OnPoint Community Credit Union One SNAFU after another Vancouver Washington

I have a credit union account with Schools Financial Credit Union in Sacramento, CA which is where I retired before moving to the Northwest. I decided to find a local credit union and switch the direct deposit of my pension. I visited the branch in the Safeway at 63rd & Andresen where I sat with the credit union rep and went through everything step by step. Since I'm a senior and I would have direct deposit, I would get an account with no minimum balance fees or other monthly fees and charges. The rep was very courteous and friendly and she seemed very efficient. This was the first of the month so my pension had already deposited in my current Schools account.

To open an account at OnPoint, all I needed was $20 - $5 membership fee deposited in savings and $15 in checking. It looked like all was going well. As most people who have direct deposit know, it takes a full pay cycle before a change of direct deposit takes effect. Since this was the first of August, my direct deposit did not take effect until the first of October. However, on the first of September I logged on to my account online and there was a "low balance penalty fee" of, I think $7, deducted from my $15.

Instead of taking chances with a phone call, I went to the Safeway branch and talked to a different rep and pointed this out. He brought up my account and said the wrong account had been opened so he reversed the charges and changed the type of account to the correct one. I also discovered, the hard way, that they take their website down the night of the last day of the month in order to calculate interest earned - which isn't convenient if you're waiting for your money to be released. My former credit union always took theirs down on a Sunday night, once each quarter to calculate interest. My former credit union also released my pension funds 2 days before the actual direct deposit date while OnPoint did not release the funds until 9 am on the morning of the actual direct deposit date. I was so spoiled by Schools letting me have my money as soon as they got the electronic transfer which is always 2 days before the actual direct deposit date set by my ex-employer.

Also, OnPoint charges $30 NSF (not that I had a chance to bounce anything) while Schools charges $19 (just increased from $17). So, while OnPoint is definitely not the worst financial institution I've ever dealt with (US Bank holds that distinction), they seem more like a bank masquerading as a credit union.

Themom1951
Vancouver, Washington
U.S.A.