Deal has expired, view the best current checking bonuses by clicking here.
Offer at a glance
- Max Bonus Amount: $100
- Availability: Nationwide
- Additional requirements: One purchase per month for 12 months
- Hard/soft pull: No hard pull
- Credit card funding: Unknown
- ChexSystems: Unknown
- Monthly fees: Waivable
- Expiration date: 1/31/2019
The Offer
The Fine Print
Avoiding Fees
GoBank charges $8.95 per month, waivable when you have a $500 direct deposit post to the account each month. Ordinary ACH transfer have worked in the past for this.
Our Verdict
GoBank is a full-service prepaid card similar to the Serve, and some people use it for Walmart loads and the like. It’s run by GreenDot who has always been known to be shutdown happy, but people have used this successfully, probably by using in moderation.
I don’t see this as being worth it for the $100 bonus since you’ll have to deal with the $500 monthly direct deposits, the monthly purchase, and you’ll only get the bonus in a year. But for those interested in the card for other reasons, this seems like a sweet added bonus.
There’s a similar deal from Green Dot on other prepaid cards as well. Those are less interesting for use, but the signup offer is a bit better since it also gives 5% back on purchases, up to $250 per year.
Hat tip to @covwhodat
Important Note: A reader says that the cards purchased online do not get free loads, only those purchased in Walmart. If anyone can collaborate this info, please do. I believe you can still get the $100 bonus by purchasing at Walmart and then activating through the promo page.
On the topic of GObank, it appears walmart loads are no longer fee free. A $3.74 fee is being charged per load as of 3 days ago according to reddit churning.
Can someone using gobank see if they can access billpay today? All of my payees are gone and it isn’t allowing me to set any back up…
I did exactly per the term but not receive the 100 bonus yet? Anyone else.?
Has anyone received the $100 bonus?
Nope. GoBank is just a piece of crap. They denied they ever had this promotion.
They acknowledged the promotion but said the transactions I made each month were payments which they were so I’m out $100 but oh well. Time to close the account.
I know the thread is a bit old but I opened this account like a year and a half ago and while being a noob on the direct deposits I just ate the fees to liquidate some cards for a while. Now I stopped using it last year sometime and they charged me a fee off my actual balance on 09/2018, 10/2018 and then stopped when I was at zero.
Then they began charging on 01/2019 and 02/2019 putting me into the negative for real. But nothing yet in March or April. I don’t really know what’s your with their computer system, as I see no pattern there. Anyone else getting charged into a signifiicant negative balance?
I’ll probably do a keybank transfer and just start avoiding the fee. Depositing $500 via a ACG and withdrawling $500 in cash every month is a real effort and quite annoying, but this is my only real means to liquidate Office Depot/Staples cards so, idk.
It’s a pain and can’t wait to close it later for me. I got Visa card and load fee 3.95, so I just xfer 501 monthly from my WF checking, then use 2 times small, then use gobank to pay one of the credit cards bill to keep 0 balance before the statement close. Reason to do that is I got negative 8.95 1st month even has 0 balance, I think it’s computer glitch purposely by them. But I do xfer 501 monthly and never load to avoid load fee or monthly fee. I will close later after 7 months
1- yes when U apply online, u get visa caed and that one has a loading fee. If you buy the kit at Walmart, U get the master card and that one has no loading fee.
2- what is the loading limit, I loaded $2.3k in addition to a $500dd and kept getting declination for reaching load limit. Called in. They told me daily and monthly load limit is $3k! I know someone loading up to $2.5k per day after day.
My account has been opened since 2014 and I can load up to $2K per day if I want to, my monthly average has definitely been way over $3K/month all these years. DH and I have MC cards, both were opened using the starter kit at WM at the time they first sold them.
All these years, I’ve only had one issue regarding missing payments to biller which took at least 3 months before it got resolved with the assistance of CFPB. Other than that, it’s been smooth sailing.
I can safely say this of all prepaid cards we use for MS purposes ~ when they’re working, it’s all good but when there’s a problem, prepare for worse customer service while dealing with overseas call centers.
I have just started getting declined loads past couple months. Never over 3k. Cant figure out rhyme or reason.
Ok so I think I figured out the loads will decline if they will put your balance above 3k.
Overall a sub-par experience IMO. Can’t say I recommend it:
1) One extremely annoying thing: There is no running balance displayed in the transactions list. Only the amount of that particular transaction.
2) It is missing to display some transactions. The available balance is correct, but it simply ‘randomly’ does not display some rows. It does so for both the web and the mobile interface. Possibly these are still ‘pending’ transactions, but it does not seem likely. It is missing to display a $20 ACH push from an external bank, which
a) is reflected in the balance
b) was done 5 business days ago
3) The alerts do not include a notification when money is received other than on DD. In other words there is a setting to get an alert on “Direct deposit posts to account”. This works for a DD, but not if you load cash
Regarding the fee: I had a direct deposit that meets the requirements come through today. According to the CSR, the fee will automatically reverse in 24 hours since I met the requirements. Ridiculous to charge the fee upon account opening and I’m not sure this will help anyone at this point since the month is almost over…
I guess it is YMMV.
01/28 – purchase card at WM + initial load of $100
01/30 – $250 DD
02/13 – $250 DD
No monthly fee yet (as of 2/17)
BTW: On the mobile app there is a “Monthly Fee Waiver” which shows if you have met the criteria for the monthly period.
For me that screen displays ‘Success!’ for period 1/27 – 2/25
Here is my DP for u: signed up online and received my debit card quickly and log online and saw -8.95 fee charged even no any other activity, contacted gobank, they said can’t be waived, went Walmart to try to dispose a 500$ vgc, cashier said there is a 3.95 fee per load to my go bank Visa card, so I cancelled the load. Then asked about free reload gobank kit, cashier said not too familiar with fee but point out the MasterCard gobank card said FREE reload only at Walmart on the back of the kit, so I told him to get me one, he scanned and I told him to load 497.05. He told me to swap my debit for total $500 due to there is 2.95 kit fee one time. I got my receipt and went home and registered to my spouse name and real debit card will be shipped soon. I am willing to pay the one time 2.95 and one time 8.95 fee if that’s the case, will avoid load fee or monthly fee by direct deposit 501$ and use one time per month to load balance to my Amex serve to get the $100 bonus if possible. My advise to you, do not do it if not yet. Too much trouble for the bonus, they may shut you down before 12 month just to avoid giving us the bonus, who knows. Hope my DP helps you to make informed decision.
KeyBank counts a DD. Account opened Jan 8th, fee charged Jan 10th. Off to a good start 🙁
I have 0 balance and received my debit card today, before I activate the card, I found out I have negative 8.95, so I didn’t activate my card and sent them a message asking what’s going on, may close the account if that’s the way of going forward.
Yeah same. I was like wtf