For the past year or so, I’ve been hearing these commercials for credit unions. In a nutshell: they tell you that you’re doing something good for your community and others by not entrusting your money with evil corporate banks.
So I thought “Why not?” and got myself a checking account at Community Choice Credit Union.
After all, I had been irritated with Chase, after they gave me a credit card with a ridiculously small credit limit.
The first thing I noticed was that the credit union pulled my credit report. Not the normal ChexSystems report that most banks pull to make sure you aren’t going to go around town passing bad checks, but an actual credit report — as though I had applied for a credit card or loan.
I angrily returned to the credit union to ask why. Their answer: “We pull everyone’s report quarterly, to see if they’re eligible for credit cards or loans.”
“Oh, well, I hadn’t planned on getting anything, but since you pulled, what I am eligible for?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“You’ve only been a member for a few days.”
“So why did you pull my credit report, if nobody is eligible when they open an account?”
“Well, that’s different. If you had applied for a credit card, we’d go with that, but since you didn’t, the computer doesn’t offer you anything.”
“So if I apply for a credit card, are you going to pull my credit report again?”
“Yes. No. Well… I don’t really know.”
I decided this was enough banter with the friendly credit union person who, unlike the somewhat less friendly people at Chase, seemed to know fuckall about how the credit union actually works.
Now, back to the “Go to a credit union or you hate America” commercial… another one of their commercials on the radio features a couple “hilariously” bantering about their recent statement.
“Where are the fees?”
“It’s a credit union! There are no fees!”
“Ooooh! They tricked you again!”
“No, really, there are no fees.”
Excuse me for a moment, while I channel Mr. John McCain…
My friends, this is complete bullshit.
Enter June, 2008. $10 is mysteriously missing from the savings account I never asked for in the first place.
Community Choice’s explanation: “I don’t know why that happened. We’ll credit it back to you.”
That never happened.
August 2008: Another $10 is mysteriously missing from the savings account I never asked for in the first place.
Community Choice’s explanation: “Wow, that’s strange. We’ll credit it back to you.”
That actually did happen. In the meantime, Chase seemed to notice something unusual (namely: a not insubstantial amount of money was no longer flowing through my checking account or their credit card) and offered me a credit card with a decent limit and 0% interest until September 2010.
October 2008: $20 goes missing from the savings account. You know the drill.
Yesterday: I noticed $10 was missing from my checking account, and was allegedly paid to “Bill Pay”. I knew this must be wrong, because I don’t use their online bill payment system (because frankly, it is a flaming pile of shit, compared to what Chase offers) — and more importantly, as a credit union member, I certainly wouldn’t be charged with something as elementary as online bill payment. Especially if I don’t use it.
Well, today, I found out I was wrong. According to the person at Community Choice, it costs $10 a month to not send e-money to people. Another woman chimed in to let me know that “We just started charging people for it.”
All of the tellers there… I shit you not… stopped what they were doing to tell me that they too, had been charged. Now, there are multiple facts we can infer from this exchange:
1) Community Choice employees are empathetic to the strange an unusual fees-that-aren’t-fees-because-we’re-a-credit-union that happen.
2) Community Choice employees apparently are so ridiculously detached from their jobs, that they don’t realize when their own accounts are going to be charged a fee for not using something.
3) Community Choice’s online bill pay sucks so hard, none of their tellers are apparently willing to use it.
Incidentally, one of Chase’s ATM’s offered me a pre-approved credit card earlier this month. I pushed “Okay” and a few days later, a Visa Signature card showed up with what is now my highest credit limit to date, and my second lowest interest rate.
Community Choice offered me nothing today. Not even the $10 they charged me for not using their bill pay service.
