Quote:
Originally Posted by Connallmac
They already have those, they are called Credit Unions, and chances are pretty good that if you live in the United States you're qualified to join one!  |
Actually, credit unions are not a panacea to the banking problem either. My local CU, of which I was a member, had absolutely unreal loan officers. My wife and I wanted to borrow some money to do a kitchen fixup. Went to the CU. We had planned to borrow X dollars and offered 125% of the loan value in IBM stock as collateral. CU (which formerly had been called the IBM Federal Credit Union) said that was unacceptable; after all, the stock might decline in value. So I pointed out that the promissory note terms said that in such a case the CU could call the loan (BTW, we weren't talking big bucks here; we could have taken the amount we wanted out of savings).
Then the CU compounded the agony. I am self-employed and my wife works for me (gets a regular paycheck and is given a W-2 at the end of the year). So I had to produce tax returns. No problem. But the brilliant loan officers (there were 3 we spoke with) said (1) they can't count my wife's income because I pay it and (2) even though they won't count it as her income, they won't add it back in to my income because my tax return says I paid it out. So I asked what they think happened to all that money? They had no idea but it clearly -- to them -- wasn't part of my income or my wife's income.
I walked out, went to another local bank with the same documents and had the loan approved within 35 minutes. Subsequently, I closed my CU accounts and moved them to the local bank, where I have gotten great service for many years now.