The Case for Credit Unions

February 18, 2011, By 3 comments

The Case for Credit Unions

In the last year, two new laws - the Dodd-Frank Act and the Credit CARD Act - have come into effect to help fight, among other things, excessive over-draft and credit card fees faced by consumers. Unfortunately we are now seeing the downside to these laws, which is that banks are looking for alternative revenue sources like fees on basic checking accounts that previously were free in order to make up shortfalls created by complying with these new regulations.

From my perspective, I don’t really care much what the big banks decide to do with respect to new revenue sources because they won’t be getting a dime of my money. It has been nearly five years since I closed my accounts with one of the nations largest mega banks and it will be a cold day in Hades before I ever set foot in one again.

My Breaking Point

While I was running around checking items off my to-do list just before our wedding, I was knee deep in a refinance transaction. The last item I needed to obtain was a verification of deposit to prove to my soon to be mortgage lender that I had the liquid reserves I had listed on my application.

Having been in the mortgage business for years I knew these sort of things were usually easy to obtain. It would be another week or so before the end of my statement cycle, so I made the rare appearance at my local branch and requested that the representative there complete a verification form just as I had instructed hundreds of clients to do over the years.

You can imagine my surprise when the person at the branch told me that they could not complete my request. Instead I would be required to call an 800 number, pay a $10 fee and wait 24 to 48 hours for it to be faxed to me.

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Comments (3):

Tony C. I truly don't understand why anyone would have their primary accounts at almost ANY of the large banks! As you pointed out, you are treated like a number, THEN they give you a hard time over the simplest things! I have been a very happy credit union member for 27 years (and I have been out of state for 24 of those years) and my mother was a member of her credit union for nearly 20 years prior to that. I have had absolutely NO problems during any of that time and if I did not need a local account, I would never have another account! - 04/12/2011
Jessica W. This was an interesting read, especially as my boyfriend and I just ditched Cha$e last week and moved to a credit union that we've both had dealings with in the past (I had a car loan through them, he had a credit card through them). So far we love it and I can't imagine ever going back. :-D - 04/06/2011
Larry A. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Working at a Credit Union and being a member for almost a decade now, I have shared this experience countless times and will be a Credit Union advocate for life. An environment based on "exceeding expectations" is where I'll choose to do my banking, not at a business designed to seperate you from your money. - 02/18/2011

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