Wachovia Bank is offering a $50 sign-up bonus for opening one of their Free Checking accounts. The account looks pretty good, with no monthly service fee, no minimum balance, and no direct deposit requirement. However you will get a hard credit pull and you need to open with at least $100. You also have to be a little patient:
Account must be opened in good faith and remain in good standing through 04/30/2007 in order to be eligible for the offer. Account must be funded with a minimum opening deposit of $100. Offer expires on 04/01/2007. […] The $50 bonus will appear in the form of a credit to the account within 60 days of the offer expiration date.
Overall, it looks good if you have a lot of Wachovia’s around and need a low-maintenance local bank account. The interest rates on their savings accounts are awful, so link it up to an online savings account paying 5% APY. Thanks to JP for the tip.
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I had a Wachovia checking account a few years ago and had a miserable experience. Errors with online bill payment, usurious late fees for the smallest infractions, and indifferent or even hostile customer service. Mine might have been an isolated experience – any others with experience with Wachovia?
Thanks…Been looking around for some free money! Can you do this if you don’t have physical Wachovia branches around?
What do they mean by “opened in good faith?”
I signed up for this account online but was told I will need to physically take $100 to the local branch for deposit…
I have a college account with them. They’re not too smart if I still have that 2 1/2 years after graduation. Local college branch is inept, but supposedly the bank as a whole is #1 in customer service…
I used to bank with them, I have no idea how they can be #1 in customer satisfaction. They have terrible customer service, if you enter their (any in my area) you literrally have to get someone’s attention to help you, unlike most other banks where they have someone there to at least acknowledge you. One thing elese, they perfom a hard credit pull to open an account so keep that in mind.
I recommend checking out money market accounts vs savings accounts. I have a GMAC money market account that gets 5.00% and I can use it to pay off my credit cards and write checks. With a money market account you get up to 6 transfers or 3 checks per month per account. GMAC allows up to 5 accounts and creating an extra account is trivial. I highly recommend setting one up if you do the 0% APR thing. Setup up automatic billpay on your credit cards from your money market account(s) that is/are accruing interest, and watch your money grow.
I was able to open the account and fund it online. There are no Wachovia branches in my state. So anyone in the US should be able to take advantage of this offer.
What a pain this was! I wrote all about my experience (good in the end) over at my blog, TheFinancista.blogspot.com I would say worth it, but there are some things to avoid.
Wachovia used to be a bank regional to the North Carolina area – we grew up with it in my family and they were pretty good from everything I remember. Then they were bought out by First Union (who took the name) and my parents, my brother, and myself all left them within six months (we’re all now primarily with BofA). So I’m guessing from the commercials claiming Wachovia is #1 in customer service that they are referring to the “legacy” Wachovia and not the “new” Wachovia which brings FU’s bad reputation with them (and which they tried to shed by taking the Wachovia name). I think it’s a classic case of they manipulated and marketed the data to show what they wanted and have fooled the majority of America to believe what they wanted.
Things went smoothly in opening an account online. I submitted my application online at 2 am and that same morning a nice representative from North Carolina called me at 8 am to confirm all of the info and run a credit check (both credit report and one of the check reporting agencies). Instantly he gave me my new account number and routing number so I could either use my ING direct electric orange account to fund electronically or go to a branch to deposit my funds. I did both just to try it out. The branch here in Houston recently opened, so there were no customers. The staff was very friendly and the new building was really beautiful with its modern design. It is a small branch, but the inside still feels big and airy due to its open design.
A word of caution: If you’re doing this for the $50 bonus and you have to finish your application over the phone, be sure to remind the rep. that you want the $50 bonus. My rep nearly forgot to note that in the account.
I opened an account online and received a follow up call the following day. The account was opened with no problems at all. I have not received the bonus yet but I believe that takes several weeks. I thought customer service was excellent.
I signed up online in early April and received an e-mail that someone would be contacting me. That person did not so then I called. That person told me that everything was verified and gave me an account number. He then told me I would receive additonal material by mail. I received the material, filled out what I needed to, then mailed it back. Then nothing happened.
Today I just called because they still had not taken out the $100 dollars from my old checking account. I was told that for whatever reason, it did not go through. I asked about the $50 bonus, and they told me that the offer had now expired and that I would have to go to an actual branch to fund the account. WHAT A SCAM! Or at least an extremely high level of incompetence. I told them to go ahead and close my account. Supposedly, the person over the phone did, and I will be receiving a letter of confirmation.
Anyone gotten the $50 yet? I think they have until May 31st to credit the account, right?
Got the $50 on 5/23. Now to move it to a higher interest paying account…
Wachovia is an excellent bank, i will give them a A plus for customer services
Seems the link is dead.
I opened the account with no problem. The couple calls to CSR’s were uneventful. They were courteous and pleasant. I opened the Way2Save deal and will just treat that as a small CD for a year. That account also went smoothly.
I’m confused however as to how to get the bonus. In the web ad it mentioned something about using an ATM and bringing the code on the receipt to a branch for crediting the bonus. And at this point, I’m leery of calling a CSR again because I noticed that my account is only eligible for 2 CSR calls a month.
Here’s a working link:
Wachovia $50 Checking Offer
Sorry, here’s the link:
http://www.wachovia.com/misc/0,,1640,00.html
You certainly don’t want a “Wealth Management” account with Wachovia as many of us have discovered to our horror.
Talk about incomeptence, the account managers lack many of the basic skills(like intelligence) when it comes to other peoples money.