The Secret World of ACCU
Written: Jul 31 '00 (Updated Jul 31 '00)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: It used to be close to where I worked
Cons: Unwritten policies, hidden fees, poor service
|
|
|
| hurkle's Full Review: Aerospace Community Credit Union |
We Join With Anticipation
When my wife and I brought our family to St. Louis, we looked around for a good bank. Aerospace Community Credit Union (ACCU) seemed to offer what we needed. It was right next door to the McDonnell-Douglas building where I worked, and many of my co-workers had accounts there. Heck, I was working for an aerospace company; it made sense to open an account there.
But Is Something Wrong?
We soon found ourselves dreading having to go inside. The lines were long and the tellers frantic. Well, the ones who worked were frantic. Some just sat and chatted to their friends/co-workers, helping the occasional customer when they took a quick break. But even the frequent 20-30 minute waits were far far better than attempting to talk with one of the higher-ups.
The managers had a great receptionist to run interference for them. She could manage to ignore you even if you spoke directly to her, instead thrusting her appointment clipboard at you brusquely, tapping her finger where you were to sign up for the chance to speak to an employee. Of course, this only happened if you were lucky enough to catch her off of the phone. She was one of those people to whom the phone is infinitely more important than the live human being standing in front of her. The first three times we went in to make an appointment, we had to guess at what to do, since in between phone calls she would disappear to the nether regions of the building as if shot by a cannon.
I couldn't understand why the debit card was so hard to get for my wife... After all, we had a joint account. Well, actually we didn't, because despite the three times we had asked for our account to be changed to one, it still remained in my name. Having given up on this after a fruitless discussion with a manager, we simply decided to get a debit card for her.
Oddly, each request for a debit card in her name failed - failed with never an explanation. No one at the bank was able to explain why we might not be receiving her card; the most common assumption was that we had filled out the forms wrong. It was pointless to explain that not a single person in the entire building had been able to give us an answer as to which forms we were supposed to fill out. When we tried again, and instead got a new card in my name, voiding my old one, we stopped. My wife just carries my card instead.
I stopped getting money orders there after the first time. 7-11 had them for about 1400% cheaper. At least I only paid a dollar the first two times I obtained the use of a notary public through the bank; amazingly enough, a teller informed me that I actually wasn't supposed to pay at all. There was no refund, of course.
Customers Are Our First Priority
"Oh, didn't you know?"
I needed the hundred bucks out of my savings. "Know what?", I asked.
"We changed our policies last month. You must maintain a $100.00 minimum balance in your savings account in order to have an account with us." The teller smiled sweetly.
"How am I supposed to know that?" I growled.
"We've had it posted in here for weeks," she answered.
"Where?"
She pointed to the front of her booth, leaning forward to show me, and then frowned, a moue of disappointment on her face. "I was sure it was here..." She smiled as she sat down again. "Anyway, we sent out messages."
"I never received one."
"I'm sure you must have," she said. "We sent them out to all our customers."
"I didn't," I repeated. Then I added, "So then why does my account show an available balance of $105.00?"
"Oh," she smiled happily, glad to know the answer to this question. "It's not really available, even though it says that. You just have to know that you have to leave $100.00 in your account."
One of the factors that had convinced me to join was the zero minimum balance. But there was nothing I could do. The money stayed in. I had no access to it.
The Final Fee-For-All
Did you know that banks can choose when to make deposits and when to make withdrawals from your account? I didn't, poor naive fool that I was.
We kept bouncing checks every so often. Inconsistently. Finally, after hours of poring over old account statements, we discovered a pattern - that our checks would occasionally be returned if they were posted to our account the same day we had made a deposit. Now granted, you shouldn't be writing checks when you don't have money in your account, but as a struggling young family, sometimes it just happened that way.
The kicker here, though, to get back to the point, was that ACCU's policy was to not post any deposits until 2:00PM, while any withdrawals were posted immediately. This allowed them to generate fees off of people like us who didn't know any better. Of course, once we learned of this practice, we complained bitterly - to no avail - and then never let that particular problem occur again.
But the worst came this past weekend, and is the reason that we will no longer keep our money there. My paychecks are automatically deposited into my account. And if payday is on a weekend, the money is deposited early, just like the checks are distributed early to those employees who still get them in person. This has been great for us, because sometimes we are able to go in to the bank and get make an early withdrawal, or take some money out early through the ATM. The deposit is reflected in our online balance, in our telephone teller balance, through the ATM account balance display, and on the account balances at the teller's desks.
But surprise... we had two checks returned this morning. Why? Because, as we just now discovered, although the money is in your account, available for withdrawal, ACCU has a policy of not honoring checks written against it until after the actual date your paycheck is supposed to happen on. Of course, this policy was not mentioned anywhere in the automatic deposit documentation.
Oh, did that cause a problem for you? We're so sorry. We thought you knew that.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
hurkle
|
|
Member: Jay Turley
Reviews written: 47
Trusted by: 8 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.