Amplify Federal Credit Union

Disclaimer: This review is based off of my experience as a small business and my complaints are with all locations.
I opened my account at this location a few years ago, initially to help my small business in 2013. I have had mixed emotions about Amplify from the beginning. They have always put unnecessary holds on my deposits is one HUGE issue. The other HUGE issue is that all branch locations, including this one, always interchange tellers/​managers, which makes it hard to develop lasting relationships with your local branch. We have had intermittent good relationships but they never lasted.
BEWARE!!! Here is the biggest warning I can give!!! They have relationship with a less than honorable merchant service processor, NORTH AMERICAN BANCARD TEXAS, AKA KEN GIVENS. In 2014 we ran over $ 20k on an single American Express transaction and it was a nightmare getting the funds to go through. During that time I couldn’t even get Ken Givens to answer or return my calls. I swiped the card on 12÷8÷14 and it ended up taking almost 4 weeks to fund. Being a small business, this was detrimental. I tried calling Ken to see if he could help with this clerical error on their part but he left me hanging. I was able to get a hold of Maria Passarella, Ken’s employee, and she continually told me that she was working on it and we would see the funds soon. After a couple weeks and with Christmas quickly approaching I got a little more anxious. Maria ended up giving me the merchant services number to contact directly (probably tired of my calls by this point) & when I contact them they say that there is paperwork that hasn’t been submitted by their sales partner (Ken Givens? Maria Passarella). I got them the paperwork they needed and then it took almost another week to get funds. After not being to make payroll Christmas week, I informed Maria that we didn’t want to use their services any longer since we had never had trouble with Intuit GoPayment. She apologized profusely, was even seemingly sincere about screwing up 7 families holiday seasons. Here is the kicker… they never closed my account. They’ve been collecting commission for 13 months past me telling Maria that I want to discontinue services with them. She has never followed up or reached out to me even though we haven’t processed a single credit card in 14 months. They have debited my bank account a total of $ 972.32 over 12 months without a single credit card process. They never once tried to do what is honest in this situation.
Short & long… If you are a small business, BANK ELSEWHERE!!!

Great customer service and awesome products for home owners! So glad I was pointed to Amplify when I need new strategies to cover tuition!

I LOVE the congress branch! Kristin Wagenbaur helped me and she did an EXCELLENT job! She was extremely friendly and made my experience delightful!!! I would definitely recommend the Amplify’s congress location to anyone!!!

I absolutely LOVE the congress branch downtown! I have never been with a credit union before and have learned sooo much about how they give back to the community! I had Kristin W. open my accounts and was amazed by her knowledge! I ended up walking out with a line of credit with an awesome APR! She deff. listened to my needs and was able to pinpoint me to the right products. I had the pleasure to meet the branch manager, Marie, and she was amazing! I didn’t have any issues upon account opening and everything was submitted correctly. I’m glad to finally leave the bigger banks and join Amplify Credit Union! =)

Love Amplify’s Congress branch!!! The staff there is awesome and so helpful every time I go in. Would highly recommend visiting. :)

For the most part, I have been fairly satisfied with Amplify as a whole. Their North branch on Parmer has some really nice employees and they’re rarely busy. However, I can hardly put into words the experience I had at their downtown branch off Congress.
Long story short, I was set to close on my first home purchase, but I needed to deposit a check from Pfizer, one of the largest big pharma companies in the world to make my closing date. The teller told me this would require 10 business days to clear and with upcoming ‘bank ’ holidays and weekends this was going to take well over two weeks which unfortunately put me past my closing date. The seller was trying to back out of the home sale and if I was unable to make the close date, he was going to walk which would have cost me the house and over $ 5,000 in lost fees, earnest money, inspections and etc.
After explaining my situation to the teller, she informed me the manager could make an exception and clear the check more quickly and this is when my experience took a nosedive. The manger on duty, Rudy literally laughed in my face upon explaining my situation. I truly feel he took joy in my frustration and loved the fact that he was going to cost me my first house.
Having no choice, I left the check with Amplify and headed back to work. When I got to my office, I called to ask what the managers name was on duty, because I was going to write a letter to their corporate office explaining my experience.
Later that afternoon, I went back to Amplify to obtain my check in order to take it to my other credit union, WHICH CLEARED THE CHECK IN TWO DAYS! And at this time, I was informed that when I called in, Rudy attempted to clear the check by calling Pfizer. However I believe he called an incorrect number Why did it take me threatening to report his behavior to their corporate office for him to act?
In response to his actions, I will be closing both my personal and business checking accounts with Amplify as well as transferring my auto loan.
If you want to get treated like a number, go to a big bank and at least receive the benefits the larger financial institutions provide. If you want to get treated like garbage while receiving none of the cutting edge banking advantages go to Amplify.

I visited the Congress location and was assisted by an older blonde lady who sat to the right of the teller desk, she was at a table on a laptop (wish I would have got her name). My expereince with her would keep me from opening an account at Amplify and to ever walk into this location again. She was snotty and condescending. I normally don’t do reviews but she really rubbed me the wrong way!

Free ATMs everywhere — woohoo! …As long as you tell them everytime you use an ATM for the first 3 months you have an account.
When I opened my account, I requested a line of credit so I would not get charged an astronomical fee for any overdrafts. Well, they forgot to have me fill out the paperwork and asked me to come back downtown and fill it out (parking is a NIGHTMARE), yet after that, all record of me filling it out disappeared. It took months to get anyone to respond to my emails inquiring on it. Which is just annoying bc the only thing I want from a bank is to be invisible in my life, not to have to bug people and say, why don’t I see this feature?
They also didn’t set me up for paperless billing, so I had to try to figure out on their awful website how to set that up to not risk id theft and get pinged $ 3/​month.
The app doesn’t allow deposits, and both the website and app are clunky, like they’re from the 90s.
I had to close an account and open a new one because of identity fraud and I’m treated like a brand new customer again, having to set everything up again. I’m not keen on opening a new account soon, but I will be nonetheless.
I will say the Parmer Lane location is much more helpful and easy to access than downtown, if you live that far north.

I have been with CUs before. Amplify was a consistent downward spiral of reason and performance over all aspects of their business.
1. We went with Amplify for our first mortgage and we got an inexperienced lender, paired with a very slow underwriting process which cost us extra money/​time while creating an offer on our soon-​to-​be home. Amplify later sold our mortgage in less than a month afterwards.
2. While prepping for travelling overseas, I notified Amplify of my travel dates, yet still had my account put on hold for my purchases overseas that I had already confirmed approval on. The last thing I want to do is call my bank while on vacation.
3. I asked about meeting with an advisor for setting up an IRA. The woman met with me while sick. :(
4. I had asked for IRA account information at the Congress branch and was given some brochures. Upon inspection at home, I had been given a brochure on starting a small business. Don’t ask me why.
5. I have had my identity stolen from this CU more times than any other CU or bank I’ve been with.
6. My account was overdrawn from a business that had an auto-​debit error. Despite the business calling Amplify about their mistake, I was still at fault for not catching it sooner, and using reason just BARELY got my overdraft fees removed.
7. I had called wanting info on getting our home re-​appraised or refinanced and wanted to meet with someone at the Congress branch. Instead I basically had them tell me no, they don’t want to go through traffic and can they just send a bunch of email info instead? Obviously we went somewhere else.
Other than the basics of having nice tellers and depositing checks into your account, this CU was not worth the hassle I had over 3 years. My auto loan was painless, but there are better rates out there. Needless to say there was a feeling of utmost joy when I closed my account for good.

Hooray! I love Amplify!
My story is very similar to many of the reviewers here. I had very limited experience with credit unions before jumping on the bandwagon, but I researched and knew what I was getting into.
Why I love my local Amplify Credit Union:
1) After six months with them, my account manager knows me by name (granted, I’m there probably too often).
2) My auto refinance was an absolute BREEZE of a process. The loan guy all but held my hand through the process as I wanted to make sure I understood everything.
3) FREE ATMs everywhere! Even those gritty bar ATMs that charge $ 5+ to pull out $ 20! Reimbursements for any ATM fee are immediately/​automatically credited to your account.
4) Free credit checks and counseling on how to improve my credit. I love sitting and chatting with my account manager. He’s been such a lifesaver.
5) Hours — they are definitely open later and more often then my previous bank (WF), not by much, but every bit counts when I’ve got a workin schedule.
6) Don’t hate me for it, but I love the peace of mind that my money is local and doing good things. The fact that they support local businesses, have community involvement, give through local charity projects, makes me so happy.
What I wish they could improve on:
1) Online banking — ooh the system is functional, but clumsy. Logging in from a browser that doesn’t save cookies can be a hassle, to put it nicely. The website is just something I had to grow to get used to.
2) Mobile App — took me a few re-​installs to get it working. I think the most recent addition has fixed the functionality, but again, like their website, the UI feels quite outdated and clumsy.
3) Sometimes their phone system is down, or their email is not working, or there’s a slight glitch in the system. Often, processes don’t go lightning fast like they did with my previous bank, but it’s never really affected anything important. My direct deposits are on time, my car refinance took less than a week, my check deposits are immediate, payments and debits are posted just as fast as anywhere else. So I can’t really complain!
Thanks, Amplify! I’m officially a Credit Union convert!

Be very carefull with these guys…
I filled out a direct deposit form and wrote down the wrong account number by one digit. Amplify doesn’t check names against acct numbers, only routing numbers. As a result, I have been sending money into someone else’s acct and Amplify has not been helpful in getting any of it back. They won’t even ask the acct holder about it !
Yes, it was my mistake, but why won’t they help me correct it ???

I took out an auto loan for my car. I paid it off early and was told the remaining $ 25.00 could stay in the account with no penalty. Thus, I kept the amount in the account. I then received a statement 3 months later that $ 5 was taken out every month. I asked them to please straighten this out. i sent over a service request form and was told it could take sometime to get this resolved. I then received another statement that the remaining $ 10 was gone because of inactivity. Thus, the $ 25 is all gone. Not a large sum of money, but my suggestion is to never leave money in the account because they will take it from inactivity. I will never use them again.

Amplify is an alright credit union. The fact that I can use UFCU ATMs without fees is pretty nice.
However, Amplify’s online banking system is terrible. As a software engineer, this really bothers me. Their password system will not correctly store your password if it has certain characters in it. It won’t give you an error or anything helpful like that. You just won’t be able to log in. Additionally, You only get 2 free attempts to log in! If the third attempt fails, you have to call them to unlock your account. This is extremely annoying and does not add any real security to the system.

First of all, thank you, thank you, thank you for opening a branch on Congress. This credit union is the best. Every employee is friendly and willing to help you achieve your best possible outcome. Extra star for the free water when I’m sweating bullets from walking over from my office.

I stopped banking with big banks, they suck, you are just a number. I opened an account with Amplify CU and I have gotten a great experience in all aspects. I really recommend it to everybody. Tellers, bankers and managers are really nice, courteous and professional. I also love their free worldwide ATM, it works!!! Good job Amplify!

Great credit union, I wish I could still use them here in California.

This place is not my Credit Union but since it is a Credit Union there is no ATM fee which makes it great in my book after realizing recently big bank fees as well as random ATM spots downtown have gotten reGDdiculous.

I have never worked with a Credit Union before. Truthfully, I thought they were all just another bank. Thankfully, I learned otherwise when talking to Amplify.
I am one of those Americans with less-​than-​good credit. Not horrible, but low enough due to credit mistakes that are common made right out of high school while transitioning into college, and an otherwise total lack of credit history. I am on the search for a used car — nothing fancy or special, just something that works. I even have 50% of an average used car price for a down payment, solid work history, and proof income that is more than enough for a standard loan payment. On top of this, I really want to work to improve my credit.
All that I could ever get from any other banks, financing agents, dealerships, and even a few smaller credit unions, was outright rejection. Especially from my own bank, Wells Fargo, whom I have been with for over 10 years. Forget a car loan, my bank refused to even give me a SECURED credit card at the absolute lowest amount, $ 300, even though my checking and savings had several times that amount actively ready to use. And when called to ask why? I kept getting shuffled around to departments and supervisors, and given the run around, without ever having a real answer. The most they did for me was offer to send me a copy of my credit report at no charge. I have four copies from them now.
After the Covert dealership here in Austin submitted requests for financing to about 10 different agencies around the city (without really telling me, by the way…) I was extremely discouraged at the pile of rejection letters. Still, a friend who has been with her own credit union for a few months now suggested that I talk to a CU personally. Amplify was the closest option to where I live. One call, one quick explanation of my situation, and I was put in touch with Cindy Twilla, a Loan Manager for Amplify.
Cindy was on top of the situation right away and was absolutely the most friendly and personable «banker» I have ever spoken with. She understood the run around I was getting, and immediately starting offering suggestions not only for improving my credit, but took her time to talk to underwriters for the CU, and got me in touch with a vehicle location agent that often worked for their loan department. Before long, I had several options in front of me, and someone actively searching for a used car FOR me, that would be within my budget and still be reliable.
It didn’t take long until Cindy contacted me and said they had gotten approval for a car loan! Cindy kept in daily contact with me, the underwriters, and the dealership. We managed to work out an amazing monthly payment, and I’ve signed the final papers today.
I will be transferring all my accounts over to Amplify as soon as I am able to. I understand this is a business and I am sure they are more than happy to be able to get my money, but facing facts, they are not getting a LOT of money from me. These people actually care — Cindy and crew took the time to understand what I was going through, what I needed, and then made sure they followed through on the process.
If you’re getting tired of banks and the general uncaring run-​around they give, check into Amplify. And get in touch with Cindy if you’re looking for some credit assistance. She is fantastic, and a huge credit to the Amplify team.

This is the only CU I have worked with that I do not hate! I am very pleased with the personal service, on-​line functions, and products offered. This is much better than the often rude and horrifying Velocity CU. I guess Amplify trains its employees to be respectful and attentive as opposed to other financial institutions. Yay for Aplify!