Hey guys, I have seen a good bit of people talking about hp vs sp for PenFed memberships related to checking and savings accounts. I know some people have expected sp's based on other people's success (I did) and got hit with a hp so I wanted to pass along the info I received from PenFed yesterday when I joined.
I went online and applied for the High Yield Savings Account and membership two days ago, this one can only be applied for online and not via phone. I got the error, can't process message, but that they could process a standard savings and was asked to call in. When I called i spoke with a rep who explained what's been going on. They currently have two different systems they are having to run through. He said they have the old system that they have always used and a new system for processing applications that they are trying to switch everything over to but they have been having some issues with it. He said my application was hung up in the old system and he couldn't push it through but it did look like I may have got a hp from it and that he could take my app for the savings account which could possibly result in another hp, he couldn't tell me with pull it would be. I told him I didn't want to risk two hp's for an account with them but I would think about it.
I decided to freeze my EQ and try again to see if it would sp and approve it. After I placed the freeze I applied for the standard savings account and the account was approved. I received my account info and added my 5 bucks. Yesterday morning I was trying to add money to the account but was unable to. I called them again and the rep told me that they needed to verify my identity and asked me to send in a copy of my DL, SS card and electric bill, he sent me a secured link to upload it. He said my account was on hold pending that and once they received it I would be able to add funds. I asked if there was a hp and he advised it looks like they had processed one. I thought it was odd since I received no alerts, but know those can be delayed, and my EQ was frozen.
Yesterday evening I still had not heard from them or got an email update so I called again and got a really nice, helpful rep. She is the one who shed some light on what's going on. She said that I did have a membership with them but that my account had not been finalized because they still needed to do a credit check and that it appeared my EQ was frozen. I explained to her what had happened and why I froze it since I did not want multiple hp's for an account. After a brief hold she came back and said that they had tried to pull credit but none had gone through. She said they tried for a hp 2 times! and a sp 2 times. She explained that they have two systems and depending on which one your app hits will decide which pull. Since I had applied once and got the error then applied again I had two applications in their system that they were trying to approve, which is why the hp and sp's. I told her I did not want a hp for membership and if it couldn't be a sp i didn't want to move forward. She asked me to hold to speak with a manager. After some back and forth and some extra questions she told me that she would delete the first app and if I unfroze EQ they would guarantee a sp only since she was manually reviewing it. I did that while I was on the phone and my membership was finalized.
She also told me that they cannot do hp's or sp's with a frozen account. She did since I now have an approved membership with no holds I could apply for any other accounts online, High Yield, etc and that it would be a sp only and those would now be approved. Of course credit cards, loans etc wouldn't apply to that.
I had also seen a few people advising that PenFed might use the same HP from setting up your membership and accounts (if you received one instead of a hp) for any credit card applications made within the first 60 days but she told me that was not the case. She said they have two different departments for those two items and that a cc app would require another hp and they aren't able to use 1 for both, just an FYI.
I don't know that there is a way to make sure you get a sp instead of a hp but I wanted to pass this info along for clarification on what's been going on with them.
P.S. I know some people mentioned it may be specific to which platform you apply on, PC vs mobile. Both of my apps were done on PC, resulting in hitting the HP system and the other the SP system.
