Picking a Financial Institution is More Important Than Picking an Account

I was reading some online “financial advice” earlier today and was disturbed by what I was reading. The person dishing out the advice recently had her debit card compromised. Normally, she uses a credit card for everything she buys, but she left it at home one day and had to use her debit card. She was convinced that using a credit card is safer than using a debit card and was advising others to do the same. Her reasoning was that false credit card charges can be reversed immediately, while false debit card charges take up to 30 days to get resolved. This is NOT TRUE, at least not at your credit union.

Honestly, any financial institution that holds up your money for that long does not deserve your business. Neither do financial institutions that nickel and dime you for every little thing. Usually when people switch financial institutions, it’s because of an unbelievably low rate on a loan or credit card, or because they were offered some kind of cash or prize to switch their checking account. Those are nice offers, and they may save you lots of money. The question is, what other fees will they charge you to make up the money they are saving you?

More importantly, how will they treat you if something happens to keep you from making a payment on that loan or credit card? Will they help you or harass you? If you overdraft on that free checking account, will the “free” offer be null and void? How do they make you feel when you go into a branch? Does anyone even notice you are there? When you call on the phone, do they know how to help you without transferring your call to five different people?

About eight years ago, my husband and I bought a plot of land with the intention of building on it many  years later. Against our better judgment, we agreed to finance the land through the bank the developer was using. It is the only account I’ve had with a bank since 1996, and it has been the only account to give us problems – significant problems that will take us a long time to resolve. Problems that affected our credit simply because the bank was so big, one department thought we were defaulting on our loan while the other spent nine months refinancing our loan. The supposedly great rate that brought us to this bank in this first place will never ever justify the horrible things the bank has done to us and our credit.

 Your Neighborhood Credit Union has great rates and great checking accounts, but we also have something many financial institutions never offer. We care about your financial well-being. We know people are worth more than money and we treat you like family. Think about that next time you get a “great deal” at another financial institution. If it seems too good to be true, it just may be.