how to join a credit union when there's none near?

baby_boomer

johnjt wrote: »

I don't want a loan or an overdraft.....I am looking to escape that whole debt-driven system and find a simple old-fashioned account with just a debit card. What is the most straightforward course?

MoneyFacts link - Basic Bank accounts

But do you have a financial "past" which might explain the Co-op's reluctance to do business with you? If so, the Co-op may not be alone.

johnjt

baby_boomer wrote: »

But do you have a financial "past" which might explain the Co-op's reluctance to do business with you? If so, the Co-op may not be alone.

Thanks for the link.

No, I don't have a "past". I do however have a concern that these institutions are blindly accepting false information about me from third parties that I've never authorized to hold information about me at all. That is one reason (among many others) I am looking for alternatives to the mainstream. It's just a messed up system.

baby_boomer

Good luck and welcome to the site, BTW .

BruceyBonus

johnjt wrote: »

No, I don't have a "past". I do however have a concern that these institutions are blindly accepting false information about me from third parties that I've never authorized to hold information about me at all. That is one reason (among many others) I am looking for alternatives to the mainstream. It's just a messed up system.

Do you mean Credit Reference Agencies? If so, there are ways to have incorrect information removed or a note added.

ahai1

Welcome to the forums.

Just to be clear I have had dealings with credit unions and they are not little angels. I have seen hidden charges for example most banks which are members of the Banking Code give you a list of charges when you join on a chart and this includes building societies. However credit unions don't and I have had to read the small print to find out the charge for example one charged a fee for amounts under £5 due to the costs involved in transferring the money which no bank charges. I was told by the same credit union that they did not recieve some money when it later transpired that there was a problem with their print out. Some charge you for been a member a monthly fee for running a current account.

I have had good service from most of the banks you don't like HSBC provide a excellent customer service but the rates are not good and they do try and charge you as much as they can but if you are careful you can avoid the charges.

I have found banks to be helpful and unlike the credit unions I have dealt with they tend to have better systems in place to stop things like human error and misaccounting for exaple if a bank were to mislay my money you can be sure that they would have investigated it properly before telling me they never got it.

Banks do offer services like 24 hour telephone banking and ebanking at cost to them. As for the call centres it does not matter if they are in the UK or not you will get bad service. I have had the biggest problem with UK call centre staff who had no idea what they were talking about.

I think that there is a certain amount of snobbery when it comes to credit unions and other mutuals. Mutuals are not perfect the case been the Dmmferlaine Building Society. The members really don't have much say in it besides at an AGM and appointment of Directors. I am a member of 2 credit unions and they give me less detail about the way they operate than a high street bank.

The thing to understand is that in all sectors you get the good and the bad.

If you are looking for a good professional banking service than avoid most credit unions. I use them for savings.

withnell

So basically you have a problem with the banks accepting merchant's requests for funds from your account - that's going to happen whoever issues your card, the answer is to be careful who you give your card details to!

johnjt

ahai, thanks for enlightening me on credit unions.

withnell wrote: »

So basically you have a problem with the banks accepting merchant's requests for funds from your account - that's going to happen whoever issues your card, the answer is to be careful who you give your card details to!

No, I said I had a lot of problems with the banks. The overall problem is the general ripoff mentality of the financial sector towards consumers, and their reluctance to correct mistakes when they are pointed out - thus showing they are hardly mistakes at all.

What I am looking for is some exception to the rule -- some place I can put my money without having to keep a hawk-like eye on the people who are supposed to be taking care of it.

Burny_Sweetwater_Glasgow

Hi,
Ahai1, I assume that that you have not found the time to volunteer with either of the 2 Credit Unions you use?. This would enable you to understand how they try to provide the best service they can with very limited resources!
Credit Unions do not profess to be banks, they do not look to make profits for shareholders although they hope to make an operating profit which can then be returned to their members in the form of a dividend annually. Could I ask, as you do not see them as a professional banking option, why you indeed say you use them for savings? The Credit union Basic Bank account was introduced to provide a service that the main banking institutions shyed away from, because they would not return a profit for their shareholders. It is well accepted that a basic bank account can help those people who are finacially excluded but many of these people do not represent a money making machine to the large banks who are all expected to have a policy of Corporate Social Responsibility and thats why this fails, as they make it very difficult for people in this section of our society to open such an account.
If society was not based upon greed and critism the world would be a far better place in which to live.

Milarky

Well it seems that the credit union expansion of recent years has been so successful that the government is ready to move on to the next stage - of culling them into forced mergers!

The reality is that banks - despite their continuing amateurishness in (eg) making Faster Payments happen in anyone's lifetime - are still quite good at banking. As others have suggested, anyone who fears being charged is probably not managing their money very well in the first place. A simple alternative to a (fee charging) current account is a savings account - with a bank, quite often but not always. For instance, I opened a basic 'cash account' with Lloyds several years ago because I didn't need a full current account with them. This provided me with a cashcard (limited to LTSB cashpoints only, unfortunately - but I think this has now been upgraded since to all ATMs) NO overdraft but with direct debits and standing orders plus single payments also available. Basically the 'tripping point' here is going to be when a company you are a customer of only accepts direct debits - because if a DD is called and you don't have enough in the account the day before and have no overdraft as a buffer the payment will not be made and you will be charged. With standing orders this should not happen (in principle) since the bank should only then make the payment because you have instructed them AND you have sufficient funds on the day. So the DD system is a bug bear which it is difficult to avoid. But at the end of the day it all comes round to the customer being responsible for ensuring that they fund their account adequately in relation to how they then chose to operate it. A certain percentage of the population seems to have no difficulty working within the 'rules' the banks give them - and never get charged as a result - whilst the rest seem to find this too difficult and get charges as a result.

I would accept that banks cynically take advantage of customer inertia and lack of organsation to charge them - but which is easier to 'fix'?

ahai1

I put the money in their in the hopes of getting a return.

I have no interest in volunteering for them as I can find better uses for my time. I am not frankly interested in the lack of resources excause as some of the mistakes they make in my view should be crimminal offenses for example not keeping track of members money or employing or staff and volunteers who have no idea about the payment method used. As I was told it took up to 8 days to transfer money from HSBC to their Co-Op account. I am sure that both banks would dispute this as it says 2 hours on the internet banking.

As it has been suggested that banks are good at banking despite some of the things like faster payments. I would never trust a credit union with my current account.

Sooner or later some of the credit unions are going to fall fowl of banking laws.

Some of the methods they use banks would not consider using for example charging for BACS and my favourite hiding standard charges in the T&Cs when evey bank I have been to has a seperate document. Sooner or later someone is going to take them to the Ombudsman.