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While I'm happily at USAA, I decided to join PENFED on the 31st of March of this year (used my NCOA membership). I put $50 into the share account and sent in the form for an ATM card for that account.
In April 2014 I'll app for a credit card from them so I'm setting myself up early by positioning myself now...BUT...
What's up with the hard pull of my Equifax report just to join???
Anybody know why they do that? What are they saying, that you can be denied a PENFED membership based on your credit report/score alone?
Anybody know about this??
Absolutely they do a HP to join. Almost every CU does.
That explains a lot - I didn't know that credit unions do a HP just to join! I still would have gone through with it had I known, but I was surprised afterwards to find out.
Either way, I think joining a credit union is a great idea so I'm happy to be with PENFED.
Any cases of anybody ever being denied for this because of their credit score??
NFCU did not do a pull at all when I joined.
Yes to all! There have been persons on this board denied membership and Yes, most CU's do a credit HP for membership. ( I belong to more than one CU). For one HP you can get approved as a member, possibly a loan, and get their sponsored Credit Card. Once you have a working relationship, they offer lots of other services as well. PenFed has offered me 1.49% on a new auto loan and they have been very good at increasing my cli on my Visa Card. (edited for grammar)
I guess considering where I was credit score/credit wise just two plus months ago, I'm pretty grateful for the PENFED membership then!
I didn't join right off the bat and expected to be offered any credit of any kind (I'm highly inquiry heavy at the moment and opened quite a few new credit accounts recently), but I'm positioning myself a year early to app for PENFED next April!
I guess there's not too much further this topic can go, so I thank everybody for the general knowlege about credit unions and PENFED specifically!
NFCU did do a HP for me, but it was really to offer me credit with them. I did it all at one time.
This is very interesting.
Last June (2013) I found myself in a situation where my Equifax FICO was 779 in my Experian PLUS/FAKO was 801.
I assumed I'd be approved for any credit card and applied for a PenFed Platinum Rewards Visa Signature but was turned down. The problem was that my credit scores were bogus because they were based entirey on two old and perfectly managed AU accounts in my fiancee's name and actual lenders were considering me a thin file. Then I went to Chase where I bank regularly and have a sizeable amount of cash parked. The banker I talked to was sure I'd be approved for a Sapphire but again I was TD. The banker reconed for me and after a lot of back and forth they finally gave me a Freedom with a $1k CL. Out of the blue about 3 months later they offered me a Sapphire with a CL of $10k.
Since then I've been gardening but I'm getting ready to app for an Amex because I recently found out about backdating and I had opened an account with them in 1994.
In prep for the Amex app, this week I pulled full EX PLUS/FAKO (801) and TU FICO (814) reports. The strange and pleasantly surprising thing is that there are no hard inquiries from PenFed. There isn't one for opening the account with them or even one for the Visa Signature app. I joined and apped at the same time in early July 2013 so they should be on there. I have my current EQ FICO score from ScoreWatch (802) but not my full report so I guess it's possible that PenFed only pulled EQ. I'll be getting a full report from EQ in about two weeks and I'll reply here if the PenFed pulls show up on there.
Has anyone noticed that soft pulls aren't showing up on their reports? My TU report say "You have no inquiries affecting your FICO score" and my EX report shows only two Chase hard pulls... apparently I got a two for one on the original Sapphire decline / Freedom approval. I just found a direct from EQ FICO from May 2013 that shows soft pulls. Maybe reports from MyFICO aren't showing soft pulls these days?
NFCU hard pulled my TU to join. I was able to open a second savings account using the same pull. My CC applications with them and LOC each came with their own HP. Guess CUs are HP happy.