When so-called Credit Unions fail their so-called customers…read more
The fact, is we are made to believe that it's easier to work with a Credit union than it is to work with a commercial bank. We were made to believe that a commercial bank is primarily for business while a credit union is primarily for personal/individual accounts. That's so far from the truth.
After being with PenAir Credit Union for the past eight to nine years, I thought that I would have earned at least some respect as a member rather than just being a number.
During those nine years, I opened quite a few accounts, including, checking, savings, certificates of deposit, secured loans, and one automobile loan. The auto loan was paid off in 2023.
Of course, my accounts were never big-dollar accounts, and sometimes I had overdrafts just like the customer who maintained far bigger balances. And of course, some of those overdrafts were paid, and fees were charged or not charged at times. And I am thankful for that.
A few weeks ago I deposited a $3850 check, after some back and forth between the so-called check maker and I, it seems to be a fraudulent check. At that time I had already spent about $700 out of the account and the bank then confirmed that Indeed the check was fraudulent.
I spoke to at least two customer service representatives and informed them of my intention to cover the overdraft caused by the check deposited in my Vacation Account. However, it took me a little longer than expected.
However, I did not expect the line of action that was taken by the credit union without informing me of their intention. I did not receive a letter, an email, or a telephone call advising me of their pending action.
On Sept 23, 2023, I received an email stating that my debit card had been closed out by the bank and could no longer be used. I came home and decided to check on my accounts online and realized that the bank had closed out my entire account relationship without informing me ahead of doing so. Ironically on Sept 18, 2024, I applied to the same credit union to open a certificate of Deposit and used it to establish a CD secure loan. Of course, the CD and the loan were left intact.
I was very disappointed in the credit union and requested for the CD to be closed out and used the process to pay the loan of $6000.00
The history of nine years should make it clear that I had no intention of ripping of the bank for $700. Eventually, someone tried to play catch-up and wrote a letter to address the badly handled situation. Of course, the letter had nothing substantive, but appeared to be poorly worded to fit the action that was taken.
It's a classical state of the right hand not known what the left hand was doing. The loan department was opening a CD for five years to be used as collateral for a $6000.00 secured loan, of which the monthly payments would be coming from my checking account. On the other hand the operations department was closing my checking account that the funding from the loan should have been deposited into. How ridiculous was that. Then, some wise guy, told me that I should make the loan payment through the share branch directly, again how ridiculous.
I told, him to go ahead and close the CD and the loan which was only two days old.
Please stay away from PenAir,
It's not the friendly, customer oriented credit union it pretends to be.
Sincerely,
Mr. Cole
Very dissatisfied customer after 9 years.