Don’t cash that check! It’s a scam:
The surprise check in the mail “A $10 check is a nice surprise,” the letter from Travelers Advantage says. “Especially since it’s yours for just reviewing the benefits and privileges of this national savings network. And there could be more checks coming your way!”
…
Last year, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer filed a lawsuit against Trilegiant and Chase Bank, alleging they worked together to create and carry out a marketing scheme that, he says, “unlawfully deceived tens of thousands of California consumers” into paying for these membership programs.
Don’t cash such checks. The means they are using is so deceitful you can’t trust what else they are going to try to trick you into. Credit Unions are often much less deceitful than banks (though you can’t always trust them either – which is a shame). It is too bad that organizations decide to prey on the financially illiterate. But they do. The easiest thing is not to waste your time trying to find the one good place that actual offers a good value and just chose to use a very bad method to inform people. If they offer something of value let them sell it to you for what it costs (not trick you into cashing a check and then start charging you a monthly fee).