All banks, even the local ones, use something called Chex Systems, which works somewhat like Equifax for bank accounts. If you leave an account open with a $0 balance, and something hits it, and causes an overdraft, and accumulates fees, and then they close it later on for you with a negative balance for hundreds of dollars, then this gets reported to Chex and the next time you try to open an account with any other bank, they say, "Nope, we have a record here for you for account abuse."
These records stick around for about 7 years -- longer than many items on a credit report.
Can confirm. I had a negative ChexSystems report cause me all manner of grief after a credit union account I forgot about got closed out 23 cents in the negative.
Two dimes and three pennies. It cost them more than that in angry phone calls and reporting it in the first place.
