This was my experience with them a bit over a year ago. I joined but then they wanted every single page of our taxes (over 40 pages worth) and they did not have an easy way for me to get them to them. As someone else said, their technology is antiquated. I had to upload each page of our taxes, and could only do three at a time. They would not accept relevent pages like most places do. It took forever, and was a total mess. The only reason I did it was because I was stubborn and didn't want to give a hard pull for nothing. After that, they've been fine.
I rate them one star for technology, and four stars for their service after the fact.
@summerterrace wrote:I joined Pen Fed for a potential mortgage and then didn't use their program. I have the Power Cash and Pathfinder credit cards. The Power Cash card is a great 2% card (if you can deal with the $500 deposits/shuffling required). The Pathfinder is not that great. The $100 airline incidental is only usable for a few things like seat charges, baggage charges, inflight food and lounge fees. We don't always fly airlines with those charges so I don't always use the airline incidental fee. The reward redemptions on the point earnings cards are sub-par. Only .85 cpp and can only get gift cards in certain amounts. The travel portal pricing is really high and the options are limited.
My biggest beef with this Credit Union is their online presence. Their website is very dated, and the app is not user friendly at all. The Customer Service is adequate when I call in, but they really need to update their technology. I had to mail in my authorized user forms, no reason that can't be electronic...
Their car loan and mortgage rates are very competitve and their High yield savings account is a .15 above NFCU rate.
I joined PenFed recently for a possible loan in a few months. I opened checking/saving without issue. No HP and no inquiry on chex. It looks to be a good CU. Shall I do anythig to improve my relationship, e.g. balance in my checking, to get a good loan?
I could not see the loan rate for the moment, without HP (taked over the phone with rep).
Fico8: EX~EQ~TU~810 (12 month goal~840).
I applied. It immediately kicked back that they couldn't read Equifax because of a freeze. Based on Penfed's assurance that lifting the freeze would not affect my score, I gave access.
Now this raises another question. I thought freezes allowed for soft pulls. Doesn PenFed/Equifax do something other than a soft pull, but that's not quite a hard pull?
I didn't know this, although I already have a direct deposit going there, great info.
You can also avoid the fee with $500 a month in direct deposits.... I push money from my BECU account (free to send and receive) and PenFed considers that transfer a direct deposit waving the maintenance fee (I use PenFed checking to pay my PenFed accounts mostly, and the extra 0.5% cash back from my Power Cash Rewards for having the checking account makes it worth the extra couple minutes a month shuffling money).
Starting Score:Early 2021 Mid 400s