Yesterday I gave up on NASA FCU and sent them a message using their system – please cancel my membership application due to being stuck at “pending” since September 23. Too bad, because I deal with NASA all the time in my job and I have a professional fondness for what they do, but NASA is not NASA FCU and the credit union reminds me more of the DMV on a bad day. I got a message back in less than 10 minutes saying that they had canceled my application and the site was updated immediately “canceled” – go figure.
I had a purpose of looking for a new “main bank” as my local community bank is merging with another and having gone through small community bank to larger bank mergers many times before the advantages of the small community bank are quickly lost after the merger. I do maintain two banks #1 small community based and #2 larger full service bank (Capital One in my case after they merged with Chevy Chase bank). I also maintain a credit union account for savings and other purposes, so the idea of NASA FCU replacing my local small bank was appealing as they are local and advertise as “community based” – plus the mega credit lines they were giving away wasn’t a bad thing since I have several accounts that could use lower rates through a balance transfer.
I should note that credit was not a major reason I was looking to add a new credit union, not that lower rates are a bad thing, but my scores are all in the 730 to 760 range (normal variance depending on new accounts and utilization) and I have a low six figure annual income. I did apply for the new Diner’s Club MC – ran credit pull 9/29, received the card 10/9 with a $20k CL – all the while NASA FCU was “pending”.
Feeling a bit disappointed and frustrated, at 1:00 am last night I applied for membership at DCU online. DCU transferred my opening deposit immediately and by noon today I received the following email.
Dear Member, Thank you for joining DCU! We have received all of the documents and information you provided and have opened your membership. Please allow 7-10 days to receive all of your membership materials.
I guess the moral of this posting and the reason I’m making it is, when you have choices don’t feel like you have to go to banks/CU’s/credit cards with hat in hand pleading for acceptance.
I believe that if a service or product provides me value for the investment I use it, when it doesn’t I change including closing non-productive cards and accounts. DCU wants my business, NASA FCU is not capable of providing a service at this time (I’m being nice) so for now DCU will replace my community banking needs and until that changes I’m a DCU customer.
