In talking with dozens of people each week in my different Indiana bankruptcy law offices, I find they have lots of questions about how hard it might be for them to open a new credit card or to obtain a car loan after they’ve filed. Every so often, people will remember to ask what difficulties they might have opening new accounts at a bank after filing a Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy.
The answer to that question can be quite reassuring for most bankruptcy debtors. In general, unless you’re asking a bank for a loan, it will not check with the credit bureaus. Instead, the bank is likely to check with a company that tracks checking activities, such as Chex Systems or Telecheck, to see if any of their member banks have suffered losses because you bounced a lot of checks or because you have a record of fraudulent activities.
So, while the bank might be able to find out that you had a bankruptcy discharge, they probably would consider that irrelevant. What would be important to the bank is that you were not in the habit of bouncing checks, or worse, have any history of committing fraud.
By the way, you can actually go online to order a copy of your Chex System report at https://www.consumerdebit.com/consumerinfo/us/en/index.htm.
Since, as a consumer bankruptcy specialist in Indiana, I offer full service advice to debtors, helping clients rebuild their credit after bankruptcy is part of the “fresh start” process that bankruptcy is all about!