topic Re: Penfed Website in Credit Cards

Penfed Website

smallfry — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 01:02:44 GMT

Not much of an upgrade in my opinion. In addition they are incredibly slow to lower available credit after credit card usage. Like two days. Forget the fact they have fallen far behind NFCU in that they do not post pending charges at all. Not impressed.

Re: Penfed Website

pattycake — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 04:56:36 GMT

They took a couple of days to post my pending charges, but my first biling cycle was pretty long - 31 days!

Re: Penfed Website

Lyythine — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 05:06:18 GMT

My thoughts on PenFed:

Online Banking - its a glorified version of a check register, like my grandmother used to do: Enter transactions at the end of the week and hope for the best

ACH transfers - I could send my money BY STAGECOACH to another bank and it would get there faster

Online BillPay - haha... thats all i have for that

Customer Service - If you call, you will feel like you are sitting at Christmas dinner with your in-laws (as in... you are a bother)

Credit Limits / Increases - Check your magic 8-ball first, probably will have a better estimate on what you might ge

thats all I have for now, I might PenFed bash a bit more in awhile...

Love,

A disgruntled PenFed member

P.S. NFCU rocks!

Re: Penfed Website

Anonymous — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 06:01:08 GMT

I don't have problems with the site or PenFed. The site works for me and PenFed has been good to me.

Re: Penfed Website

haulingthescoreup — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:25:06 GMT

lol at the stagecoach reference!

It works for me fine, but all I use them for is the CC and car loan. Oh, and the LOC, which is untouched. But I don't use the banking (checking and savings) end at all.

They are definitely one of the tougher cards to play the $0-reporting game, due to the slow posting of charges (and of payments,) but it usually works out because of the rebate credited back at statement time.

While the website is still kind of lame, it's light-years ahead of where it used to be. The former version didn't show the current balance on your CC when you went to pay, so I'd have to sit there chanting "$487.19, $487.19" over and over while navigating over to the transfer-in page, just so that I could remember how much I was paying.

I thought that when I'd get the card, I'd only use it for gas and grocs, but now that the rewards have plummeted on my other cards, that 1.25% for everything else is looking pretty good, too.

And I swear, consumers must be routed to different call centers depending on where we live! I've always have very friendly and helpful CSR's. This doesn't mean that this is true for all, obviously --look at all the posts to the contrary.

Re: Penfed Website

Anonymous — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:34:51 GMT

Yeah, the website is primitive - vintage 1997. Perhaps PenFed doesn't want to invest too much money until they're certain that the Web isn't just another passing fad, like CB radio in the 70s.

But I do like that PenFed supports downloads of current transactions into Quicken. BofA only offers statement downloads, while Alliant doesn't support Quicken at all for its card (although they do for their savings & checking accounts). Until they do, I won't use my Alliant Visa, which is a waste of a perfectly good $10K line of credit.

Re: Penfed Website

Jazzzy — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 13:47:36 GMT

@haulingthescoreup wrote:
lol at the stagecoach reference!

It works for me fine, but all I use them for is the CC and car loan. Oh, and the LOC, which is untouched. But I don't use the banking (checking and savings) end at all.

They are definitely one of the tougher cards to play the $0-reporting game, due to the slow posting of charges (and of payments,) but it usually works out because of the rebate credited back at statement time.

While the website is still kind of lame, it's light-years ahead of where it used to be. The former version didn't show the current balance on your CC when you went to pay, so I'd have to sit there chanting "$487.19, $487.19" over and over while navigating over to the transfer-in page, just so that I could remember how much I was paying.

I thought that when I'd get the card, I'd only use it for gas and grocs, but now that the rewards have plummeted on my other cards, that 1.25% for everything else is looking pretty good, too.

And I swear, consumers must be routed to different call centers depending on where we live! I've always have very friendly and helpful CSR's. This doesn't mean that this is true for all, obviously --look at all the posts to the contrary.

On payment crediting....I normally pay my cc's online 2 days before statement cut. (I'm still trying to learn how many cc companies handle weekend payments.) If my PenFed statement is due to cut on 9-24, how far out should I pay to try to zero it? This will be my first time around.

As for customer service, I've found them to be very friendly. One CSR was very chatty. My husband and I applied for a joint CC. When she asked me his birthday and saw that it was 12 years later than mine, she called me a "cougar." I had no idea what she meant...until I asked my daughter. What a heck of a thing for a CSR to say to someone.

Re: Penfed Website

Anonymous — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:37:30 GMT

I deposit my payments into my checking account and then transfer the payment from checking to credit card. Payments have been consistently posted to the CC by the next day for many months now when I go about it this way. I did this as recently as yesterday and will take care of the remaining $100 today, the last day of the billing cycle. It should zero the account w/o problem.

Since I have passed the six month account anniversary all checks I have deposited into my checking account have been instantly available. I deposited a $1,400 personal check into a CU24 ATM last Friday and when I got back home it was available in full and transferred to my MMA. I'm sure there are limits to this, but I haven't hit it yet.

Re: Penfed Website

Anonymous — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:50:38 GMT

Meanwhile I really don't understand the complaining. PenFed is a CU, not a national bank. The new website is vastly improved from its predecessor. PenFed is one of the most automated CU's out there - they render almost all credit decisions within 24 hours, many of them instantly. (It takes Chase weeks to act on many CC app's!) The website is decent, the service is great and the credit products very good to great. This is a high quality operation.

I you want to see a very mediocre website you should try EFFCU, my local CU in FL. At one time in the 80's they were the seventh largest CU in the US. You would never know it from the clunky website! Even so, I can still get done what I need to get done. CU's are member owned operations so I suppose I should be happy that they have not paid out millions of dollars for website development if there were better ways to return value to the members.

Re: Penfed Website

Lyythine — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:50:21 GMT

Im a member of oh... 6 or 7 credit unions (only 3 of which I really use) and Penfed - to me, is worse than my local CU which has 3 branches...

I respect your opinion creditwherecreditisdue, however, in my humble opinion - they suck.

Love,

Your local disgruntled PenFed member

Re: Penfed Website

Anonymous — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 18:53:24 GMT

@Lyythine wrote:
Im a member of oh... 6 or 7 credit unions (only 3 of which I really use) and Penfed - to me, is worse than my local CU which has 3 branches...

I respect your opinion creditwherecreditisdue, however, in my humble opinion - they suck.

Love,
Your local disgruntled PenFed member

I think this says it all.

Re: Penfed Website

Lyythine — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 20:13:37 GMT

Im only disgruntled for the reasons Ive already stated... no extraordinary personal experience which caused me to feel this way.

Re: Penfed Website

smallfry — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 20:14:57 GMT

I love Penfed but the website is archaic. I can live w/o pending charges posted but at least reduce the credit available as we go. Even my GF's Orchard card posts pending transactions immediately.

Re: Penfed Website

Anonymous — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 20:55:06 GMT

@smallfry wrote:
I love Penfed but the website is archaic. I can live w/o pending charges posted but at least reduce the credit available as we go. Even my GF's Orchard card posts pending transactions immediately.

I am pretty sure my available credit goes down as I charge before the charges post. I will be checking that very carefully as soon as I get past my EOM freeze. (That would be tomorrow or the next day, and I have an auto-charge that posts on the 17th so it won't take long to tell.)

Re: Penfed Website

haulingthescoreup — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:39:20 GMT

LynetteM wrote:

On payment crediting....I normally pay my cc's online 2 days before statement cut. (I'm still trying to learn how many cc companies handle weekend payments.) If my PenFed statement is due to cut on 9-24, how far out should I pay to try to zero it? This will be my first time around.

I would stop using the card as early as the 18th or 19th, especially if there's a weekend involved, and let any last-minute charges trickle in, and then pay on the 23rd. Even though the payment won't display for a few days, they do credit it immediately. (I pay on the PenFed site on the transfer funds screen, paying from my checking at USAA.) I think I once paid on the morning that my statement cut, and it posted in time, but I was sweating bullets. I wouldn't recommend that for anyone!

As for customer service, I've found them to be very friendly. One CSR was very chatty. My husband and I applied for a joint CC. When she asked me his birthday and saw that it was 12 years later than mine, she called me a "cougar." I had no idea what she meant...until I asked my daughter. What a heck of a thing for a CSR to say to someone.

Whoa! OK, that's... different!

And I thought I suffer from foot-in-mouth disease.

Re: Penfed Website

haulingthescoreup — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:41:42 GMT

creditwherecreditisdue wrote:

Meanwhile I really don't understand the complaining...

What's not to understand?? Different people have different experiences, and they have every right in the world to report them here.

I'm grateful that it works well for me, but I certainly don't discount the reports of others who've fared differently.

Re: Penfed Website

Anonymous — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 00:53:01 GMT

haulingthescoreup wrote:
creditwherecreditisdue wrote:
Meanwhile I really don't understand the complaining...

What's not to understand?? Different people have different experiences, and they have every right in the world to report them here.

I'm grateful that it works well for me, but I certainly don't discount the reports of others who've fared differently.

Quoted out of context, and that's fine. My entire post is above and if anybody made it this far they have read it.

Just as people have the "right" to complain, I have an equal "right" to post to the contrary.

We (you and I) find the website totally adequate to our purposes.

We (you and I) find posting payments far easier with the revised website. (I no longer have to have the website open on two screens while I do it.)

I frequently transfer my payments to my PenFed CC's as outlined above on the 15th or 16th for a 16th statement cutoff and there has never been a single payment not show up on the statement when it was cut. I transferred the last $100 today - it will be there tomorrow morning when I open the website.

I wonder if any of those who find the website lacking have composed a list of problems/suggested solutions and communicated same to PenFed? I am sure their systems people would love the feedback.

Re: Penfed Website

Anonymous — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 10:11:17 GMT

I report back on findings:

1) Payment I transferred to CC yesterday ($100.00) to PIF account before the statement closed was posted and reflected in the balance the following day. Current balance now showing = -5.92, the amount of the cash back.

2) My autopayment from this CC scheduled for the 17th was processed. The charge has not posted but the amount has been reduced from the available balance. Amount of charge = 42,39, Available balance = 9,958.00.

This all worked pretty much the way I thought it would.

Re: Penfed Website

Lyythine — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 05:12:46 GMT

Want to add me as an AU?

I just paid my balance in full last monday... account was credited 4 days later on thursday night at midnight.

Also, Ive been a penfed member for 2 years, so not due to newbie status

Re: Penfed Website

Anonymous — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 05:47:36 GMT

Which prompted me to look and now the charge has posted

Transaction Date: 09/17/2009

Posting Date: 09/17/2009

Decription: LA FITNESS 800-600-2540 CA

Amount: 42.39

How do you make your payments? My process is outlined upthread and it works perfectly.