Update with Vantage West: the very day my deposit from outside funds appeared in the savings account, they contacted me to go ahead with share secured loan via Docusign. Interest rate a whopping 2.15% 
Made no attempt to upsell me to credit life insurance or anything. $500 loan, with 60-month term.
Showed up on line an hour or so later. I made the first payment. It moved the next payment date back a month.
So far so good
@Anonymous wrote:Woo hoo! Sounds like the money question will be twofold. Once you make the giant payment (down to 8.9%)....
(1) Does the CU push the due date out by 4.5 years (or so)?
I'll go ahead and make that payment now, and we'll find out.
(2) Does the CU permit you to cancel any auto-payment that they might have initially set up?
They did not require me to set up auto-payment at all. So in this respect it's better than Alliant.
If yes to both then we have a winner, ladies and gentlemen.
@SouthJamaica wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:Woo hoo! Sounds like the money question will be twofold. Once you make the giant payment (down to 8.9%)....
(1) Does the CU push the due date out by 4.5 years (or so)?
I'll go ahead and make that payment now, and we'll find out.
(2) Does the CU permit you to cancel any auto-payment that they might have initially set up?
They did not require me to set up auto-payment at all. So in this respect it's better than Alliant.
If yes to both then we have a winner, ladies and gentlemen.
Uh oh, I paid it down to 9% and that does not appear to have pushed the date out 4.5 years.
Oh well, I guess my last candidate has been eliminated. Sorry about that.
And I definitely can't open any more credit union relationships at this point, so I'll just have to sit on the sidelines in the quest for an Alliant SSL replacement.
@Anonymous wrote:Hey folks. I may start a new thread that focuses specifically just on the Quest (for an Alliant SSL replacement). I'll start with a list of possible CUs we need clarification on and mention the one's we have ruled out. I'll then update post #1 of the thread as people do their own research -- the work of SouthJ was a great model of the careful work that needs to be done.
What do you think? Arkane would you mind participating? Other folks?
I'm gonna have to politely take a pass on this one, just a bit too much time/effort for me right now, sorry. 
@Anonymous wrote:Definitely will subscribe to a new thread.
One thing to note is when using Google to find these loans, make sure you spell it correctly: "share secured loan" (with quotes) pulls up a lot more results than "shared secured loan" or "shared secure loan".
I could use a shared secure loan lol 
