- TMobile: minimum payment is $1.00. Would not accept the same amount in a 24-hour period. So you can make payments $1.00, $1.01, etc….

- Comcast: take payment as little as $0.01. Would not accept the same amount in a 24-hour period. And you can only make a payment in every 3 hours.

- Verizon: minimum payment is $1.01. Would not accept the same amount in a 24-hour period.

- AT&T: would take payment as little as $0.01. Would only accept 2 payments per day, per card.

If anyone know any other national companies like Directv, Dish Network, etc…, please feel free to contribute.

Peoples Bank of Kankakee Count has a reward checking account called Electric Blue Rewards Checking. The account offers the following rates and features if certain monthly requirements are met:

4.01% APY on balances up to $50,000
1.00% APY on balances over $50,000
0.50% base rate if qualifications are not met
Refund of ATM fees nationwide (up to $5 per transaction, $25 per cycle)
The monthly requirements include:

12 debit card purchases
One direct deposit or auto payment
Access internet banking
Additional features of the account regardless of the monthly requirements include:

$100 minimum initial deposit
No minimum balance requirement
No monthly service charge
Free online Bill Pay
The “Open Now” button on the Electric Blue Rewards Checking page takes you to the CheckingFinder application. I contacted the bank, and according to the CSR, if you open the account from this online application, it’s available to any US resident.

This is a small two-office bank located in Illinois. The bank has been FDIC insured since 1962 (FDIC Certificate # 18566).

Anyway… You do bill pay to your institutional acct just like bill pay to your long distance carrier. My bill pay from Bank of America to West Bank is exactly the same as my bill pay from Bank of America to Verizon. I have been using bill pay to xfer money from institution to institution for years. This is how I move 10k, 25k, 50k from a bank that lowers it’s int to one that is higher. I use bill pay to skim the interest off the max in the Rewards acct. If max is 50k and i have $50,150 after the int is paid, I xfer the $150 to say Ripley where I am still under their max. A few mins on the PC each month and I’m maximizing my interest rate. I put the 10k in my 2 Evantage and 2 AmericaNet accts with a single 20k bill pay to one Evantage and one AmericaNet acct; then internal xfer to split into two 10k’s in each. Five minutes online banking and done. …figured I could bill pay out just as easily since I’ve never been limited before. It’s ok, I see the ach debit that I can do from external institution on my BOA checking so I suppose most of the other checking accts will have this also. …just never needed this before because bill pay was fast, easy and free.

I have mentioned bill pay for institutional xfers to bank customer service and asst mgr types and with a rare exception they did not know that this was not only feasible but very simple and routine. Honestly I’ve been doing this for so long now that I don’t remember where I heard about it. Thanks for the tip on ach debit, I’ll use that to get my money out of Evantage and AmericaNet. You guys are great, thanks for the help as always! …Jim

Oh, I did just check my BOA checking and I can set up to pull from institution with ach debit, so I won’t have any trouble cleaning out my Evantage and AmericaNet accts on May 5.

I’m not sure how you would do bill pay? Make it payable to yourself? Alot of banks would mail you a check unless you were an online account.

When I called Midwest America FCU and asked what the easiest way was, they said they could mail me a check which would have delays and chance of loss in the mail. I chose to run it through Ing Direct.

For a person that doesn’t have an account set up, it might be easier to ask for a check.

I wrote a $50k check from my $100k bank to open my westbank account. Then ACHed in $50k from GMAC to replace the $50k.

My regular checking, which is not a rewards account, also allows ACH transfers in and out. It only pays 2% and 2.25% though. (Presidential)

Id say you need a “hub” account if you are not getting checks.

Interestingly, my first rewards account at a credit union…the credit union has been placed into conservatorship under the National Credit Union Administration.

I used the card today and apparently I have no risk. But, its interesting.

Let me ask the group here… how do you move your funds from a Rewards checking bank that is lowering its rate to a new Rewards acct that has the higher more desireable rate? I’ve been doing a lot of institution checking acct xfers with bill pay for a few years now and never ran into a limit like Evan, AmerNet, RedN. I still don’t see how I can get my 30k out of there efficiently.