BBVA Compass has a new promotion going on right now that I noticed browsing Perez hilton’s entertainment website. Such as strange place to see a bank ad when your browsing around at celebrity mess-up type things. The ad caught my eye and I left the site then had to go back to look at the banner ad again.
It seems that the growing regional bank known for its smaller bank takeovers such as Guaranty Bank has a promotion that some may not want to miss out on. You can do this online only if you apply there and sign up for bill pay and direct deposit. You know the usual gimmicks to get this $150.
The online exclusive claims you get $150 using online bill pay and direct deposit but when you dig deeper you will see why I normally cannot stand regional banks. You must open a new BBVA Compass Checking account by the end of the month to sign up and sign up for bill pay in that time. Pay at least 5 bills online every 30 days. For each month that you do you will get a twenty-five dollar bonus which adds up to that grand $75. So basically you need to sign up for 3 months of bill pay and make these small under $30 payments to your creditors. These bankers over at BBVA Compass expect you to not only make 5 bill payments online every month for 3 months in a row but you also have to make sure they are at least $25 each and made to unrelated third parties. I wonder if that means you cannot make two payments to Chase Credit Cards even though you have two Chase accounts or to pay twice a month for a mortgage bill you have with Wells Fargo.
The next obstacle is the up to $75 with Direct Deposit. Here you have to make sure the first payroll direct deposit is within 30 days of your account opening. It is surprising they did not ask for your paycheck to be a certain amount for the direct deposit since they require such odd requirements on the bill pay.
Of course the account has to be open when these bonuses are posted into your account which can take up to 60 days after the requirements are made. You should then close the account and move on to a bank that respects you a little more unless you find you like this.
When I tried to sign up online it would not let me use a credit card which I normally like to do at first so that I do not have a deposit to deal with instantly. I am not a big fan of check writing. There is a place for electronic deposits but you can use checks to open up accounts with banks such as Citibank.
This bank offer is insulting to me and should be insulting to anyone who even drives by this bank. BBVA Compass is really not that great of a name either. They should name this bank Compass Bank and take out the BBVA to make it a little more “region-able” or down to earth for those looking for checking in states such as Texas and Alabama.
This offer expires 2/28/2010 and can be found at bbvacompass.com/special/201001/newyear2. We recommend you open an online account with a bank that pays interest and less hassles such as Everbank or our other promotional offer banks.
Why is the bank Called BBVA?
This is a question I had to look up why they would make the name BBVA Compass. The reason is because they are owned by Grupo BBVA who have branches in Argentina, Mexico, Hong Kong, Chile, and Brasil, among other places around the world. BBVA Compass is a commercial bank in the U.S. and they have branches in Texas, Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, New Mexico, and Colorado. The stock ticker of Compass Bancshares is BBV on the NYSE.