Offer at a glance
- Maximum bonus amount: $225
- Direct deposit required: Yes, $500+
- Additional requirements: See below
- Hard/soft pull: Soft pull
- ChexSystems: Unknown
- Credit card funding: Up to $500
- Monthly fees: None
- Early account termination fee: $10, 90 days. Account also needs to be kept open for a year
- Household limit: None listed
- Expiration date: None listed
Contents
The Offer
- First Florida Credit Union is offering a $225 bonus when you open a new checking account and complete the following requirements:
- Establish direct deposits totaling $500 or more within 90 days of opening your new checking account and receive a $200 bonus
- Enroll in e-Statements within 90 days of opening your checking account and earn a $25 bonus
The Fine Print
- 1) Earn $200 for opening a First Florida No Monthly Fee Checking account with direct deposits totaling $500 or more posted within 90 days of account opening.
- Upon completion, $200 will be deposited between 91 and 100 days from account opening. A direct deposit must be an electronic deposit of your paycheck, pension, or government benefit (such as SSI) from your employer or the government.
- Person-to-person payments (such as Zelle®, Cash App, Venmo, or Paypal) are not considered direct deposits. 2) Earn $25 when you enroll in e-Statements within 90 days of opening your new First Florida No Monthly Fee Checking account.
- Upon completion, $25 will be deposited between 91 and 100 days from account opening.
- Cash-back offers can only be redeemed once per checking account and per member. Existing members with a First Florida checking account are not eligible.
- To receive the cash-back offers, the new checking account must remain open for a year and in good standing.
- If requirements are not met, the cash-back offers are subject to be forfeited.
- Offers are effective August 1, 2024, and can be withdrawn anytime without notice.
- All bank account bonuses are treated as income/interest and as such you have to pay taxes on them
Avoiding Fees
Monthly Fees
They offer a free checking account with no monthly fees.
Early Account Termination Fee
There is a $10 fee if account is closed within 90 days.
Our Verdict
Previous bonus was only $200 and had to be opened in branch. Unfortunately it’s a hard pull.
Hat tip to Gz
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
In case there is anyone like me that is planning on keeping their accounts long-term, I found out that there is $7.50 “inactivity fee” if there is no activity in either account for at least 12 months. You need a $1+ transfer to prevent this fee and it can be done between your FFCU accounts.
“thank you for your interest in membership with First Florida Credit Union. We are contacting you to inform you that First Florida Credit Union pulls Chex Systems for all membership applications. We were not able to obtain your scores due to the following reason:
– Your credit is frozen
– Your Chex systems is blocked”
So it doesn’t look like opening with Chex frozen works anymore.. I think I will avoid the hard Chex pull for now..
FWIW, I had zero problems with this one
9/25/2024 Account Opened (+90=12/24/24)
10/10/24 $100 DD from employer
10/24/24 $100 DD from employer
11/7/24 $100 DD from employer
11/21/24 $100 DD from employer
12/5/24 $200 DD from employer
1/3/2025 Received bonus
Actually going to keep it open since they have a really nice interface for adding external accounts and transferring from my other ongoing bonus accounts. Then I just have a single account (First Florida) in SoFi to transfer to my main account.
That’s good to know re interface for transfers. I tend to keep credit union relationships in place (since you can often churn the checking without needing to start over from scratch becoming a member), and could use another option for ach pushes etc. I used them for bill pay during the bonus period, things went smoothly there too.
Closed my account via SM (rep responded same day). No fees and check will take 7-10 biz days
Closed my account over the phone, took 2 minutes. Asked if there were any fees to close and they said no. Will mail my $5 check and close the account.
Is there a 1099 for the referlive gift card? If so, would the 1099 be from First Florida or Referlive?
Not sure if there it was sent out yet. But normally it would be from first Florida (usually referlive is from the bank). For example, I have 2 1099 from regions ($300 bonus and $50 referlive)
Good to know, thank you! I tried to enroll in e-delivery for 1099s but still, some banks send them by mail, and sometimes the mail gets lost in the delivery system. So I am making a list of the 1099s I am expecting and if I do not receive any of them by middle of next month I can reach out to the banks.
P2 is having issues with this one. Genuine Sole Prop, no w2, etc. They are saying that the computer detected that the direct deposits were not payroll. Will escalate again and then complain to NCUA. There was nothing in the terms about Sole Props being ineligible.
Update – sent in payment information for DD and business account. They ended up paying the bonus. This was for a legitimate sole prop biz.
Did you use Chase Biz or something else?
What do you mean by “payment information for DD and business account”? Could you be more specific? They asked me to send information on my business but we’re not specific as to what I should send.
count me as one of the few that only got the $25 and was denied the $200. Used Chase Biz ach employee payment services to DD 2 $1005 deposits into the account within the promo period. After two weeks of my inquiry being “escalated” I received this explanation for why it was denied:
“The eligible direct deposits as indicated the promo disclosures. It must have been a deposit from a pension, payroll ,SSI or SSA. The system detected your deposit as ineligible payroll instead it was person 2 person payment.”
Should I bother to file a complaint? I have never had this issue before with chase biz being denied.
You’ve already done more than you should have. “Don’t call the bank” when your fake DD doesn’t work.
Jon
Setting up a payroll deposit from my own small bis is not a fake DD.
If you have a real business (even self employed) and that was a true payroll deposit, I’d fight it.
This is clearly not a fake (even if intention was to fake it) since you are using your Chase Biz Ac to setup DD via Employee ACH services. The one reason i could think of why they denied is if you were a Sole Prop Biz in Chase using your own name. Since the ACH payroll comes with the employer name and it happened to be your name, they misinterpreted it. Def worth a fight if you value the $200.
Does this account need to be open for a year to avoid bonus forfeit?. It is there in the terms. But
William Charles didn’t mention in the EATF section of this post.
This is all I can find in the fee schedule “Early Account Closure- Closed within 90 days $10.00 “. I know I read something about having to be open a year? I’ll research further. Maybe
Gadget 🕵️♂️ Bank Bonus Geek 🔗 or @ 
mothman69 has more info?
It’s in the offer terms. Are they going to enforce it? No one knows. EATF is a separate issue and irrelevant since you had to wait 90 days for the bonus anyways.
Per terms: “To receive the cash-back offers, the new checking account must remain open for a year and in good standing. If requirements are not met, the cash-back offers are subject to be forfeited.”
Unknown if enforced. I’ve never seen a bank/CU do it, but never know. Pretty sure if you zero it and it get’s closed, they aren’t going to hunt us down. I’m going to zero balance it this month, and just leave the untouchable $5 share.
Wayne 
NBG
It’s clearly conveyed in the terms of the offer. “To receive the cash-back offers, the new checking account must remain open for a year and in good standing.
If requirements are not met, the cash-back offers are subject to be forfeited.”
How they would go about getting the money back is unclear if the balance was zero, but it’s in the terms.
I’ve always wondered if the financial institution would overdraw the account from $0 and then close it. That would cause a severe impact to a Chex report and viability to open new accounts. I’ve tested closing with some institutions after zeroing the account through secure message and occasionally the representative will indicate that the account needs to remain open for a few more days to avoid a fee usually the $25 ones or what not where I requested closure a couple days before the 180 day timeframe for example. Never have tried with the full bonus forfeit institutions.
“Full bonus forfeit institutions” are pretty rare. Not sure I have ever seen one. IMO, they didn’t even word it properly to do a clawback… because the “cashback offer” bonus has already been received. The requirements were met, or it wouldn’t have been posted.
I do recall Axos had terms like that sometime last year, and then DAYS later it disappeared. I don’t think LEGALLY they can take bonuses that were earned over a 5-month period back because they don’t like that you (or they) close the account.
You think a bank would secretly close the account with a negative balance and not let you know? What good would that do them? If they want their money, they need to make it known. Businesses aren’t usually out for vengeance. Pretty sure there is a rule that you have to be overdrawn for at least 30 days before they can report it to Chex, but typical, it’s not clearly written that I can find.
I had left 10 cents in my First FL account. Pulling it this week and letting the chips fall.
Lefty
I have a few bonuses with that language including Associated Bank personal and business checking accounts. I’d rather close them before then to be honest so may try anyway but currently only have a few dollars in each account.
I don’t know if they would close an account with a negative balance out of spite for trying to claw back a bonus from an account with a $0 balance but wouldn’t put it past them. I’m typically skeptical by nature and think they just might try to do it haha. I would think they would mention it though if a closure is requested instead of doing it after the fact.
Let me know how First Florida closing goes as I’d like to close those for P1 and P2 as well.
I don’t plan to close the accounts for now and will let them age. If they come back with a future offer I assume it will not be churnable, so I am in no rush.
When unsure if I am going to be charged a fee to close an account, I usually say to support as I am closing… “Assuming there is no fee, please close my account” and see what they say. If they say we are mailing your $5 “share”, I would take that as a mutually agreeable business transaction.
I highly doubt their system is going to be set up to do a clawback and it would be up to the closing banker/CSR to be the enforcer. I am sure someone with try it soon.
Let me add
Anyone close this “early”? I am itching to close it. My balance has been zero since January 7th and it is still active.
I closed over the phone, no issues.
How long ago did you close? And did you use the Gadget language of “Assuming there is no fee……”?
I always say if there is no fee please close my account. There wasn’t and a check will be mailed. I closed it earlier today.
Activated debit card but have never used it. Today logged into online banking and saw an unauthorized transaction on the debit card at some website I have never heard of.
Fun