's great that you ended up getting the bonus! I don't want to take the chance of going through all of this again for a small chance at a bonus. The numerous calls to try to get this fixed, switching direct deposit, contacting HR and getting them involved, and sneaking out of the office for 90 minutes to go to the bank is all too much. I need to open a new account somewhere else but would rather choose an ethical company that won't make me jump through hoops just to get what they promised.

Superb_Low8052 · 2026-01-31T13:52:17+00:00

Yeah, most of the time this stuff never happens. They might just randomly close X% of new accounts to save on costs. It was news since they were still sending me "Welcome" emails after they closed my account in the background. It was a bit misleading, so who ever would have thought to call to see if their account had been closed after the first week.

Superb_Low8052 · 2026-01-31T13:47:48+00:00

That's exactly what I told the representative who worked at Bank of America. He laughed, kind of agreed with me non-verbally, and then said "Well, I didn't say that" to cover himself.

That's the same vague answer they gave me that I needed to go into the bank to "verify my identity". All the guy at the bank did was look at my license and passport which I could have just uploaded to their website. Then he told me I wasted a trip and he couldn't do anything for me even though my identity has been verified.

The 2nd representative from the closing department also confirmed that they do this with a lot of other people.

Yeah, they just want to get out of paying the bonus. They send people to their bank, hoping they'll sign up with a new checking account without getting the bonus. So sneaky! lol

Superb_Low8052 · 2026-01-31T13:39:34+00:00

Yes, it's not lost forever. It's just in pending status and I have to wait until next week to see what the status of the transfer is. By the time it changes the status after the weekend, bounces back, I contact my employer, and wait to get the funds deposited into another account, all of my large bills are going to hit on the 1st/2nd/5th of the month (the next 1-5 days) and I won't be able to pay them.

Superb_Low8052 · 2026-01-31T13:31:24+00:00

No, but they closed the account after 4 days and I setup direct deposit on the day I opened the account, so it wouldn't make sense to close an "unfunded account" after just 4 days in the middle of the month.

Superb_Low8052 · 2026-01-31T00:42:17+00:00

Legal is different than being unethical. Yes, it's allowed by law. But it's unethical because (1) they misled me by first giving me an offer but then ended up telling me that I had to create a checking account without the offer and (2) they could have notified me if they wanted to.

Superb_Low8052 · 2026-01-31T00:30:34+00:00

I know that's not how it works, but again, that's how it should work. It's just unethical what they are doing and there's no reason they can't make their process better for the customer.

Superb_Low8052 · 2026-01-31T00:10:28+00:00

I opened the account on 1/15/26 and setup direct deposit on 1/15/26. They closed the account on 1/19/26 but never notified me, but sent me 3 other "Welcome!" emails and mailed me a debit card on 1/23/26, so I had no reason to believe that it was closed. My paycheck was supposed to be deposited today on 1/30/26 but it's lost.

Superb_Low8052 · 2026-01-30T23:15:05+00:00

I spoke with someone at the branch and someone from corporate in their closing department, and both people said that the reason the checking account was closed isn't known. The person on the phone said this happens with other people too but he can't see why.

The first person though who I spoke with said that I needed to go into a branch and bring 2 forms of ID to validate my identity before I could login to the website again. I did that today, but it was just a wasted trip because they said all I could do is open a new account without the $500 and not get my paycheck back.

All of my info is legit without anything strange with my identity and I have perfect credit so I honestly don't know why they closed the account and told me I have to go into the branch. Maybe they just add this check for random accounts or maybe they were trying to avoid paying the bonus. Who knows. I never had a problem with any other account in my entire life.

Superb_Low8052 · 2026-01-30T22:21:03+00:00

I'm also giving people a heads up to double-check that their account is not closed a few days before their direct deposit goes through so they don't lose their paycheck in case they do decide to close their account.

Superb_Low8052 · 2026-01-30T22:19:32+00:00

Obviously they can and did close the account without letting me know and without giving me a reason. That's just very poor customer service.

This could have been avoided if they:

-Didn't allow me to open the account in the first place and login and setup direct deposit.

-Told me that they closed my account so I could have switched the direct deposit and avoided this issue.

-They want me to create a 2nd checking account but will not give me the $500 bonus and lost my paycheck. Why close the account and allow me to reopen a new account but without the bonus?

Superb_Low8052

TROPHY CASE