Offer at a glance
- Maximum bonus amount:Â $500
- Availability:Â If you live or work in our geographic reach, we want YOU with us. Geographic Reach: Sacramento, Placer, El Dorado, Yolo, San Joaquin, Contra Costa, Solano, Yuba, Sutter, Butte, Nevada, Alameda, and Amador Counties.
- Direct deposit required:Â Yes, $1,000+
- Additional requirements:Â See below
- Hard/soft pull:Â Hard pull (report of soft pull)
- ChexSystems:Â Unknown, sensitive
- Credit card funding: Up to $250
- Monthly fees:Â $5, avoidable
- Early account termination fee:Â None
- Household limit:Â None listed
- Expiration date: None
Contents
The Offer
- Safe Credit Union is offering a bonus of $500 when you open a new Perfect Cents Checking and complete the following requirements within 60 days:
- enroll in eStatements
- receive $1,000+ in direct deposits
- complete 30 debit card purchase transactions.
- Open a Level Up Money Market account and earn $50. Within 30 days of account opening, have a minimum of $5,000 in your account.
The Fine Print
- You can’t have a current or recently closed (past 12 months) SAFE checking account.
- All bank account bonuses are treated as income/interest and as such you have to pay taxes on them
Avoiding Fees
Monthly Fees
To avoid the $5 monthly service fee, you must be enrolled in eStatements and you must have a minimum of 10 or more debit (and/or credit) card purchase transactions post each month or direct deposits totaling $500 or more per month.
Early Account Termination Fee
I wasn’t able to find any early account termination fee in the fee schedule.
Our Verdict
Better than the $400 bonus that was previously offered. Hopefully it’s a soft pull now but even if it’s a hard pull I think it’s worth doing and will add it to the best bank bonuses.
Hat tip to reader Ryan H
Useful posts regarding bank bonuses:
- A Beginners Guide To Bank Account Bonuses
- Bank Account Quick Reference Table (Spreadsheet) (very useful for sorting bonuses by different parameters)
- PSA: Don’t Call The Bank
- Introduction To ChexSystems
- Banks & Credit Unions That Are ChexSystems Inquiry Sensitive
- What Banks & Credit Unions Do/Don’t Pull ChexSystems?
- How To Use Our Direct Deposit Page For Bank Bonuses Page
- Common Bank Bonus Misconceptions + Why You Should Give Them A Go
- How Many Bank Accounts Can I Safely Open Within A Year For Bank Bonus Purposes?
- Affiliate Links & Bank Bonuses – We Won’t Be Using Them
- Complete List Of Ways To Close Bank Accounts At Each Bank
- Banks That Allow/Don’t Allow Out Of State Checking Applications
- Bank Bonus Posting Times
Opened 9/26, made real DDs and organic debit spend to meet all requirements by 10/31.
Messaged online support for status update, got denied because my account “was not registered until after the promotion ended.” Obviously FUBAR since there was no separate registration step – just open the accounts and go.
Thanks to various DPs below, I called in and got a helpful rep who liaised with marketing and Tango. Got the virtual card on email today.
Used cash app for 30 debits each. Use square for dd. Finally got $500 email today from them after calling them 5 business days ago for p1 and p2. Secure messaging wasn’t helpful and they denied promotion for p1 and p2.
I used CA to hit the 30 debit transactions and a real employer direct deposit. Sent a secure message (see below) and called the bank. Manual review. Got the $500 VGC via email link 5 business days later.
Hi,
Opened my Perfect Cents Checking account on [DATE OPENED] and have satisfied requirements for $500 bonus.
I opened the account through this link: https://web.archive.org/web/20240830011836/https://www.safecu.org/get-550-campaign
No promo code was required, as opening from the linked web page was supposed to generate the bonus enrollment.
Completed all requirements with my last direct deposit on [DATE OF LAST DD]
The SAFE member will receive a bonus if (1) they open a SAFE Perfect Cents Checking account with a minimum of $25 and (2) within 60 days of account opening (a) enroll in eStatements, (b) have direct deposits totaling $1,000 or more post to the account and (c) have thirty (30) debit card purchase transactions post to account.
The SAFE member must be in good standing at time of each bonus disbursement. Bonuses will be disbursed in the form of a Visa® Prepaid Card emailed by a third party, tangocard.com, to the SAFE member’s email within ten (10) business days after individual product criteria is met. Neither SAFE nor any third-party providing Program services will have any liability to SAFE member for failure to deliver prepaid card redemption email due to invalid email address.
Please advise when I’ll be receiving the bonus.
APY of 3.04% paid only on the portion of your daily balance that is less than or equal to $3,000. APY of 0.05% – 3.04% paid on balances of $3,000.01 or more. Two monthly requirements must be met to receive dividends on Perfect Cents Checking: 1) Active enrollment in eStatements; 2) Minimum of 10 debit and/or credit card purchase transactions post and settle each month.
This worked well….I got my elevated APY. No complaints here.
[Put this in in case they tried to jam me up on the CA transactions. Well…it worked for one requirement why not for the other?]
I called today and was informed that I didn’t qualify for the bonus because my deposit was not a payroll deposit. I made the deposit from Schwab. Do you think there might be an issue with Tangocard, and the Safebank representative just didn’t know how to explain the reason for not receiving the bonus and attributed it to an unqualified deposit?
Additionally, I also did not receive my referral bonus for the new P2 account.
If you faked the DD, don’t call the bank. https://www.doctorofcredit.com/dont-call-the-bank/
Met bonus requirements and waited for 2 weeks and no emails. I think they have some issues with their vendor (Tangocard.com) in regards to tracking. I had to reach out to them for my $500 bonus AND a referral bonus I made to P2. In the end I got both of them, but it required me sending secure messages and them reaching out to Tango to manually send me the bonuses.
Interesting – they’re giving me the runaround on my referral for P2 saying I’m ineligible for the $100 even though their system confirmed I should have received it since I got the $500 bonus. It’s been probably a month now and still nothing. I filed a NCUA complaint, but NCUA said it’s not their problem, it’s a California Dept of Financial Protection issue.
What did you message them about the referral not arriving?
Sucks you had to go down the path of a complaint. I simply said I was missing a referral bonus, attached the email with the subject: “Your friend referral rewards update”. Then they asked for the referred member’s name and email and they looked into it.
I really didn’t want to. I started with “y’all told me I should’ve gotten a referral, but it’s missing”. Gave them over a month before switching to complaint. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to have gone anywhere.
Wow, I can’t believe that worked – SM’d and 3 days later, $100 sent. After a month and a half of phone reps giving the runaround. Thanks for the DP.
Sweet! Glad it worked out.
If it’s been more than 60 days after account opening and you haven’t received your bonus, I would recommend calling their customer support at (800) 733-7233 and not opening a ticket through secure messaging.
I opened a ticket, and this was the response I received:
“Dear Nick,
Thank you for your patience, while we researched the inquiry about the bonus. It appears that you had not enrolled into the promotion until September 19, 2024. As you had not registered until a couple of weeks after opening your account, unfortunately, the account does not qualify for the promotional bonus. I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. If you have any questions or concerns you may contact SAFE via e-mail, by telephone at (800)733-7233, or Live Chat.
Sincerely,
April K
Digital Experience
SAFE Credit Union”
I basically responded that this does not make any sense. I signed up 8/26/24 using the official promo link https://www.safecu.org/get-550-campaign. 9/19/24 was the date I signed up to generate a referral link to refer others to this promo before it ended. Also, even if for some reason that was the enrollment date for the promo I was inquiring about, her message confirms I was enrolled between 8/19/24 and 9/30/24…
Called the number above, and in a call that lasted maybe 3-5 minutes, the support rep took care of it, saying “Oh yeah, every year we get some of these that fall through the cracks…it looks like your account is eligible and we will reach out to tangocard.com about this. You should hear back by Weds 11/13 at the latest.”
Save yourself the effort and call!
This worked for me! Thanks
Same here. Opened my account on August 25th and met all the requirements, but I still haven’t received my bonus or any updates. Hopefully bonus will post soon. If not, we might need to band together and file complaints with the CFPB.
This is the message I got after asking the bank where my bonus was.
Thank you for your patience! After review, I have confirmed with the back office that your account is not registered for any promotion. To qualify for this promotion a specific link would have needed to be used to open the account. I am truly sorry!
I sent a screen shot of the promotion.
Got the exact same response. This was after a CSR already confirmed in secure messaging that I met the promo specifics and should expect a card from Tango. After it didn’t arrive, I contacted them again and they sent me the same response about having never signed up for the promotion. With so many others saying the same thing, it seems like SAFE CU bit off more than they can chew with this promotion and are trying to welch out of paying bonuses. I wrote them back saying to please do the right thing to avoid a CFPB complaint. Let’s see what they do.
On 10/31 I got a “Perfect Cents Checking Fee” of $90. This is an insane amount. Have no clue why they are charging this even though I completed the 10 debit card transactions to waive the monthly $5 fee.
You might want to check back – I just logged in and see the same fee, but a reversal today. Wonder if it was a technical bug? SAFE seems like a bit of a mess between the issue I’m having with them on paying out referral and the issues with other people receiving bonuses.
Yeah they confirmed with me that it was a bug and reversed it.
It happened to lots of people, there were a bunch of reports on the Sacramento Reddit page yesterday. It should be reversed by now, mine was.
Another one with no bonus payout. I opened a ticket.
appears to me they are having problems with the third party responsible for issuing the gift card bonuses
Yeah. I’ve sent them emails 2 weeks ago and then asked again for an update last Friday. They said they’ve spoken with their party responsible for the bonuses but so far, no word or update from their vendor.