I hadn't really finished reading through all the forums to know that PenFed was notoriously conservative with its lending. I applied for membership with $5 and in one fell swoop went right on to apply for an auto loan. Instant rejection for balances too high and recent derogatory. Both true. On a lark and filled with extreme optimism, I sent in an email asking for a recon. I outlined clearly that I while the balance to limit was high when the report was pulled, it was no longer that way now (in fact all cards had a zero balance) and I had never defaulted on any auto loan in the past (my current one is in excellent shape with another CU). On top of that I hadn't missed any payments for over 5 years.
Got an email back asking to send in POI. I am a contractor so I asked if W2s would be ok and they were. Then I read the forums and thought they were playing a cruel joke or something and I would never get approved. I went to the dealership and ended up with a not-bad GM Financial loan that I could have lived with just fine.
Came home to an email saying that I had been approved and I could have the funds overnighted if I wanted.
Definitely a rocky road paved with blissful ignorance, but through sheer dumb luck managed to get a PenFed auto loan for $30k at 3%. All this after the CU I have been faithfully building a relationship with for the past three years would only give me $15k at 10%.
