What Can Cause You To Get Reported To ChexSystems?

It’s common knowledge that having your name appear on Chexsystems’ database means that most banks will refuse to open you a checking account. Chexsystems is a reporting agency that provides details of poor consumer banking history to its subscribers. What’s less known is exactly what kind of situations can lead to your information being sent to Chexsystems. Here’s a partial list of incidents that can land you in this bad position.

• Unpaid overdrafts. If your bank paid one or more transactions for you while you didn’t have the money in your account (which is know in the banking vernacular as paying on insufficient funds), they expect you to pay back the amount that they paid for you, plus applicable overdraft fees. If, for any reason, you fail to pay the bank back, they will close the account report the incident to Chexsystems. Other banks will view you as a “risk” and most will deny your application if you try to open new checking accounts with them.
• Repeated overdrafts. This is when you start setting a pattern of overdrawing you account on a regular basis. You might think you’re OK because you always pay the overdraft, and because you reason that the bank also makes money because they collect overdraft fees from you. But the bank might not see it that way. They may reason that you have poor money management skills and that sooner or later you will not be able to meet your obligations. When that happens, they close your account and invite you to bring your business elsewhere. Of course, the incidents are reported to Chexsystems. You know the rest.
• Fraudulent transactions. People who indulge in fraud, whether it be bad checks, debit and/or ATM card fraud and the such, are reported to Chexsystems.
• Identity theft. Sometimes it’s not you, but someone else who steals your identity and then proceeds to do all sorts of bad things while using your information. In these cases, you may have a reprieve, but still it’s a serious situation in the time period between when it blows up and when you’re finally able to clear your name.

We’re not going to get into the fraud scenario. Suffice it to say that even banks that do not use Chexsystems often have a provision that excludes you if you come to them because you’ve been frauding. Identity theft is also a rather particular situation. It does cause Chexsystems problems, but those problems are not the result of you mismanaging your money. For the other situations, there are products and services out there that meet your needs, and that you can even use to improve your money management and avoid falling into the same situation in the future.

Second Chance Checking Accounts

Whether you’ve been reported to Chexsystems because of unpaid overdrafts, repeated overdrafts, or because someone has stolen your identity, you can’t just sit there and wait five years for your name to be taken off their database. You need to find banking services where you will be able to carry out most financial transactions even though you’re on Chexsystems. We’re talking about direct deposit, debit card, withdrawals and deposits at ATMs, online bill pay, and so on. Since the number of people that are locked out of the traditional banking circuit is pretty large, a number of banks have identified it as a potential market.

In response, many financial institutions have shifted their stance and there are now many banks that don’t use ChexSystems at all to evaluate new customers; some others still do, but do not base their decision solely on what the database says. These banks use this fact as a selling point to attract prospective customers who may have had trouble getting approved by traditional banks. These banks refer to those “different” checking accounts as a second chance checking account or fresh start checking account.

What should a second chance checking account provide?

• The ability to deposit, withdraw, and transfer money from your account
• A debit card with the Visa of Mastercard logo that enables you to make purchases everywhere and also withdraw money from any ATM
• Check writing privileges (sometimes)
• Low opening balance, and no minimum balance requirements
• Low monthly maintenance fee.

Think about it: these days, without a bank account, your options are severely limited. For example, if you get a new job, you may be required to give your employer your account number to receive payments. Some corporations won’t send out checks anymore!

For those people who don’t have any options, a second chance checking account gives them a second chance at a bank account. With good use, you can even use a second chance checking account as a stepping stone to open a normal account in a six to twelve month time frame, provided that you show discipline in how you’ve managed your account during the time that you’ve had it.

Make sure you do plenty of research before actually getting a second chance bank account. There are different type of second chance accounts and you want to make sure you choose the one that best fits your situation.

© Reported To ChexSystems? Try Second Chance Checking Accounts

If you’ve never had trouble opening a checking account, then odds are you have no idea what ChexSystems is. On the other hand, if you’ve been trying to open a bank account and find yourself unable to do so, it’s likely that it’s because of Chexsystems. ChexSystems was initially developed to detect fraudulent activity and assist financial institutions with risk management analysis, particularly for individual customers. Banks that do not use Chexsystems are not impossible to find, although the company is pretty aggressive marketing-wise and its goal is to have 100% of the banks using its services.

Much like your credit score monitors the way you manage your credit and documents your credit history, Chexsystems monitors your banking activities and documents your banking history. Besides being a credit reporting agency, it’s also a licensed debt collector. From the reporting agency standpoint, though, just like you can request one credit report per year from each of the major credit reporting companies, you’re also entitles to a ChexSystems report, once a year, at no cost.

Here’s what a sample ChexSystems Consumer Report looks like.

September 29, 2003

999-99-9999 Became available for issuance in 1951 or before inthe state of MN.

Drivers License X 123456789123 is a valid format for the stateof Minnesota.

If you have any questions, please contact us at the address or telephone number listed
above in our letterhead or by fax at 602-659-2197.

As you can see, this is a very thorough report. It has drawn criticism because of that. One of the major points is that unlike other credit reports that contain both positive and negative information, a Chexsystems report contains only negative information. This is certainly true, and in response to that, some changes were brought to the way the information was reported and the weight assigned to some entries.

Yet this doesn’t change the fact that being reported to ChexSystems is decidedly not a good thing to happen to you; actually it’s something you should look to avoid at all costs. Otherwise a ChexSystems Consumer Report much like the one on this sample will be there to remind all banks that they shouldn’t be opening checking accounts for you.

© Sample ChexSystems Consumer Report