As I mentioned a couple weeks ago we signed up for the Perkstreet Financial cash-back debit card. We were lured in by the 2% cashback rewards offer that they are currently running.
But to my pleasant surprise I just got an email from them explaining the 5% cashback promo that they are running for the rest of June and July of this year.
“To kick off summer, PerkStreet is also offering 5% cash back for purchases in popular summer spending categories during the remainder of June and through July (including ice cream from Ben & Jerry’s, Culvers, Dairy Queen and Cold Stone Creamery; home improvement goods from Lowes, Home Depot and Menards; and gas paid for at the pump). Current PerkStreet customers can also take advantage of 5% cash back at all Apple Stores from June 24-27. With PerkStreet, consumers get rewards they love without having to pay membership fees or jump through hoops to earn those rewards.”
Since I am in the middle of building a deck in our backyard I am excited to see that 5% home improvement rewards are being offered. I will be spending about another $1000 for the remainder of the deck – which will yield $50 in rewards. Not bad – thanks Perkstreet!
As you can probably tell, I am quickly becoming a big fan of banking with Perkstreet. Having only used them for a month or so, I have been very pleased. The rewards are great and the customer service (via phone) has been fantastic as well.
If you have assumed the best rewards come from credit cards and thought that was the only way to have a decent rewards program, I suggest checking out Perkstreet.
Check out the video below to find out more about them…
Are you a Perkstreet user? How has your experience with them been?
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I received the same email notification today. I appreciate that the June/July promotion includes an everyday purchase like gas. Glad you’re able to benefit from the home-improvement portion Bob.
Encouraged by your last PerkStreet post, I took the time to look at the bank/debit card deal. I also took the plunge to try it out. I have yet to start making purchases, but I can elaborate on my sign up experience.
I signed up without incident via PerkStreet’s website. I received a confirmation email on the application. Within 2 days I received my online account login information. I will note that they transitioned to an updated online interface on 21 June. I had no experience with the former interface to comment on the change(s). I received my PIN and debit card in the mail after about a week. The original funding account needs to be verified via small debits in/out, as other online banks often do. They also require a signature card/agreement mailed back to them, received about the same time as the debit card. It is my experience that it takes some time to get “up & running” with PerkStreet, but with the current promotion and debit card rewards, I’m looking forward to trying them out.
There was also a note in PerkStreet’s promotional email today that stated the 2% reward can be maintained after the 6-month intro period ends by keeping a balance of $5k or more in the account. The fine print states that a 2% reward will be earned when the daily starting balance is at least $5k otherwise the standard 1% is earned.
There are several problems with this bank, so I would warn potential customers to be aware of the fine print. Although PerkStreet’s website has the appearance of being clear about their policies, I found that not to be the case. These “fine print” policies seem designed to (1) make it difficult to move money out of the account, and (2) to limit the cashback that you can earn. Below are examples.
(1) They have a limit of $1500 on incoming online transfers in an entire *month*! They don’t tell you about this anywhere except when you actually try to move money into your account. When I called them about it, they said that they have this restriction for new customers and I was still in my first month. After a couple more calls, I realized that they will increase this limit to $2500 after six months.
Stated reason: Security.
Suspected motive: To limit the amount of money you can spend to get cashback.
(2) They have a limit of $500 on outgoing online transfers. So, say you move $5000 into your account to get 2% cashback. You are stuck with that money with them for the rest of the month (unless you adopt a slower paper check route).
(3) They have a limit of $1500 on daily expenses and explicitly say on their website that it can be waived simply by making a phone call. I had to book two one-way international flight tickets that cost a total of over $1500. I booked these and called them to waive the limit. They refused to do so because I was still in my first month. There is no notice about waivers not being allowed in the first month anywhere. As a result, I have to now spend much more money re-booking that ticket just because PerkStreet does not allow me to spend my own money.
Stated reason: Security for new customers. They claim that all banks have spending limits on debit cards. Really? Bank of America did not.
Suspected motive: Limiting spending => limiting cashback.
(4) When I tried to circumvent the limitation in (1) above to move more money into my account using FedEx, there was another surprise! The first FedEx check takes not 1 day as stated, but about 9 days for some reason. Again, some vague security reason that is incomprehensible to rational beings is given as an explanation.
Bottomline: It is not easy to get much cashback because of their restrictive policies on what you can do with your money. And they make it harder to move money out of the account while not giving any interest on it. As for the 5% cashback, they are on such specific and tiny items that I have never been able to get 5% cashback so far.
@AV
For your 1st point, I just transferred funds from my ING account and therefore was able to transfer in a lot more than their $1500 limit. As for the other points (and the 1st point) I agree it can be a little frustrating (although I haven’t had issues with any of your other points), but their rewards payouts are so high, I am more than happy to have a few limitations to earn what I am earning with them – so far $147 in my first two months – and some of that was from the 5% cashback promo.
My name is Jason Henrichs and I work for PerkStreet. I’ve corresponded with AV since his experience and also worked with our customer service team to improve the information he was delivered. We are always working to improve the experience and any customer’s feedback is appreciated. We are taking action on the areas of AV’s experience that can be corrected, but there are several parts of his claim that I’d like to better explain.
Unfortunately fighting fraud is a tremendous burden that has several impacts not just for the bank but for the customers as we establish a relationship. For AV’s first point, the limit does go up over time and with the deeper relationship. There are several ways you can get money in the account besides our free online transfer- by pushing the money from the other account, setting up direct deposit or sending a check. We recognized that this would limit a new customer’s ability to meet the $5,000 threshold which is why we put in a 90 day grace period where you earn 2% no matter what. If we were looking to bait and switch to keep your balance captive we certainly wouldn’t have done that. We keep a small share of the interchange earned when a customer uses the card and give most of it back to the customer. It is in our best interest to make sure customers can spend as much as they want while balancing the fraud exposure to us and to the customer.
On the daily limit, I’ve worked with the customer service agent on how to better handle the situation and apologize that it was not a stellar experience.
For your last point on the check, it is clearly stated in FAQs what the hold times are but let’s face it, wading through FAQs is a pain so you naturally picked up the phone where the representative was not clear in her explanation. Again, I’ve worked on the education that she should have inquired whether you were a new customer because their is an extra hold time for the first 30 days.
Unfortunately banks have done little to engender trust so we’re fighting little by little to do better and earn that back. IM- I hope you’ll give us a shot. We aren’t perfect but I can assure we have many customers who love us. And I don’t know many other banks that have their COO writing a lengthy reply to an irate customer on a Saturday because he genuinely cares about making banking better.
Any customer or potential customer can contact me directly if they have questions or suggestions: jhenrichs -at- perkstreet.com
Thanks for sharing your experiences Bob. I wish there were a more effective way to fight fraud than to place restrictions on all customers while we sort out are the good ones and which mean harm. Before I joined the board of software company that provides software to financial service companies to fight fraud, I had no idea how prevalent fraud is and how large the tax it places on all of us as customers.
I’m glad the upside has been worth it. We are working on additional innovations to reduce the friction as well as continue to increase the upside for good customers.
For AV, I hope he can see the other side of the coin and work with us to find the balance between preventing fraud (for all of us) and the restrictions on accounts.
I spend about $200/month in gas. I use the envelope system and pay with cash. Sometimes it is a hassle to go into the store and hand them the money since I still have a little one. I have been playing with the idea of using Perkstreet for my gas purchases, but not sure if I want to handle balancing another ledger.
I don’t think I could use Perkstreet for everything since I use the envelope system. I visit my bank once a month to fill up my envelopes, and then maybe 2 more times a month to deposit money from the envelopes to pay the bills. It may seem like a headache, but I know where each dollar is being spent.