Sometimes I feel like I’m sitting on the deck of my cruise shipping, sipping a margarita while I watch sharks attack everyone swimming in the ocean below. Why? Because I belong to the same credit union I’ve been part of since I was 18, and they’re not evil.
During college I banked with a few different banks, due to sheer convenience. But they were awful: surprise fees, capricious changes in policies, tellers who gave attitude. My wife cashed a bouncy check in her bank once, and they arranged all her withdrawals over the next 48 hours to maximize penalties. The stories I hear from people are terrible.
I’m now part of NC State Employee’s Credit Union. They’re member-run: no profits leave the system. They consistently give me the lowest rates on loans that I can find. They’re super-approachable. The stories I hear about them are uniformly positive.
And I wonder why there aren’t more people joining credit unions. Is NC SECU extraordinary in its attitude and competence? Are credit unions too difficult to join? Do other folks tend to have positive experiences with their banks?
Mainly convenience of branches in multiple locations. There is no bank or CU immediately near me, but they have them in places I frequently visit, but CU’s are only at one of those locations, while banks have branches along most routes I use.
Also I rarely occur fees, perhaps 2 in 20 yrs or so.
Before I moved across the country I needed to have my money in a bank that had branches both in Texas and New York. I took my money out of a local bank and put it into a Chase account and I haven’t regretted it. I had functional banking abilities the day I stepped off the plane and there are more Chase ATMs in NYC than any other bank by far. When my roommate wrote me a check that bounced and I racked up about a dozen $35 fees I called the bank and explained what happened and they waived them all with no questions asked. When I do any sort of traveling I call them and let them know I’ll be out of town so my cards don’t get shut down and I’m always greeted by at least a dozen available bank branches or ATMs when I get where I’m going. The one time I left the country I walked across the street from my office to my local Chase branch and asked to please take $300 out of my account in Euros so that I would have money for cabs and food and such when we landed in Finland and it took them about 10 minutes to complete the transaction.
Not everyone is going to have the same awesome experiences that I’ve had with them but I have to say that Chase has been wonderful to us in every possible way.
yeah, my main concern with credit unions is convenience. Clark Howard recommends them strongly, they are, as you say NOT EVIL which puts them ahead of my bank (which got hit with fines from the US Gov for illegally accepting cash deposits above $10K from Mexican drug gangs, so, you know where THEIR morals are at).
When I was setting up my accounts, I didn’t qualify for any credit union in the area. Rules were far stricter (now, you just have to live in the county).
I haven’t switched because I get free checking and free checks from my bank and the interest in savings is not different enough to to be worth the change. I also don’t have any loans and several credit cards that don’t charge an annual feel.
Yeah, I dunno, I adore my credit union. I’ve been a member since I was 5 - at the time it was the Teachers Credit Union, but now it’s available to anybody. There are plenty of locations here, yet most of the people I know in this town bank at awful places like BoA. Actively evil banks. WTF?
I have a small savings account at the local credit union, and I intend to go to them to take out a loan when I’m ready to buy a new car. My main banking has always been with Wells Fargo, though; I’ve had the same checking account ever since my parents set it up for me when I was like 10. They simply haven’t pissed me off enough to overcome a couple decades of inertia and uproot my accounts to move them to the union.
I will say though that if I do ever need to switch banks, it will be to the union, and any new business I need to do will be with them instead of Wells Fargo.
My alma mater had a relationship with the local schoolteachers credit union. You could join just by being a student or having a degree from the university. You didn’t need to be in a teaching track or even intend to ever teach in schools.
I’ve kept my membership but I can’t say I’ve used them much. They aren’t exactly convenient for day-to-day banking, but I’m open to using them for investments or a mortgage.
I understand that credit unions are getting a lot broader in terms of who can join, possibly to the point where the restrictions don’t have a lot of meaning anymore. In addition to the ever-broadening qualifications for membership, it usually seems that immediate family members of a qualifying person (or qualifying member) automatically qualify, so apparently my father could just up and apply for membership in the teachers credit union that I’m in, and I could apply for membership in whatever credit unions he’s a member of.
I can’t speak for most people, but I looked into CU’s a few years ago and concluded that the really good, worthwhile ones required membership or employment somewhere. The rest were extremel inconvenientl located.
I bank with Fifth Third (53 dot com) and am very happy. Free checking, no min balance and free ATM’s anywhere in the US and many Caribbean countries.
Convenience I’m with a medium sized multi-state bank with branches throughout the area. Plus their online banking software is the best I’ve seen.
**Interest Rates ** My savings account with them has a higher interest rate than I could hope to get with the local credit unions. (Yes, after seeing this thread I checked.)
I’m yet to have any fees with them, and if I do, I may bolt. Until them I’m satisfied.
Convenience. My first checking account was as a college student, with the university-affiliated credit union, but then I went to grad school and needed a local institution to bank with. Picked a nearby bank as there weren’t credit unions nearby.
Then I moved to the Chicago suburbs and needed a new bank, and went with the one that my husband was with, First Chicago. They were bought out by Banc One, who were then bought out by Chase. Chase has been not-evil, has very conveniently-located branches to my workplace and home, has a contract with my workplace to handle Direct Deposit (thus making the paperwork for it a breeze), I love their app for the iPhone, including the deposit-check-via-photo feature.
Actually, I am part of a credit union. I even served on the board for two years. I’m very pro credit union.
The only downside I can see is that they so often have rules that exclude many people. So, for example, I couldn’t join half the credit unions in my area because I don’t work in X or live in Y county or some other thing. That said, there are so many of them most people should be able to find one if they’d just look.
I pay no fees and the convenience of their having ATMs all over is just too much to switch. I have considered ING (which swallows the fees for using other ATMs), but my bank has just not done enough to make me. I agree they are better.
The son of a friend of mine moved from Montreal to Toronto and tried to transfer his Bank of Montreal to Toronto. Not only wouldn’t they do that, they refused to even allow him to open an account because they insisted on seeing a birth certificate (???) and his was in French and they wouldn’t accept it. He walked down the street to a credit union (or maybe an S&L) and they welcomed him with open arms.
I am a member of a regional credit union.
To qualify, I must:
[ol]
[li]Live in or[/li][li]Work in or[/li][li]Worship in or[/li][li]go to school in[/li][/ol]
one of 3 Counties.
Easy to qualify, & many credit unions will bend over backwards to find a connection, however slight, that will permit you to join.
The NC SECU is a huge credit union, one of the biggest in the US. It’s bigger than many of the small NC banks. Part of the reason it’s so big is they have been around a long time and always allowed family members of state employees to join. Now in some cases the members are grandkids of state employees and have no other connection to the state. I am glad they are very big, they have lots of ATMs around that I can use for free since I am a member of another NC credit union, Coastal Federal.
I was in the Chicago Area Federal Credit Union for years, but after I retired and moved to North Carolina it was no longer convenient to bank there unless I wanted to pay ATM fees every time I wanted to access my account. As others have pointed out, credit unions do have membership requirements and when I’ve looked up ones in my area I don’t seem to qualify because I don’t work, don’t belong to a local church (are there atheist credit unions?), don’t live in the right county, etc.
For the folks claiming convenience - how often do you go into an actual branch? I find I can do everything I need through ATM or online with my credit union.
And as for ATMs:
Credit union members have surcharge-free access to 28,000 ATMs.
Bank of America - 18,000
Chase - 16,100
Wells Fargo - 12,000
Citi - 3,200
I haven’t noticed a lot of active evilness from Chase.
My checking account is free. They have a branch inside the grocery store were I shop, and you can hardly swing a dead cat without hitting one of their no-fee ATM’s around here. They have a super user-friendly website for online bill paying, and an awesome iPhone app. I can deposit a check by taking a picture of it! Can your Credit Union do that?
Because PNC Bank is awesome. I’ve never been hit with any of these supposedly evil fees that others seem to complain about. I’ve never had anything less than extremely friendly encounters with their staff. I’ve never had a ledger error. And they pay all of my ATM fees. Why would I want to fix what ain’t broken, and is, in fact, a well-oiled machine?