Banks sometimes close accounts that have a zero balance after a certain number of days (either 30, 60, 90, 180, a year, etc). For that reason, be sure to always leave $1 in any account that you want to remain open. Leaving $.01 is probably safe too, but I usually leave $1.
Two readers have been discussing that Chase automatically closes a bank account with zero balance after 60 days (which is something I don’t remember hearing in the past). In their case, this resulted in them losing out on a large bonus that was supposed to get deposited to the account.
The rule is to always leave some small amount of money in an account that you want to keep. For example, since Marcus seems to offer existing-customer deposit bonuses from time to time, I don’t want that account closed, so I leave $1 in the account. Accounts that I don’t care for, but never got around to closing, I empty out and hope they close out themselves.
Related: Complete List Of Ways To Close Bank Accounts At Each Bank
What about if you have already gotten the bonus, but are now trying to ride out the ETF period? Can you drain those accounts to zero without issue? Would you not get a penalty if the bank chooses to close the account before the ETF period ends?
I’d go further and suggest keeping at least 1 + monthly fee (regardless of whether you achieved the fee waiver req’s). That way, if something goes awry, you still have at least 1 at all times.
Bing Bing Bing – We have a winner. I usually leave at least $25 when waiting on a bonus.
You can always call and ask to have a fee removed… it’s harder, or impossible, to get a bank to credit a bonus after you break the terms.
I experienced this with Wells Fargo a couple of years ago. I was just transferring money between it and another account and happened to get down to 0 balance after the transfer. They closed the account the next day (maybe 2 days later). I couldn’t believe how quickly they closed it. Ever since then, I always leave some sort of a small balance if I want to keep the account.
Guessing your $0 balance coincided with your statement close date.
Yeah it may have. I don’t recall.
I’ve only experienced this with Incredible bank. They closed my account after 30 or 60 days of inactivity and $0 balance.
thats incredible!!
Bank WILL close inactivity account with balance in it and send those $$$ to the State controller as unclaimed funds. It happen to me no email no letter from the bank and it just end up with the government.
You can always go to the State controller website to look for any unclaimed fund, I found more than $100 last year.
Frankly if the account is not used in a more than a year, just close it why keep it???
The big one for me is my US Bank checking account to make credit card approvals with them easier.
This almost happened to me at Chase. Fortunately, I saw the closure on the day that it happened, and I was able to stop by a branch. The teller at the branch was able to re-open my account, but she told me that I’d need to make a deposit on the same day in order to keep the account alive.
I tell friends to have $5 as a recommended minimum. From personal experiences, in the event the bank decides to close your account for some reason such as inactivity, if your balance is $5 or higher, they’ll automatically send you a check. If not, you’ll have to be aware your account was closed and then reach out to the bank to have them send a check to you. Not sure if this is some sort of legal requirement for banks to follow but I’ve never managed to find any information on this. This was experience with three different banks.
I had BMO close an account with $0 in it before the bonus posted, I think theirs is <60 days. On the other hand, I have used this trick to have accounts close prior to the min requirement to keep the bonus.
Are you saying the bank closed it, and let you keep the bonus, but if you’d close it yourself at that time then you’d’ve forfeited the bonus? At which banks did this work?
I have $0 at BBVA, having got bonus, waiting for 12 months to close. I figure if they close it early, they won’t blame me and try to claw back bonus. But it’s good to see confirming DPs that this works.
(Of course you can only consider this for accounts where you can keep $0 bal without incurring fees.)
Anyone know a case where this backfired?
Will closing bank accounts proactively (instead of bringing it to $0 balance and having the bank auto close the bank account) put you on any kind of blacklist so you can’t rechurn that bank account in a year or so after closing? What is the downside to closing the bank accounts ,after meeting qualifications for retaining the bonus after closing, besides not being able to receive deposit offers for open accounts like Marcus (I hadn’t heard of that)? I’d imagine keeping open accounts with multiple banks is good for getting
a good loan rate since you already have a relationship with them. Is that true? Thanks!
No closing typically won’t put you on a blacklist – in many cases it will make it easier to churn (some bonuses say you can’t have been a customer in the last 90 days for instance). Churning restrictions are mostly based on CHEX inquiries, which are based on account openings.
other benefit of closing proactively – inactivity fees. When I churned US Bank I transferred all out and they kept charging account maintenance fees then they closed with a $50 negative balance. They then asked me to pay them $50, I called and they refused to waive, I then never paid. They reported to CHEX as “account abuse” and now I currently can’t get CHEX sensitive accounts for a couple more years. I could have avoided that if I proactively closed.
Bringing to $0 works with many banks, but many require you to proactively close to avoid fees.
You also could have avoided that by, ya know, paying the fee. That you rightfully owed.
No difference if you close manually or have it closed automatically. Just saves the phone call.
Be also wary of banks who will charge you for a dormant/inactivity fee. Read the terms or agreements. So that even if you have $1 or $100 in your account but don’t use it for x number of days, you will get hit with the fee