Can I Re-Open a recently closed account?

[dkelli]

A friend of mine, "Bill" has made a blunder with his bank.
Background: Bill had not been living well and had made some bad decisions with his bank. He had rented a car, kept the car too long and became about $1000 overdrafted. His bank closed his account. Bill became unemployed for the better part of a year.
After some ups and down's, things began to improve for Bill. He got a good job and was able to open a free checking account.
Then recently he has had some new problems. Bill used his ATM in an awkward manner and his bank froze his account. They had flagged his account for high activity and would not allow him to witdraw any funds. Bill became frustrated and somehow managed to write himself a check, deposit that check, and get some of (what he felt was his) money. Bill's bank closed his account and told him he was lucky they were not pressing charges for fraud.

Any advice for what Bill should do next? He needs a bank account but sees this mess as confusing and complicated. Any ideas as to what steps he should take first to minimize damage to his record and also get a new account open?

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Has he yet repaid what he owes these banks? If I'm understanding correctly what he did that second time, I think he is not going to get a bank account with this record. (Wow, yeah, I would not have been surprised if he had gone to jail for that.) To be honest, though, I am not sure banks would share information like the second incident.

[boosami]

What Bill did, called check kiting, is fraud and illegal. He has for sure been reported to ChexSystems or another similar organization (which is like a credit bureau for checking accounts). It will probably be impossible for him to get an account with a major bank since 80-90% of them use ChexSystems before allowing a new account to be opened. Most banks also check your credit report before opening an account as well. He will need to make sure he doesn't have a bunch of indicators there that he likes to bounce checks and commit fraud if he wants an account.

So here's what he needs to do:

1. Get responsible. Stop bouncing checks, overdrawing, and getting his account frozen. It sounds like he is not making good financial decisions, and hasn't learned from his past mistakes. If this is not corrected, he will continue to have these problems.
2. Pay off all his debts owed to banks for overdrafts and whatever else, because they will do damage to his reputation and make it difficult to get a new bank account or credit line. If it's not already been reported to ChexSystems and the credit bureaus, it will be if he doesn't pay it off soon.
3. Get a free copy of his ChexSystems report and Credit Report to see what kind of damage there is. Most likely, there is nothing he can do to eliminate the damage except wait a long period of time so they are in the past.
4. Depending on the damage done to his reputation, he will be able to open a new account at any bank, or he may have to go to a bank that does not use ChexSystems or do credit checks for depository accounts. If his reputation is really botched, there's nothing that can help him except waiting a long time (years) for those items to be far in the past.

List of banks that don't use ChexSystems: Recommended Banks and Credit Unions - Bank Checking Account

[wraddylan]

Ya whynot but having some issues.