Are you looking for a free checking account that offers more than just basic checking services? How about an alternative to using a credit card for your purchases (but don’t want to carry cash)?
PerkStreet(SM)’s online checking account is not only free, but offer up a generous cash back rewards when you use their debit card.
PerkStreet offers the debit card that helps you get debt free. By using a debit card for your purchases you can 
easily manage your money and budget for what you spend rather than risk the possibility of incurring credit card debt.
Their rewards checking helps further being debt free by giving you up to 5% cash back on purchases. They offer free online checking accounts and perks like bill pay, free ATM usage, excellent rewards, easy mailed-in deposits, and more.
The premise behind the bank is to offer superior service and you can talk to a live person 24 hours a day with any questions you might have. The company’s focus is to serve people who want to manage their money responsibly and not go into debt with offering generous rewards for debit card use.
PerkStreet Financial(SM) online checking accounts are easy to open only taking about five minutes. Here is what comes with your Perk Street Checking Account:
- Your funds are FDIC insured (FDIC insurance is backed by The Bancorp Bank, member FDIC, who PerkStreet are partnered with).
- Live customer service is available around the clock.
- Use of one of the largest ATM network in the country, for free. 37,000+ ATM’s are available through STARsf, and ATM locations can be found in nationwide retail locations like 7-Eleven, CVS, Walgreens, COSTCO, Target and more. With a quick click on the Perk Street Website you can find ATM locations that are closest to you.
- A superior on line banking system where you can check your balance, pay your bills with bill pay, look through your transaction history, set up alerts to be sent right to your mobile phone, transfer money into or out of your account, find ATM locations and more.
- Easy mail in deposit envelopes are available as well. You can send deposits through standard mail, or if you need your money deposited right away, through overnight delivery. Both ways are free. You just need to use Perk Street’s postage paid envelopes. Overnight deposits need to be dropped off at a UPS drop or Mail Boxes etc. location.
- Direct deposit is also available.
Perk Street Financial offers their customers the perk of virtually no account fees.
Here is what you get when you open your checking account:
- There are no fees to start up your account.
- There are no ATM fees as long as you use one of the network 37,000+ ATM machines.
- Your first book of checks is free and should arrive about one week after you have opened your account.
- There are no mailing fees for check deposits.
- There are no monthly service fees unless your account is inactive.
Perk Street Financial offers one of the best rewards programs available for debit card purchases:
- All your non-pin debit card purchases (those you sign for) earn you anywhere from 1% – 5% back.
- When your daily starting balance is at least $5000, you earn 2% back on all of your purchases.
- When your balance is under $5000 you earn 1% back on all of your purchases.
- Changing bonus “popular” purchases are awarded with 5% back, no matter what your current account balance. You can check to see what special 5% bonuses are currently available on the Perk Street Facebook page or receive updates through Twitter.
- There is no limit to how much you can earn (only exception is the 5% offers).
Your rewards can be redeemed for:
- Coffee from your favorite coffee locations like Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts and Bruegger’s Bagels.
- Music from your favorite download locations like Apple iTunes, Amazon MP3 and Rhapsody.
- Cash back in the form of a Visa gift card or choose gift cards from locations like Best Buy, Ticket Master, Amazon.com, Gap and Target
PerkStreet Gives Back
Additionally, every time that you earn perks, Perk Street make a contribution to the Hunger Project, a non-profit organization that works to help fight world hunger.
Summary
PerkStreet’s free online checking account offer up generous cash back rewards on your spending (though not on your balance). Their debit card is easy to use, with a wide range of ATM’s available. They also offer free online bill-pay, virtually no fees, and an online site that allows you to easily manage your account.
Using a debit card from a checking account can be a great way to budget your spending to make sure you don’t overspend like you can with a credit card.
If you are looking for an online checking account, especially one that offers a rewards bonus, then PerkStreet might be the place for you as it seems to be one of the best free online checking accounts.
To get started with PerkStreet’s online checking account visit their website at www.perkstreet.com.
Need further convincing?
Check out this comparison chart showing Perkstreet benefits versus other popular checking accounts:
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
Debit cards with rewards? That’s pretty cool. I’ll have to check it out.
You definitely should!
This sounds like a great banking service! I wish we had a similar service here in Canada. I really like that they give back to the Hunger Project and the fact they give rewards – WOW.
It is pretty cool. When a bank doesn’t have the overhead of physical locations they can really give more to their customers.
I like the contribution to hunger relief efforts. Good thing to highlight this time of year, especially. Anyway, this product seems to have an interesting mix of features.
I love hearing about companies that give back and it’s great that PerkStreet does that.
WARNING ON PERKSTREET: If you take the “cash” rewards option they send you a visa check card. If you never receive or lose your check card YOUR MONEY IS GONE AND THEY CANNOT REPLACE IT. I just got off the phone with a PerkStreet customer service rep because this happened to me. A $50 card never arrived (although I did receive two $100 cards prior to this). I was apologetically told there was nothing they could do. Essentially, someone in their shipping department can take the cards, list them as shipped and you are S.O.L.
I’m quite pissed.
For those who do keep your account (I’m going to kill mine), you should take the amazon.com gift cards. The codes are supposedly emailed.
Very interesting. Sorry to hear about the visa check card. I would think they should have some way of canceling the card on their end and re-issuing? Good advice on the Amazon option.
The cash back is so-so, instead of a gift card it should just be deposited into your checking account, and you can choose to spend it or save it( I would choose save, to let my normal spending produce extra savings ).
I guess I don’t get the obsession with Perk Street. I’m on track to earn $1,500 this year in credit card rewards. I just blogged about it.. I’m at 945 now. Only $35 from Perk Street.
First, it’s only 1% if you balance is below 5K. Second, the 5% revolving perks are usually in ridiculous categories that no one will use. Like– amusement parks. Seriously? What about gas, groceries and restaurants?
And if you want to use this as a checking account, good luck. They limit transfers to $1,500 a month. So basically I can pay my mortgage and that’s it.
I’m closing my account today after a few months. That hasn’t been easy either. This online bank told me to write a letter to cancel. An ONLINE BANK wants me to WRITE A LETTER to cancel! Then they said I could transfer all money out of my account and they might be able to do it via web or phone.
Stay away! Not worth the hassles!!!
Michael,
You need to understand your spending habits (I say that in general, not necessarily you in particular). Sure there are places that have better rewards programs. But for many people a credit card is just too much of a temptation to spend so a rewards program on a CC doesn’t help them. You really need to have no balance on a CC in order to reap rewards. With PerkStreet, you are using a debit card, meaning you spend what is in your account, that’s it. And on top of that you get their rewards.
And yes, after the intro period you get 1% when your account is below $5k. If you keep it above $5k it’s 2%. Both options are WAAY higher than what you would get with most checking accounts (many checking accounts may cost you in fees).
As for the bonus categories, that’s what they are – a bonus. If they don’t work for you then so be it. But I wouldn’t say that no one would use the categories. I think PerkStreet puts consideration into their categories and makes them fun and timely. Think of amusement parks. It’s this time of the year that people buy season passes. That’s a great opportunity to get a cashback bonus. Should you go out and buy tickets because of the bonus? That would be silly. But getting an extra bonus is nice.
Now limiting transfer to $1500 a month – looking at the site’s faq’s it looks like there is a DAILY account limit of $1,500 a day in spending on your debit card but that can be raised if needed. I’ve put in a question with them about bill/pay and transfers.
I’m sorry to hear that PerkStreet doesn’t work for you. There is no such thing as a universal account that works for everyone in every situation. You have to understand your financial situation and find the accounts that work best for you.
Update: According to a response from PerkStreet there is a daily bill/pay limit of $99,000. Probably enough for most of us. There is also no limit to the amount you can move in and out of your account though there is a limit to what you can initiate from PerkStreet (this goes up over time and is in place to help prevent fraud).
Really wanted to have good things to say about this company but at this point I have been left with a bad taste in my mouth with Perk Street.
I received a letter in December from Bancorp Bank (Perkstreet Financial) in December stating that my card ‘may’ have been compromised and that as a result a new card would have to be issued.
Is this an inconvenience, absolutely. Does it happen in this day and age absolutely.
As it would happen we were in the process of moving to a new address. Ultimately the card was mailed to this old address, DESPITE my having updated this info online. I found this out after calling them in mid January and speaking to a lady by the name of Trineca (last name omitted). She mentioned the card was mailed to the wrong address and in order to mail a new card, the OLD ONE HAD TO COME BACK TO THEM. My new address was verified and confirmed with her. Having had the card deactivated, my hands were tied.
I then contacted and communicated with Jason at PerkStreet (last name omitted) after I found his info at a forum. I was given the obligatory apologies and such and assured that a new card would be mailed out. Turns out it was, to the WRONG ADDRESS AGAIN. He confirmed this via email and assured me a card would “We’ll make sure to get a card out to the proper address ASAP” Meanwhile 1 week later and no card.
Put simply, I am downright disgusted with PerkStreets lack of followup and action on a situation that is of their own doing. I cannot make purchases via debit card.
Secondly, the monthly transfer limit is a joke ($1500) and part of the small print they do not care to put clearly forward. None of their representatives can give a clear answer on the algorithm or mystery of how it is increased, but only respond by stating that “The transfer limit will go up automatically through a combination of time and usage. ” Several months later and I have yet to see that increase and am forced to use checks to effectively get money from one institution to another.
They state that its to prevent fraud (in the roundabout jargon legalese) . Having a hard time rationalizing how fraud can occur when the funds that are transferred to them are coming from a bank. Ultimately, they are effectively limiting what I can do with my money that sits in their account.
Lastly, they do not offer a business account. Although this may seem trivial. I see it as a big weakness.
Really loved the concept and wanted it to work but after this fiasco, not a fan.
I’m sorry but I have to warn everyone of PerkStreet and will find every website possible to leave negative feedback. It has been nothing but a nightmare dealing with these people.
First of all, because of the fact that they are online only, I wanted to make a few deposits to see how it works and the time frame in which the transactions take place, etc. I had one electronic transfer returned because of a miscommunication between my husband and I and they put my account on hold, freezing my funds and NEVER one time informed me. Because I had no idea, I wrote checks against that account ALL of which got returned causing me to incur several feels both on the side of my other bank, PerkStreet, and the companies I wrote the checks to.
So when calling to see what was going on, I dealt with the most unprofessional (ghetto sounding) people I’ve ever spoken with at a company. And no, I’m not racist. Ghetto has nothing to do with race. I grew up in the ghetto, but seriously people, this isn’t your homie’s house. It’s a business. Anyway, I don’t yell or curse but I was firm and highly irritated at this point. I was hung up on and after being told there was not ONE person in that entire company I could speak to outside of a customer service rep that I could immediately speak with in regard to them freezing $650 worth of my money. I had to wait 24 to 48 hours for someone to return my call. They even refused to give me a supervisor’s name. It was insane.
I finally call into the second day of finding this out (and mind you, as of writing this, my account has been frozen for a month and my funds have yet to be released to me) and I’m on a three way call with my main bank (USAA who no one can touch in offers and customer service) and Perkstreet tells us that they called USAA to verify a check and they were told that a I deposited from USAA into PerkStreet would be returned for NSF. My rep from USAA told them that there was no documentation of any calls from them regarding my account and the name of a rep they had documented did not work there. WOW! A straight up lie on PerkStreet’s part. Disgusting!
So USAA had to fax over copies of my bank statements, a copy of the cashed check in question AND a letter specifically stating that the check has cleared my account (two weeks ago, btw), the money has been taken out of my account and that it was not going to be returned. As of yet, they have still not settled this.
The manager that I finally did get to speak to was rude, unprofessional sounding and when I asked if hanging up on customers was part of the way they have trained their CRS to behave, she replied with, well it depends on the situation!! *blinks* Seriously… amazing…
I did finally speak to a young man by the name of Chris who is trying to help me get this resolved. Even in dealing with him, he gave me his direct extension and when I called back to speak to him I was told the CSR who took my call couldn’t transfer me because she wasn’t familiar with that extension number nor did she know if there was actually anyone there by that name. I don’t need you to be familiar the number, I just need you to transfer me to it.
As of now, I’ve been told I can not withdraw my money. They will have to close the account and mail me a check. Really? I’ll be in touch with a lawyer today.
Maybe if you never have any issues, this may seem to be a good bank. I pity you however, should the slightest problem ever arise. Stay local, really. All that glitters isn’t gold.
{ 3 trackbacks }