Credit cards/credit unions

by Melanie on 22/05/09 at 8:14 pm

Consumers Are Dealt a New Hand in Credit Cards

Dear Ron,

Thank you for the great article! I hope all these laws will also apply to credit unions. Credit Unions, such as Nevada Federal Credit Union, have a reputation for being “the good guys,” but my experience is that they are just as greedy and deceitful as banks. I have a simple savings account and a “money maker” account that accrues a bit of interest at NFCU. I have also purchased a few CDs from them in the past. I have direct deposit every month from my state job, which I have held for 10-plus years, with NFCU. Even so, they screwed me three times by suddenly charging fees for my savings account, the last time boosting the minimum to have a free account from $100 (or nothing, I can’t remember) to $2,000! Each time, I’ve had to go into the office to rectify the situation, they refuse to do it over the phone.

Obviously, this is very inconvenient for me. My job is 50-60 hours/week and I have two kids. The last time, they conned me — I use that term because it is accurate — into getting a “free” debit card so that I could avoid the new, excessive fees. (Of course, I told them that if I wasn’t going to get a refund, they could simply close my account.) This new debit card was linked to both my accounts. They employed the hidden overdraft fee with this result: I was charged $35 four times even though I had enough money in my account to cover all my charges.

The reason I overdrafted was because they took the money from the savings account first and when that ran dry charged the fee, then took the money from the money maker account. Therefore, it was the fees themselves that caused me to overdraft, not the total amount of money in my accounts.

Anyhow, I had expected that, like every other debit card I have ever had, the card would be declined if I didn’t have funds to cover a charge. I raised holy hell and they gave me the money back. I was surprised to find that I still had $25 in my accounts.

I mentioned this to a friend of mine, a professor, and he told me that NFCU had once pulled his credit and approved him for a credit card even though he had said “no” to their offer. He also complained that he had had to rectify the situation by going into the branch office in person.

My intention is to employ as much negative word of mouth advertising about them as possible. It’s my only recourse and it’s what happens to companies who screw their customers.

Cheers!

Melanie Robbins

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Nevada Writer