[nxc18]

Skip the bank. Credit Unions are where its at: nation-wide shared branches, fee-free checking, sane overdraft policies, no minimum balances, reasonable interest payments, and in my experience, not a single instance of them blatantly trying to screw customers.

I just checked and my CU has a $30 overdraft fee, which can be disabled if you're willing to let things bounce.

[coredog64]

CU member, and I'll mention one downside. Unless your credit union has a local branch, you will need to get used to all kinds of weird restrictions on what your satellite branch can do for you.

I just bought a car, and the satellite branch could only give me $1000 in cash. I had to beg the seller to take a cashier's check for the balance.

Sometimes the systems don't integrate well and so they have a hard time figuring out which account is which.

Finally, even though my spouse is listed as a co-owner of the account, there is very little she can do at a satellite branch (or even over the telephone to the main office).

[moftz]

Why don't you just close your account your CU and open up an account at the one closest to you? I have no loyalty to my bank. If I move and there's no branches around me, I'll just move to someone else that is local.

[kevin_thibedeau]

Try opening a CU account without credit.

[memonkey]

I didn't have credit when I opened my account with a CU. I don't even think they ran a credit check.

[dragonwriter]

I had little (and mostly bad) credit when I opened my first CU account. Wasn't a problem, at all.

It might, OTOH, be hard with the same kind of bad account history that will stop you from being able to open a regular bank account, but that's different from regular no credit or bad credit.

[adrr]

Most small and medium size banks don't pull your credit report. Its Chex Systems to see if you have any deposit accounts in bad standing. Some also pull fraud scores from experian or equifax as well to see if you information has been used in identity theft recently.

[ryanhuff]

No credit, or bad credit?

[Pseudosudowoodo]

I can confirm at least for my union, they had no issue with my very bad credit. They were more concerned with recent debts and rent, things like that.

Background: For the record, it was due to defaulting on a student loan. It's taken care of now, but back then I couldn't afford the 10% interest rate.