Garden Savings FCU

Repossessed my vehicle on the 30th day of being late exactly even though I had contacted them a few weeks earlier explaining that I was hospitalized for over a month and needed a little more time. The payment was scheduled to be paid the day they took the vehicle. Then was told I needed to pay off the loan in full in order to get the vehicle back which I obviously couldn't do. To add insult to injury when i went to get my stuff out of the car almost everything that was in my car was stolen by I'm assuming the tow truck company. Clothes, electronics, everything. Over $600 worth. I am a driver and work out of my car so I had a lot of stuff in it. I know it's a business and I was late on my payment, but they are not personable enough to care about you as an individual even when you contact them and are trying to do the right thing after running in to trouble. Really put a huge strain on my life that im still trying to recover from for only $450 and 30 days. Just another number to them.

I unfortunately had to get a car loan and they were the only ones to grant it to me. The con is that if you are 45days late, they REPO your car. Customer service is terrible with the loans dept in Parsippany. On serval occasion they claimed they would call back, they did not. Kevin over in the loans dept is extremely rude and lied. Did it “note the account” as he said he would. I will be paying this loan off ASAP. THIS BANK HAS TAKEN EVERYTHING FROM ME.

Through membership of my employer I was a member of GSFCU for almost 20 years. All of my banking needs except my home and credit cards were handled through this valued credit union. Since I became a member membership and branch locations have increased significantly. I like this credit union and the services it offers.

This is a review of the account opening process at GSFCU. Yes, I've gotten a good enough impression of them just from that, to log on and write something about them!

Thing is, I live in a remote area where USPS doesn't make deliveries, and it caused problems with my application because the address verification system that's used by their LoansPQ software didn't have my street address in its database. I had to write my PO Box, which was in the DB, but that was a no-no since the credit union needed a physical address on the application.

Hanaiah(sp?), my first account rep, didn't really know what to do with it as their internal policy didn't provide for any flexibility with the address problem. She was very polite and did tell me I was free to reapply, which was key.

I did reapply, right away, and a couple days later I received a call from Patty. Based on our conversation, she and Hanaiah(sp?) had already spoken, they had verified that my street address existed but wasn't on the system, but because internal policy didn't allow for PO Boxes on the application form, she offered to try to get approval for me to supplement the application with address verification. Fast forward a few days, she received approval for me, and I sent in my docs with no problem.

One other thing I want to mention about Patty is that she's soooo friendly and attentive! I live in GMT+10, so when I mentioned that I was taking their calls at 2AM, she was so apologetic and offered to time her next call. As anyone who's tried to time a call for a 12+ hour timezone difference knows, it's a huge hassle, and takes a lot of attention and care! Not many people offer to take on that hassle for the other person's comfort. That's special care right there, and is exactly the kind of personal attention people want from credit unions that in actuality is quite hard to get without a long history or tons of money.

So in conclusion:

GSFCU internal policy: 3 stars
Needs to give more flexibility to its awesome employees.

Patty: 7 stars!
She totally carried this transaction and made what could've been a sour experience into a super pleasant 5-star one. I will definitely try to put more money into GSFCU over other CUs, specifically due to her awesome care. Thanks Patty!

I am appreciative of Garden Savings FCU. I only had a savings account with them with a decent interest rate. However, they helped me out with other financial issues I was having. They gave me advice about my credit and how to get out of debt. I ended up switching to another credit union in New Jersey because they were affiliated with my work, but I have nothing but good things to say about Garden Savings. They gave me free advice you would usually have to pay a financial adviser to get. I took their advice and it really helped me build my credit back up. For one, I had avoided credit cards. I had poor credit even though I never had a credit card. They informed me I could get a credit card for people with poor credit and by paying the bills on time it would improve my credit. So that is exactly what I did. I never had any issues with my savings account there. The people there are also prompt and friendly.