In our previous post, we talked about People’s Cash Solutions second chance checking accounts and what they offer. Today’s post is going to cover another product in that same line, the Excella Visa Prepaid Debit Card. Of course, the target market is the same, as its target market is specifically those people who want a viable solution when looking for a non-chexsystems checking account to go about their daily financial activities. Because of the severity of this recession, many people who thought they would never be in such a situation now have to turn to financial products such as a prepaid debit card.

Not too long ago, because of easily available credit, people were routinely living above their means. That has come to an abrupt end, with a financial cost that has yet to be fully calculated. In the meantime, lots of people have seen their financial situation go into a nosedive, and their credit has considerably deteriorated. To cover living expenses, families have gone even further into debt, and credit scores have tanked. So of course the result of that is that many families have seen their traditional checking accounts get closed because of too many overdrafts. And that’s where solutions like the Excella Prepaid Debit Card can come in handy.

One of the things that you won’t find on this website is false claims that prepaid debit cards are the absolute best thing for you. What you have to realize is that those are products that are tailored for people with less than stellar credit ratings and who are being routinely turned down by large banks who refuse to open bank accounts for them. So if you’re in this situation, there’s going to be a cost in order to get a second chance checking account. The best way to see it is that it’s somewhat like paying a price so that in due time you can get back to having regular checking accounts. Prepaid debits cards like the Excella Visa card allow you to make secured, safe financial transactions.

Just to avoid any confusion, the Excella Prepaid Visa Debit Card is not a credit card. This means that there’s no credit extended to you, and you will never end up owing money using such a card. If you don’t have the balance in your account, the transaction simply gets denied, that’s it. As we said previously, there are fees associated with using this card, but at the end of the day it’s one of the best ways to get a non-chexsystems checking account.

So many of the transactions that we make all the time are now tied to giving a credit or debit card information. For example, stuff like ordering something online, booking a flight, and renting a car require that you give such information. This card fits the bill nad will be accepted anywhere a Visa card is accepted as a form of payment. There are additional perks;

• protection against fraudulent activities
• not having to carry cash all the time
• being able to do online banking and bill paying
• having access to ATMs
• direct deposit of your paycheck and/or social security benefits
• add money to the card to “recharge” it whenever you like

How To Use Your Excella Visa Prepaid Debit Card

Making Purchases

Like we said earlier, anywhere Visa cards are accepted (over 11 million locations worldwide), you can use your Excella card.

Getting Cash Back When Making A Purchase

You can get some extra cash when making a purchase. For example, let’s say you’re going to buy something for $30 but want to have an extra $20 in cash on hand. You can ask the cashier to charge the card for $50 and give you the extra $20 in cash. It’s pretty much like doing an ATM withdrawal without incurring a fee.

Getting Cash From An ATM

This one is pretty much self explanatory. Just keep an eye on the carges to avoid paying exorbitant ATM withdrawal charges. On a related note, you can also add cash to your card at any participating Excella Retail Reload location.

Non-Chexsystems Checking Accounts: A Little Background Information

ChexSystems is a service that is used by about 80% of the banks in the U.S. to determine who they want to open checking accounts for and who they don’t. Created by a company called eFunds, ChexSystems (often incorrectly referred to as Chex Systems or Check Systems) maintains a database of people that have in one way or another abused the banking system. In that regard, it’s similar to the FICO scoring system but the similarity ends there. There’s no Chexsystems score, and whereas you can have a good credit score or a bad one, you can’t have a good chexsystems record. You either don’t have one, or you do. And if you do, well that’s grounds for banks to flat out reject your checking account application.

You’re not going to get rejected by just one bank, though. Most likely every big bank out there will refuse to open a checking account for you if your name shows up in Chexsystems’s database.  Nobody wants to put themselves through this type of shame and discomfort, which is why a lot of people look for banks that do not use Chexsystems.

How can you get into this system in the first place? Your name can show up in Chex Systems for a number of reasons, including for having abused your debit card, having committed a fraud against a bank, or if you still you owe your bank money for an overdraft that they covered for you in the past.

Trying to get removed from Chex Systems is not easy, either. Unless there has been some sort of error whereby something you never actually did was mistakenly attributed to your name in the system, often only time itself can get you safely removed. But, that could take years, and you need a new checking account now.

The good news is that there is an alternative to getting rejected by more banks or to waiting years to get removed from Chex Systems: finding a bank or other financial institution that offers a no ChexSystems checking account. And this is what the Excella Visa Prepaid Debit Card offers.

The Excella Visa Prepaid Debit Card, A Perfect Non-Chexsystems Checking Account

People looking for a list of banks that do not use ChexSystems come from all walks of life. In most cases they have been in bad situations and they’ve had checks bounce. The banks that they held their accounts with decided to close those accounts and report the incidents to Chexsystems. So those financial problems that you’ve had in the past can potentially follow you for years. This is because ChexSystems is a company that maintains a database of all the “bad” banking clients. Since most banks do a ChexSystems check on all new bank applicants, if your name is in the system, you won’t be able to qualify for a new account.

This is what prompts most people to get online and start looking for “banks without Chexsystems“. They look because it’s common knowledge that only about 80% of the banks out there do business with ChexSystems. That leaves a big 20% of banks out there that are open to the possibility of opening a checking account for you even if you have a negative record. Depending on the bank, those accounts are called “fresh start checking accounts” or “second chance checking accounts” but they basically offer the same thing: you get to open a bank account even if you’ve had financial problems, or you have bad credit, or something similar.

You’ll find that there are lots and lots of places that promise to get you a list of banks that don’t use ChexSystems. The problem is that a lot of them are really not about to give you the exact information that you’re really looking for. But at first, let’s give this a little more thought.

ChexSystems makes its money by charging financial institutions to use its service. That means that the more banks use them, the more money they’ll make. So they’re pretty aggressive in terms of marketing their service to banks that don’t currently use them to verify new checking accounts. Conversely, some banks have realized that they lose business by simply turning down everyone with a negative ChexSystems record, and they don’t necessarily want to keep doing that. What that boils down to is that there’s a constant movement of banks signing up for ChexSystems’ service and others that are leaving it.

When you think of the number of banks that there are in the United States (close to 8,500), getting a list of banks that don’t use Chexsystems would be a colossal amount of work in the first place. And that’s only the beginning, because such a list would have to be maintained continuously in order to be accurate. That would necessitate a sizable staff and that list would probably be just too expensive to be attractive to anyone looking for a non ChexSystems bank.

So what’s left for you to do? Well there are companies that are well known for offering “second chance checking” products and services. Three of them come to mind, but there are many more.

People’s Cash Solutions: “Second Chance Checking Accounts”

People’s Cash Solutions refers to their product as a “fresh start at banking”. Here’s what their website has to say:

Have you ever been denied a checking or savings account due to past problems with ChexSystems and TeleCheck? The Peoples Cash Solutions program is the answer for you! Peoples Cash Solutions and Peoples Bank will open a real FDIC-insured checking account for you even if you have been reported to ChexSystems or TeleCheck in the past (except where fraudulent activity has been reported). We want to give you a chance to establish a banking relationship as the first step toward improving your credit record and to allow you to begin building and accumulating assets. Our Second Chance Checking program erases the inconvenience of not having a checking account and/or being forced to use fee-intensive alternatives.

Money Now Usa: “100% Approval, No Credit Checks Prepaid Debit Cards”

Money Now Usa flaunts their wide selection of prepaid debit cards with 100% guaranteed approval. You get to choose from a list of well-known companies that offer their debit cards with no credit checks and no Chexsystems verifications. There’s a small list of features and benefits next to each offering to help you decide which is best for you.

Ready Debit: “100% Approval Guaranteed Reloadable Prepaid Debit Cards”

Once again, I’ll let the company’s website do the talking:

100% Approval Guaranteed — Even if you’ve been turned away or rejected by banks you can still get a READYdebit card. We have no credit or Chexsystems checks to worry about. Our only requirement is that we can validate the information you provide to us when you open your account. We do this instantly online while your application is being completed to make the sign-up process fast and easy!

“Can I Get A List Of Banks That Don’t Use ChexSystems?”

Fresh Start Checking Accounts

If we’re talking about Fresh Start Checking Accounts, then there has to be a negative record at one of the companies that track people’s checking activities. Maybe you’re been reported to Chexsystems, or maybe you have a record with Telecheck, it doesn’t even matter. What matters is that you’re going to have to find banks that don’t use Chexsystems in order for you to get what is also known in the industry as a second chance checking account. Chexsystems is kind of the banking system’s watchdog, in that it keeps tabs on your bank related history and will keep on putting notes against your name you have amounts overdue against your name or if you have the fraud against your name.

What that means is that a negative ChexSystem record will prevent from qualifying for a checking account at roughly 80% of the banks in the country. Until people are victims of it, they have no idea how bad it is to not be able to have a checking account: to make a long story short, no access to checking services like ATM transactions, no telephone banking, no online banking, no direct deposit, and you have to carry cash to conduct all your transactions: without a bank account cash is your only option. Not only is it impractical to carry huge amounts of cash in your pocket, it’s also very risky.

The fresh start checking account helps solve this predicament. Of course, it comes at a cost (most banks charge a monthly fee of $5 to $10 to open a fresh start checking account under your name), but consider it as a small price to pay for your convenience

Upgrading from Fresh Start Checking Account to Regular Checking Account

Plus, it’s good to keep in mind that many of those banks also make it a policy to upgrade your fresh start checking account to regular checking account status within 6 to 12 months, provided that you’ve kept your account in good standing and incident free over the specified period. By incident free, they mostly mean that you’ve had no NSF fees.

Banks That Do Not Use ChexSystems & Offer Fresh Start Checking Accounts

There are a number of banks that are now offering those second chance checking accounts, because they either don’t really worry about it, or they realize that a lot of people end up with a negative Chexsystems record or a Telecheck report unintentionally or because of something they didn’t know. Those people deserve a second chance and they get to have a checking account and a debit card with either the Visa or Mastercard logo.

Of course, it’s best if you don’t end up getting in trouble with either Chexsystems or Telecheck, because it can really be a nightmare. But in case you do end up being reported to one of them, it’s always good to know that you can still open a checking account. It’s not going to be free, and you’ll have a lot more restrictions compared to regular checking accounts, but at least you’ll be able to access basic banking services.

Fresh Start Checking Account: Banking For People With A Negative Chexsystems or Telecheck Record