Nothing irritates me more than companies that have stupid policies and poor customer service. Most of you will not have to deal with this particular company ever, but if you ever live in Arizona do NOT bank with Vantage West Credit Union. Daniel and I recently bought a new car and the dealership financed it through Vantage West because they could offer us the best rate. I will say, we did get an excellent rate, so I was very pleased with that, but had I known of their ridiculous payment policies I would have taken my business elsewhere. Some may not think this is a big deal, but being in banking for over 5 years, I've come to understand the world of banking and how it works (at least on the retail side).
Daniel is very busy training at his new job, and therefore has very little time to deal with paying bills, etc. I take care of all this for him. He asked me if I could make his car payment since he would be working all day and was afraid he wouldn't be able to make the payment on time. He was visiting in Tucson and picked up his mail and noticed that his car payment was due the next day. Thankfully they had phone banking. I, not being on the loan, told him I would need all the account information because they would be unlikely to look it up or give it to me. This is understandable because there is so much fraud out there, banks and credit unions are doing all that they can to protect the customer. Daniel provided with the phone number, account number and payment amount. I called the phone bank, letting them know I needed to make a loan payment. They informed me it would be a $5 fee to pay over the phone, which I agreed to. She asked me for the account number next, which I provided her with. She then asked what my name was, and I told her. After a long pause I said "It's not going to be listed under my name. It should say Daniel Van Orman." She then asked me if I was on the loan, and I again told her no. She went on to say that since I was not on the loan she could not make the payment. WHAT? What do you mean, you can't make the payment? I wasn't asking for any personal information, I was taking money that didn't belong to me, I was making a freaking payment. In all my years of banking and the 4 institutions I've worked with, I have NEVER heard of this. I explained to her that I had all the information and wouldn't need her to tell me anything, but that I just wanted to make a payment. She said she couldn't accept the payment because the names wouldn't match (what the heck is that supposed to mean?), but that I could go into a branch and pay or mail it in. I told her it would be mighty difficult for me to come into a branch because I am not currently living in Arizona, and that my husband had the bill and honestly I didn't want to deal with the hassle of having to mail it. I set all of my bills up on my bill pay, but with that payment being due the next day I just wanted to get it taken care of.
So my question is, if I called and said I was Daniel could they accept the payment then? I am personally not a fan of credit unions in general. In my personal experience, most credit unions are small which may appear to be a good thing, but often when they are small it is because they are new and they don't know what they're doing. They have policies that don't make sense, and since I've worked for one, I've seen the chaos of banking gone wrong. I am not speaking ill of all credit unions because I know there are some good ones out there-- for example Mountain America Credit Union out west seems to be ran very well. Vantage West is another story. I will never get another loan through them again and neither should you.
