Before The Internet
Working around your record at your traditional bank is no longer necessary!
Not many years ago there was not this thing that we are all so dependent on – this thing did not exist – this thing is the Internet. The Internet has made your records a nuisance but not so life stopping as before. And good thing because there was a time before the Internet companies were requiring direct deposit but employees on with a record had no where to go. Now technology availability has extended to the average person with the Internet and chexsystems is no longer the death nail. Now you can grab an account from one of the banks (soon to be - sorry I hae not gotten to it yet) highlighted on this site and do very well for yourself. After all a bank account in essence is a place to receive and then allocate money – all the online options allow this and most even provide visa/master card debit cards. Some of the alternative banks even have ways for you to build credit – this makes them better than your traditional bank. Because I do not care what the so called experts tell you – having a bank account does not build credit. It simply is a bank account. So do not let anyone tell you otherwise unless they can back up their claims. Back years ago, before the net , we used to have to do some real imaginative things with reported customers – and let me tell you we rarely offered this. The first is we could allow the person to open a savings account. This account would not be allowed to have any ATM access and it oftentimes did not accept direct deposit. So in essence it was relatively useless. In fact we would not cash paychecks against it either – we would make them be deposited and then place an obnoxious long hold on the chex until it cleared. This made it a nightmare for someone with a record – but you know what? – People still thanked us for the opportunity to have an account – my how the world has changed in just a few years. The other alternative for someone was we could allow them to have a checking account but also without checks, without ATM, without debit card – really a useless checking account but at least it was considered a demand deposit account and as such was allowed to accept direct deposit. All these options were a nightmare for the bank to manage – any special handling on any account at all is troublesome for the bank teller. Every time they have to follow special procedures and really it took much longer than it was worth – hence why for the most part we never opened accounts for people with records – how terrible that was. Fortunately, now there are online options that you can avail yourself of – a bunch of banks that allow you to have an account and function completely normal even though you are have a record. So if anyone asks you what good the Internet is for society – you can tell them that it has opened up and made available financial services to the previously disenfranchised. Makes you sound politically active and smart and really you are saying – people on chex have an option whereas previously they were completely out of luck. One insider secret that the bank legal department let me pull off one day was the following. I had a custmer that several records and I wanted to get them an account. They had a business account from a family business but could not sign against it. So I had the customer challenge our legal departmment on discrimination basis that he could be allowed to be a power of attorney on the business account. No, this did not allow him to do his own banking but he soon opened another business under his own name made a friend the signer then he became power of attorney! Voila his was instantly a signer on the bank account and was able to transact for his own, well for the benefit of the account holder. He then opened a savings for his money to be deposited into and then he could transfer the money to the business account and now he had a true banking relationship with us and was able to function somewhat normally. Can you imagine what efforts we had to go through to get this done? Nowadays he could simply look up a non reporting bank on the Internet or this site (OK soon to be on this site as soon as I am done researching) and BAM! Be fully functional with his own account! Finally something good about technology! Stay around this site in the future – I will post other insider banker knowledge – just send me an email and I will get to your questions and/or topics.