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I just wanted to share my experiences with Alliant Credit Union with the board. I've been a long-time customer of BOA (an account I will continue to maintain), but with the rocky times the banks are facing I decided to find a good CU to join. I research many boards looking for the best CU in terms of rates, lending policies, convenience and financial stability. After hemming and hawing for awhile, I decided on Alliant CU.
I jumped on-line and joined the national PTA (needed to join) for $25 bucks. Immediately after, I went to Alliant's web-site and started the on-line membership process. It walks you through easily and about half way through it tells you it will pull an EQ report. Once you agree, it comes back with accounts on your report which you must verify through a series of questions. After I completed that successfully, the next screen popped up with a preapproval for their platinum rewards Visa with a $7,500 CL and a $20,000 Auto loan. You check the box of the product you want to accept, and then it goes to the final verification screen. You must then fund your account, if applicable, with a credit card or existing bank account. Since I also opened a checking account, I funded it from my existing checking account.
I accepted only the visa, and the last screen congratulates you and welcomes you as a member. About one week later, my new Visa arrived in the mail, as well as my new debit card. I decided to call them and inquire about the auto loan that I did not accept initially. What I found out was the rate was 4.65%, which was much better than the rate I currently had. I chose to refinance my car through them, a quick and painless process all done right over the phone.
With Alliant, you speak directly to a loan officer with lending authority. He did have to pull another hard, which makes two hard hits on EQ but worth it! Within minutes he had approved me and emailed me a list of documentation he would need to complete the Refi. In addition to the auto loan approval, he also approved me for an overdraft line of credit for my checking account. Not bad, both done on the same EQ pull.
The next day the check arrived at my home via FedEx. Done.
This has to be about the most positive experience I have ever had with a bank/CU. Considering this, I decided to make Alliant my primary bank and have moved all my direct deposits etc to them.
Sorry for the wordy post, but if you're looking to move your business over to a credit union because of the banking instability, I would recommend Alliant Credit Union. www.alliantcreditunion.org
A tough act to follow.
Congrats. I've been using Alliant for a savings account for a while now and am also VERY pleased with them. I was preapproved for a few products but couldn't accept, as I am currently in the middle of the mortgage process and prior to that I didn't want to open a new account. Their process is very painless and customer service is great. I find them to be far superior to the hassle I went with at PenFed...a week long approval and having to provide every asset statement and tax returns, etc. just to wind up with a $1000 CL on their Visa card.
Glad you had a good experience with them.
I haven't heard much positive about PenFed. Difficult approval process, inconsistent lending policies. I did research them before I decided on Alliant. The other one similar to PenFed is NASA. I'm not sure what the big attraction to PenFed is since their rates are not even close to Alliants.
@thebostonredsox wrote:
That is pretty much what I've heard about PenFed, and yet many people swear by them. Not sure why. I'll stick with Alliant!
I guess if you have a 720+ credit score it is the place to be.
Thats not me.
I just really hate the fact that the week after NFCU gave me an auto $5K CLI on 2 accounts I applied at PENFED, gave the membership fee to some stupid organization to become a member to gain membership eligibility got the PENFED account but am "restricted" so I have second class membership status and get this- I cannot do ACH transactions into the freaking account.
How moronic is that? I have to mail in deposits which they will hold for 9 days.
They will "review" it in 6 months.
And have nothing but high Utilization in my report. No lates, no negs, no judgements.
@Anonymous wrote:
I regret even bothering to join PENFED
Well I don't hear that very much. I thought I was on the only one that hated PenFed. I too regret joining them. Waste of inquiry, time, frustration and picked up a new account that was lower than my rebuilder cards from a few years back. In fact, my Target store card has the same CL. Rewards are not that good either, unless you drive a lot for your job, you can only spend so much on gas. I do much, much better on Chase Freedom Plus card than I could ever do with my PenFed rewards card. I really don't see what the hype is all about myself. I wish I never applied with them.
Oh and I had a 740 EQ with no inquiries (or maybe 1, but pretty sure it was none) when I applied. I am pretty sure they treated me so poorly because I was self employed. I literally spent a week faxing everything but my first born to them and the customer lack of service department would not put me through to speak to any of the loan officers or whatever the folks are called that make the decisions on their credit cards. Really ridiculous.