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

(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.

I also miss any other services – savings, overdraft prot, etc. It is really basic.

Make a transfer from your credit card to your account without incurring cash advance fees.

Initial deposits are limited to $500 and can be completed when you use the online application or log in to your account for the first time.

There are 2 ways to add additional funds by credit card,

1. Use our online E-Money Mover service; or
2. Call customer service at 866.792.2834 and ask to fund your account with a credit card. Please have the following information available:
* Your Credit Card with your account number, CVV number, and the expiration date on the card
* The Cardholder Name
* The Billing Address

At this time we accept the following cards: VISA® and MasterCard®.

Their website clearly states that if you fund your account using your credit card, you would not get charged cash advanced fees. Well that ended up not being true. I was charged by my credit card company cash advance fees. PSF says that they run the charge as a “point of sale” but my credit card company still recognizes them as a financial institution. I asked for help from 3 different agents and each one were of no help. The first one I spoke with was the worst while the other 2 at least tried to look into the situation. I was pretty much left with an “oh well” response.

Based off of this experience, I’m going to close my account once the other pending charges hit.

Firstly, I must correct myself. I initiated the transfer on Tuesday, not Monday. By yesterday morning, it still was shown as “processing,” but it was queued for last night’s batch and is in my account today.

The lady I spoke to yesterday explained that incoming ACH transfers are actually batched at the end of a business day, so the processing time didn’t actually start until Wednesday. Okay, I understand batch processing, so I can accept that. So it actually took three days (Wednesday, Thursday, and most of Friday) for the deposit to be processed. It was available late Friday night.

Had I initiated the transfer on Wednesday, my understanding is that it wouldn’t have been available until Monday at the earliest, as Saturday and Sunday are not business days.

The question that was not answered was why does PerkStreet’s customer site say that using a card is the fastest way to add money to an account? It’s not. And the fact that there’s a fee associated with the card transfer means you’re paying for nothing. An ACH would take exactly as long and would be free.

The lady explained that transferring from a card makes sense for people who can’t push an ACH (for example, if they’re transferring money from a credit card, rather than a debit card associated with a checking account). Fine, I said, then that’s what the site should say, not that it’s any faster than any pther method. But obviously, the CSR has nothing to do with what the site says.

I should mention that the CSRs at PerkStreet are pleasant, knowledgeable, and helpful, and that there’s almost no wait time to talk to them.

Back to the ACH processing lag, in fairness, a three-day ACH processing time is not unheard of. My credit union is much faster (usually one day), but they’re exceptional. The brick-and-mortar bank I used to deal with also took three days.

So I dunno. The cash back from PerkStreet is generous, and I guess I can deal with the three-day processing time as long as I know about it. The misleading language on the site bothers me, but that also could be inadvertent. I’m a Web designer, and sometimes things are written based on policies that wind up changing later, but no one tells the designer.

So for the time being, I’ll keep the account, knowing that ACH transfers will be slow and planning accordingly. And again, PerkStreet is no slower than most other banks. They all like to hold your money for as long as they can before making it available to you. Finally, the rewards are generous, and the customer service is very good. So all in all, they’re no worse than other banks, and probably better than most.

But if fast processing of your ACH transfers is important for you, then look elsewhere.

-Richard

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/15/business/15credit.html?hp

It took about a week for them to open the account, which I guess is no big deal. What bothers me more is the extremely slow ACH processing time, and the fact that their site is slightly misleading.

On the customer side of the site (once you’re logged in), there’s a link for first-time users of their “e-money mover,” or some such thing. In that link it mentions that transferring money from a credit or debit card is the fastest way to transfer money into the account. So that’s what I did. I initiated a $500.00 transfer from a debit card. That was on, I believe, Monday. Today is Friday, and the transfer is still “processing.” Oh, and they charged me $12.50 for the speedy service.

By comparison, when I transfer money into my Credit Union account by standard ACH, it’s always there within 24 hours — at the most.

I did call PerkStreet and spoke to a lady who explained that debit card transfers go down as ACH transfers, and take between three and five days to process. So what’s the advantage? And why does the site say that a card transfer is the fastest way to transfer money into the account if it’s no faster than an ACH transfer?

True, I can avoid the fee by just running an ACH, which is free. What annoys me isn’t the fee itself. I would have been willing to pay it in return for speed. It’s that I got nothing in return for that fee. And frankly, even for a free ACH transfer, three to five days is way slow.

I’ll give them a few months to see if things get any better. It’s a new account, so maybe there are some security-related issues compliments of Big Brother. But if every transfer I do is going to take three to five days to process, I won’t be banking with PerkStreet for very long.

-Richard