checking account

[newstart]

I am currently without a checking account. Makes banking very inconvenient. I had my 341 on 12/20/05. Discharge scheduled for 2/18/06. Should I wait until I am discharged or do you guys think it would be okay to open a checking account before the actually discharge?

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[StaciMM]

I see no reason to wait.

[sunshine08]

Go ahead, if nothing else start with a savings account. Personnally, I use the credit union for both. Have had the best luck with them, no problems.
Personally, I wouldn't use Wachovia.

[edwards2]

I wouldnt wait either. Be prepared you are going to have some difficulty opening one because of your BK. I suggest trying a local credit union.

[newstart]

Has anyone dealt with US Bank for checking/savings? what was your experience?

[Teri]

with US bank be very careful with a debit card - they let you overdraft and charge you $23 everytime you do----my sons girlfriend ended up with over $300 of fees every couple weeks because she is horrible with a debit card

[StaciMM]

Be careful with any debit card. Sometimes when you use it for a transaction such as gas, the hold may not be in the amount of the transaction. If you go by available balance, you may be crying once everything posts!

[Viper]

Personally, I wouldn't use Wachovia.

Just curious why you say this. I have negative items listed with check systems and could not open a checking account anywhere. I figured I'd give it one last try and got free checking, no min. balance, and a Visa debit card from Wachovia. I applied online and had no difficulty setting up the account.

What were your experiences?


-Viper

[StaciMM]

I've had lots of gripes w/ Wachovia over the past 2 years or so that I've had them. Such as their c/s reps being incompetent. We recently had to change our account # due to an unauthorized transaction (couldn't tell if someone had our account # of if it was a 'lucky' typo when someone else tried to pay by check online) and so they had to close the account & open a new one. I was told our debit cards would be transferred, no issue, so we wouldn't have to wait for new ones. I was very specific-not to do it yet if we would have any downtime. I even mentioned that I would be stopping on the way home for gas. Lets just put it this way-I barely made it home because my card was no good at the gas station. Luckily, I didn't pump first. When I called to complain, I was told it was standard and would take an overnight processing to update the debit cards on the new account.

Another one is when we first opened this account, and they ordered our checks & debit cards. DH's debit card arrived-no issue. A week or more passed and I called-mine had been sent to an old address. (I had a First Union account previously, and First Union merged w/ Wachovia.) Even though I gave all my current info when opening the account, my card went to the old address because that is the address my last Wachovia card went to and I didn't tell them to correct it. Like I'm supposed to know their job!

I tried changing banks at the end of '04 and and last summer, denied due to credit. I've very happy to have recently opened an account with Patelco CU, and am working on transitioning everything over.