Community First Credit Union
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I have been with Community First Credit Union for a few years now after trading in a previous vehicle I had with a different credit union. I have had two major issues with Community First Credit Union, to the point where I majorly regret trading in the other car I had because I was with a way better company with my previous vehicle.
The first issue I had arrised about a year and a half ago when I checked my credit report one day and saw that Community First Credit Union had wrongfully reported late payments. To the point where this knocked my credit down significantly (prior to their screw up my credit score was 760 and they knocked it down to less than 600). A 760 credit score in my early to mid twenties was something I was damn proud of and worked VERY hard for. I had them on automatic bill pay, so safe to say they were receiving their payments on time from me. I was doing my part. When my bill pay payments would get delivered to their PO box, their employees would take a very long time to pick up the mail and would add my payment on to my account late. My payments were always delivered by or on my exact due date and they were always dated as such. However this is what they would do: they would not check the mail for days, and then when they finally did check it and add the payment to my account they would try to say it was a late payment- because THEY didn't pick it up on time, even though I was making sure it was delivered on time. For example you could see a clear date on the check for my due date or even early, but yet on my account they would mark the payment for the day that they put it in the system and not the day that it came in. I spoke to them about this several times and tried to get them to reverse the late payments and fix my credit score because it is not my fault that they decided to process my payment way after the fact. Not only did they not comply, they offered no solution and continued to do this to me for many more months which is how they caused my credit score to drop all the way from 760 down to below 600. When I called to try to resolve it yet again THATS when they finally decided to tell me that I can do ACH payments and have the amount taken out automatically from my bank directly on the due date, to prevent any employee from adding a late payment that's not really late. Something they literally could have told me months ago and my credit score might have not been AS bad. And they also did not report to the credit bureau that they were reporting inaccurate information to my credit report, so I am still trying to build my score back up. I was working up my credit score to be able to have less struggle buying a house by the time I was 30. I'm now 29 and I'm nowhere near being able to have a credit score good enough to purchase a house now because of them. So I did add ACH payments and fast forward a little over a year and that brings us to the second major issue, which has happened over the last week:
I recently started a new job and was not getting my first paycheck until April 17th, my car payment is due on the 10th. 7 days is well within their grace period. I can pay that late and not have it result in a late fee or a ding to my credit, as they told me on the phone when I called to let them know that I was revoking payment for the 10th. The person I spoke to acted very helpful and said it wasn't going to be an issue at all. So after calling them and revoking authorization for the 10th and them expressing they understand and that is okay... Tell me why I checked my bank account on the 10th to make sure that they didn't take it out (even told them on the phone it absolutely cannot come out because it was going to overdraw my bank account and I was not going to be able to even buy food for the next week) THEY TOOK IT OUT!! And overdrew my account so bad that I was now over $300 in the hole. That was supposed to be my food and gas money for the next week until I got my first paycheck. This put my household in a serious emergency and even after I called and emailed them to get them to refund the money back into my account immediately, miraculously nobody I spoke to on the phone could help me. They kept passing me around when they could have just made it right. Them taking the money out of my account after I have revoked authorization is in fact considered fraud. When I disputed it with my bank that is literally the reason they put, FRAUD...at the hands of Community First Credit Union. After my phone attempts did not work and I started emailing, I finally got a response (only after emailing some higher up divisions in the company such as their fraud department). That response came two days before the 17th. And of course he was not willing to just refund it back into my bank account as he should have. He wanted to write a check and take the time to mail it like that was going to make me be able to buy food immediately. His other solution was making me open an account with some branch that was local and they could send the money there and I could pick it up. Mind you this is literally right when I said I'd be able to pay too. I was literally getting paid the very next day by the time he actually wrote me and offered all of these not very helpful "solutions". I will say right now that I do not exactly take kindly to these corporations completely turning my world upside down, completely out of my control when I did my part. I would not recommend this company to my worst enemy and I'm now looking at other companies to refinance this vehicle through so I never have to deal with them again. I should have left after they majorly messed my credit up.
I have been with Community First Credit Union for a few years now after trading in a previous vehicle I had with a different credit union. I have had two major issues with Community First Credit Union, to the point where I majorly regret trading in the other car I had because I was with a way better company with my previous vehicle.
The first issue I had arrised about a year and a half ago when I checked my credit report one day and saw that Community First Credit Union had wrongfully reported late payments. To the point where this knocked my credit down significantly (prior to their screw up my credit score was 760 and they knocked it down to less than 600). A 760 credit score in my early to mid twenties was something I was damn proud of and worked VERY hard for. I had them on automatic bill pay, so safe to say they were receiving their payments on time from me. I was doing my part. When my bill pay payments would get delivered to their PO box, their employees would take a very long time to pick up the mail and would add my payment on to my account late. My payments were always delivered by or on my exact due date and they were always dated as such. However this is what they would do: they would not check the mail for days, and then when they finally did check it and add the payment to my account they would try to say it was a late payment- because THEY didn't pick it up on time, even though I was making sure it was delivered on time. For example you could see a clear date on the check for my due date or even early, but yet on my account they would mark the payment for the day that they put it in the system and not the day that it came in. I spoke to them about this several times and tried to get them to reverse the late payments and fix my credit score because it is not my fault that they decided to process my payment way after the fact. Not only did they not comply, they offered no solution and continued to do this to me for many more months which is how they caused my credit score to drop all the way from 760 down to below 600. When I called to try to resolve it yet again THATS when they finally decided to tell me that I can do ACH payments and have the amount taken out automatically from my bank directly on the due date, to prevent any employee from adding a late payment that's not really late. Something they literally could have told me months ago and my credit score might have not been AS bad. And they also did not report to the credit bureau that they were reporting inaccurate information to my credit report, so I am still trying to build my score back up. I was working up my credit score to be able to have less struggle buying a house by the time I was 30. I'm now 29 and I'm nowhere near being able to have a credit score good enough to purchase a house now because of them. So I did add ACH payments and fast forward a little over a year and that brings us to the second major issue, which has happened over the last week:
I recently started a new job and was not getting my first paycheck until April 17th, my car payment is due on the 10th. 7 days is well within their grace period. I can pay that late and not have it result in a late fee or a ding to my credit, as they told me on the phone when I called to let them know that I was revoking payment for the 10th. The person I spoke to acted very helpful and said it wasn't going to be an issue at all. So after calling them and revoking authorization for the 10th and them expressing they understand and that is okay... Tell me why I checked my bank account on the 10th to make sure that they didn't take it out (even told them on the phone it absolutely cannot come out because it was going to overdraw my bank account and I was not going to be able to even buy food for the next week) THEY TOOK IT OUT!! And overdrew my account so bad that I was now over $300 in the hole. That was supposed to be my food and gas money for the next week until I got my first paycheck. This put my household in a serious emergency and even after I called and emailed them to get them to refund the money back into my account immediately, miraculously nobody I spoke to on the phone could help me. They kept passing me around when they could have just made it right. Them taking the money out of my account after I have revoked authorization is in fact considered fraud. When I disputed it with my bank that is literally the reason they put, FRAUD...at the hands of Community First Credit Union. After my phone attempts did not work and I started emailing, I finally got a response (only after emailing some higher up divisions in the company such as their fraud department). That response came two days before the 17th. And of course he was not willing to just refund it back into my bank account as he should have. He wanted to write a check and take the time to mail it like that was going to make me be able to buy food immediately. His other solution was making me open an account with some branch that was local and they could send the money there and I could pick it up. Mind you this is literally right when I said I'd be able to pay too. I was literally getting paid the very next day by the time he actually wrote me and offered all of these not very helpful "solutions". I will say right now that I do not exactly take kindly to these corporations completely turning my world upside down, completely out of my control when I did my part. I would not recommend this company to my worst enemy and I'm now looking at other companies to refinance this vehicle through so I never have to deal with them again. I should have left after they majorly messed my credit up.
Product: Community First Credit Union Car Loans
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