I do have a few questions about PenFed:
1: Do they pull all 3 bureaus for a mortgage application? They pull Equifax.
2: What scores are needed for the best rate? Last that I was aware it was scored over 700 had the best rates. However, a co worker of mine just asked her friend who worked at the loan desk about a used auto loan, and he told her she needed at least a 650 rate for an auto loan to buy from an individual party, and 628 I want to say, to buy from a dealer for the better rates. Again, don't hold me to that, they're doing a lot of re structuring with their loans, and I stopped working there September 2015.
3: What made an application easy to approve? Hard to approve?: They just started risk based lending the end of 2015, so it's easier to get applications through/processed especially since the CEO is pushing hard to grow their assets.
4: a)How were they in collections? Collections was fine. The director of the department believes in calling (aka 4+ calls a day from the 15th of the month till end of the month) somehow makes people want to call you and pay you. However, that just trains people to not answer, or return calls. They RARELY sue anyone, they will however if they find you've frauded them and they can go after you. There is a large number of fraud accounts, especially autos and credit cards specifically coming out of Guam that they can't go after, and just create a headace. The co workers are nice overall, and want to help you and are overall just happy you called so we can take you off the calling list at the end of the month.
b)Did they try to work with homeowners? (I assume you mean collections) Overall yes, if there was a TRUE hardship. Often times members had the funds to pay either from savings, IRA, stocks etc and refused to take money out of that to pay their mortgage and they would be turned down for modifications or hardships. Another thing we saw quite often was people who couldn't even pay for their own expenses, who would support adult children, or pay for their college education and refuse to stop, which is something they also didn't have time to deal with since if you're willing to pay for other things, then you should focus your efforts and funds to your house if you really wanted to keep it. They will go into foreclosure, generally after 120 days. Once a mortgage account is over 60 days late is when they really play hard ball.
5: Were they a good company to work for? Yes, and no. It depended on the department. Most departments are under staffed, others have high quotas to reach, the company as a whole does try to make employee life fun. Mortgages were ALWAYS understaffed and often times they pull employees to work after their shirft or before their shift to assist mortgage department as "mortgage helpers" which is something I did for my 4 years working for them, often times working from home till 10 or 11pm. It was a good training and learning tool, however to get into the department was hard. Even though they are under staffed, they don't have many job openings so you're competing with a lot of people. If you don't have a college degree some jobs such as management you won't ever get since they only want people with a college degree in those positions. It seems as if the new CEO is moving away from this, but our last CEO wouldn't allow anyone to promote above supervisor without a 4 year defree. It's definetly if they like you, then you'll promote easily. It was more on if they liked you as a person, than job quality/performance most of the time. I had one co-worker who had been there for 6 years who had been applying to move into the mortgage collection department, from normal collections. She applied no joke, 8 times. They always turned her down for some silly reason, and would hire someone else who they liked more who's job quality sucked. Finally after 3 years of her applying, and them having ran out of reasons to reject her promotion she was moved. I overall liked the company and my department, I got married and they decided to let me work from home vs let me go. I would still be working there, however due to a manager being moved into our department who didn't like the fact that I worked at home, made work hard for me, she would try and write me up for approved time off , body shamed me, and made a fake Facebook Profile of me and started posting things posing as me I finally decided to leave. I filed a complaint with the company, however nothing came from it and she's still causing trouble for everyone in my old department. The Collection department in Eugene Oregon can't hire anyone from inside the company due to it's reputation now, they can only get outside hires and they stay for a few months then leave.
