{"id":4768,"date":"2022-06-28T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-28T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/?p=4768"},"modified":"2023-04-18T11:35:57","modified_gmt":"2023-04-18T17:35:57","slug":"deposit-accounts-followup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2022\/06\/28\/deposit-accounts-followup\/","title":{"rendered":"Deposit Accounts Followup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I heard more feedback from <a class=\"ek-link\" href=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2022\/06\/27\/monday-quick-hits-2\/\">yesterday\u2019s last bullet point<\/a> about the dangers of opening a checking account with American Express than I\u2019ve heard on any single topic in the past, which I guess means Larry won the churning prize? The tone of the feedback was all over the place like a Nine-Inch-Nails jazz fusion concert put on by a collaboration between N\u2019Sync and Taylor Swift, so I think more discussion is in order.<\/p>\n<h4>The General Rule<\/h4>\n<p>Holding deposit accounts at banks with valuable credit cards typically can\u2019t do you much good, but it can do you plenty of harm. This is especially true at Chase, Citibank, and Capital One, and probably other banks whose first letter starts with a \u201cC\u201d (if correlation equals causation). At these banks, there are dozens of reports of shutdowns on the credit card side of the business after investigations started on the banking side.<\/p>\n<p>Why might banking get involved and look at your account?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Lots of transactions<\/li>\n<li>A <a class=\"ek-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.occ.treas.gov\/topics\/supervision-and-examination\/bank-operations\/financial-crime\/suspicious-activity-reports\/index-suspicious-activity-reports.html\">SAR<\/a> form filled out by an employee<\/li>\n<li>An insufficient or returned funds transaction<\/li>\n<li>Too many phone calls<\/li>\n<li>A deposit from a new source<\/li>\n<li>Too many ACH pulls from the account<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But, there are less obvious reasons that you can get eyes on your gaming, even if you haven\u2019t made a single transaction in your bank account. These are the insidious ones:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: initial;\">Escheat and unclaimed property laws<\/span><\/li>\n<li>Routine <a class=\"ek-link\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Know_your_customer\">Know Your Customer<\/a> checks<\/li>\n<li>A fraud alert from a credit card charge that triggers an internal system<\/li>\n<li>A general audit<\/li>\n<li>The results of a periodic soft-credit pull (Chase is especially notorious for this)<\/li>\n<li>In response to an inquiry from the IRS, regulator, or law enforcement<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Deposit fraud investigators are typically quicker to shutdown and more easily triggered than their credit card counterparts. I believe this is principally because deposit accounts are by-in-large a necessary cost-center at a bank, while credit accounts are largely a profit-center. Of course regulation and federal funds requirements also play into this too.<\/p>\n<h4>Exceptions to the Rule<\/h4>\n<p>There are times when deposit accounts can still make sense. For example, Bank of America deposit accounts help a churner because:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a class=\"ek-link\" href=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2021\/08\/09\/bank-of-america-followup\/\">Holding $5,000 in a checking account<\/a> will enable you to power-churn their cards<\/li>\n<li>Holding $100,000 in a business account will earn you <a class=\"ek-link\" href=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2021\/02\/05\/bank-of-america-business-cash-rewards-shenanigans\/\">an extra 75% in rewards<\/a> on some cards<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>U.S. Bank deposit accounts can also make sense because:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a class=\"ek-link\" href=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2022\/01\/25\/tuesday-special-4000-olympics-edition\/\">Holding $1,500 in a checking account<\/a> will boost your approval odds tremendously<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>PenFed deposit accounts can make sense because:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Having an <a class=\"ek-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.penfed.org\/checking\/access-america\">Access America<\/a> checking account waives the annual fee on all of your <a class=\"ek-link\" href=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2021\/12\/16\/thursday-quad-2\/\">PenFed Pathfinder Rewards<\/a> cards<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And, you may find that to get a great credit card at a local credit union you may first have to hold a deposit account. In that case though, a shutdown is rarely catastrophic. <\/p>\n<h4>ELI5<\/h4>\n<p>In case you\u2019d like <a class=\"ek-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dictionary.com\/e\/slang\/eli5\/#:~:text=ELI5%20stands%20for%20the%20phrase,naive%20understanding%20of%20the%20issue.\">an ELI5<\/a>: Holding deposit accounts at popular churning banks is probably bad, but sometimes it can help you churn enough to make the risk worth the rewards.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4769\" sizes=\"(max-width: 438px) 100vw, 438px\" src=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/taylor-sound.jpeg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/taylor-sound.jpeg 438w, https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/taylor-sound-229x300.jpeg 229w\" width=\"418\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\" style=\"font-size:14px\">Pictured: What the sound of N\u2019Sync and Taylor Swift riffing on jazz inspired by NiN looks like.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I heard more feedback from yesterday\u2019s last bullet point about the dangers of opening a checking account with American Express than I\u2019ve heard on any<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":2,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wisdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4768"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7002,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4768\/revisions\/7002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}