First Tech Federal Credit Union

Mortgages, Home Equity loan processes are inefficient and extremely time consuming. They spent a month asking for various information then when turned over to a loan processor she started asking for more information all when my assets far exceeded the money in play.

If I could rate zero stars I would. After 20 years w/​the original HP Credit Union, we are moving our funds elsewhere (and going through the painful process of changing direct deposits and setting up bill pay accounts at another institution). The transition to the new bill pay system was so incredibly bad– I can’t even think of the right words to describe what an atrocious experience it was for us.
Similar to what others have recently said in their Unilocal reviews-​We lost our bill pay history (of years), had to set up all our electronic bills again (over 20), had instances where the money left our account, and 6 weeks later the biller was calling our cellphones threatening to send us to collections– because First Tech had not paid them? Like WFT– if you take our money but it sits in your account somewhere (earning interest) and you don’t tell us the bill pay transaction did not go through, or refund us the money– how would we know that our bills were not paid? Whoever managed this bill pay transition should be fired, if not already– whoever manages the comm’s plan to the customers needs to be fired, and frankly everyone at the top involved in this decision to change the bill pay provider and a process that was working just fine, needs to be fired.
What an amazingly poor customer experience, almost textbook in how not to do it… we’re still trying to get our accounts and bill pay straightened out and I just can’t wait to be done with First Tech because we have zero trust in them, and who knows what jack ass changes they will make next. How can you not have a clue about making such a huge change to your customers banking experience– that is personal and affects us very quickly (negatively) — without planning properly and having contingencies in place? If you saw it was going downhill in week two– when your customers had wait times to speak to a representative of 56 minutes… Why did you not halt the whole transition and figure your shit out before you move everyone over to a terrible new platform.
Your poor customer service folks, bore the brunt of the idiotic decision makers sitting at the top with all of us irate callers flooding their customer service system (which in the weekend is very bad– they basically take your call but you have to call on Monday to get any help)… What century are we living in? Oh and is this the Silicon Valley Where you have choice in everything at your finger tips– that moving our money elsewhere is an easy decision because of badly this went? Such a terrible way to lose the old HP Alumni/​employees who were so loyal to the old HPCU but we all have limits.

I HAD been a happy customer from 1988 to 2015.
The new bill pay system is unbelievably shockingly terrible. Poor design, poor programming, poor transition, poor reaction to the problems. Understatement.
The many bugs and poor design issues are shocking and shows that no one who really uses the system even tested it or was part of the design team. It leads me to believe that first tech outsourced the new system to a group of programmers who had no idea how a good system should be designed or developed and then used beginner programmers to develop it, and then did not do adequate testing. I hope first tech did not pay these people very much because we got bamboozled badly. I HAD been a happy customer and even referred my friends to this credit union. I apologize to my friends.
I am shocked that First Tech has not fixed the issues given the number of complaints they must be receiving since the transition. They can’t just patch things, the fixes will require some redesign.
I have been trying to be patient and hope things got resolved but i see this is not happening. I am not downloading the new mobile app if this is the same team who designed and developed the app.
I have spent hours trying to pay my bills on time and fix problems. I have even tried rescheduling bills but due to bugs, they sometimes disappear or double pay. I even created a spreadsheet to keep track of bills and payments because i could not trust the bill pay system.
I will start transitioning to my other bank because given the time i have put in, it would have been less time to start everything somewhere else.
— transition was not transparent whatsoever. whatever the programmers couldn’t figure out, they just cancelled and requested we re-​do.
— all the ebills got cancelled. I had to log onto every company website to figure out due date and how much my bills were.
— scheduled payments are not working properly — double paying or not paying
— scheduled payments page poorly designed. not sorted by bill date. actually, all the pages poorly designed.
— scheduled payments disappear
— last month I couldn’t schedule a payment more than a month out but I see they changed that.
— cannot edit scheduled payment dates, only can skip
— agonizingly slow to refresh pages and move page to page.
— much much more. so much more.
Last straw, today, I tried scheduling a monthly payment and I received this programming error:
«Object reference not set to an instance of an object».
I am a programmer and this is a error that was not even «trapped». that is a sign of very poor programming and it’s unbelievable that First Tech has a team of programmers that are using such poor and techniques let alone releasing changes on a live system .
Sad because the tellers and other banking had nothing to do with this.

Does anyone ever have a positive experience trying to communicate with First Tech? I HIGHLY doubt it. I am a loyal credit union member but we are actively searching for the alternative. I had an issue today and I thought it was a First Tech mess up. Turns out it wasn’t at all but the amount of time and frustration it took out of my day to figure that out was insane. Six phone calls later and never actually having spoken to a single knowledgeable individual… I cannot handle this craziness any more. COME ON. Who runs a business like this???

If you are looking for a new credit union, I can NOT recommend First Tech Federal. They are going through serious growing pains and it’s causing me pause to consider looking for another credit union myself.
We were with First Tech 30yrs before they merged with Addison. From what I hear, both were awesome in their customer service and systems so I was hopeful this would be a good union. My experience since their merger has been less than stellar and it seems to be getting worse.
Recently their online banking system was changed. The new system doesn’t provide nearly enough data on which card was used at which vendor while it’s pending until it posts to your account unlike the old system did. Pending posts can take a few days to post a POS charge. Because of the lack of data in the pending phase, we were forced to cancel a card over the weekend thinking it was fraud only to find out the vendor made a mistake. And we are still waiting for replacement cards and it’s been a week.

I agree with these recent reviews. All my bills were set up electronically in this account and it was really disaster and nightmare I agree. I can’t access all my bills, all histories were erased and I needed to set up everything manually one by one, my password and username were not working on their bank site while everything works elsewhere. I was expecting that I might miss payment and get charged and I was right. My credit score was messed up because of this bank. I will surely leave this bank. There are many banks to choose from. Get rid of headache!!!

Recent conversion really screwed up. haven’t been able to access my account via Quicken for nearly 3 weeks. Last conversion was also disaster. If their IT department can’t get this correct, should you trust them with your money? Been with them for 44 years, looking for another bank now.

I’ve been a customer for many years now and am now finding that they’re dropping the ball. Their new online banking is horrible but their app is still okay. The problem is that they didn’t tell us that we’d be locked out of our accounts if our existing passwords didn’t meet their new requirements. When I called over the weekend to reset my account nobody could help me. (Their weekend customer support is pretty bad altogether.). Additionally they’ve implemented new processes (specifically with bill pay) without notifying their customers.
I will admit that this isn’t the worst bank out there. When things are running smoothly they’re a great bank. But when First Tech rolls out new products or changes the way they do something everything blows up.

My family and I have been members for almost 30 years. The original Addison avenue is now first tech. What a disaster, the branch people are nice BUT on line banking is a nightmare of the biggest proportions! The interface is awkward, makes information hard to see and requires entering a password multiple times just to get to the page where you actually log in. Emails are not answered within a reasonable time. Ready to move on! Don’t join here

The female store manager is a mediocre and fake-​ass B!7@h. She got someone lose their job in Bellevue because she’s a snitch. She nit picked and made that new employee look bad. She’s not a good person. That’s why she looks that way…

It pains me to write this. Been a member for 25 years. Loved this credit union, have always encouraged others to join. But slowly this CU has grown and grown and now its just another big corporation (not technically but they do act like one). The customer service is still decent but not what it used to be. The product choices continue to slide down — it seems like they are after the same thing that all big corporations want — big profits and customers be damned.
Its hilarious to me that they call themselves First Tech. It is more like Mid Tech — they have technology but only to the extent that they need them. Tried adding their credit card to Apple Pay and had to call customer service, wait 2 minutes on hold, answer 2 questions to verify who I am, and then an additional 3 questions to verify who I am. Seriously? I added my Amex to Apple Pay and it was easy peasy. Stop telling me that you are doing this for my security — your security measures are so high that I, a member the last I checked, feel like I have done something wrong. There is security to protect me, and there is security to make it impossible to work with.
Looking for other choices. Hate to say it… First Tech — you had me. And then you lost me. And, the sad thing is — you don’t even care.

I got a car loan at the dealership through first tech. I’m disappointed with them so far and I have yet to make my first payment. I am unable to make an online access account because I need an access code that I never got. People don’t return my calls or take days to do so. And the mail they send is often missing enclosed documents as referenced. I’m not even sure which location I’m supposed to be dealing with. I hope to pay off my car loan quickly or change credit unions.

This is the 3^rd time in 4 weeks the ATM does not either work at all or does not allow deposits. I do my deposits before coming into work and have to drive 10 miles out of my way to do this. It’s disappointing to know management doesn’t understand the importance of ensuring their systems work properly. This is my 3^rd disappointing experience. This experience has forced me to bank elsewhere.

Credit Unions are the way to go. First Tech Federal Credit Union is great! The team is friendly, knowledgeable and has been really helpful in finding solutions to my business needs. I recommend this place for those that are looking for a more personable banking experience, especially if you have a start up.

Everyone is very friendly. I don’t exactly have a financial portfolio but they always treat me as if I did. Some employees have been there sines the days of HP Credit Union. I won’t bank with anyone else.

First Tech Federal Credit Union is the sorry remnant of the excellent Addison Avenue Federal Credit Union, a rename of the HP Employees FCU. Compared to big banks, it’s probably adequate. As a credit union, it’s near the bottom of the barrel.
A single state outfit called First Tech merged with Addison Avenue a few years ago, keeping Addison Avenue’s branches, _​federal_​credit union status, and (initially) customers, but not much else.
The merger was handled like an acquisition — a sloppy one. They discontinued the AA credit card phone number — printed on the back of our credit cards — long before replacing those credit cards. They assigned new numbers — now I have one number on my credit card, and a different one on my statement, and all communication from the company references“a number ending in xxxx” — referring to the number on my statement. When I called the bank in a state of confusion about the latest such notice, the person on the line was unaware we had 2 numbers — I eventually figured out that problem for myself.
Bottom line — the folks at the branch are still helpful, friendly, and inclined to treat members/​customers like human beings. Corporate headquarters treat us like devalued assets, or worse, and more and more things have to go through corporate — e.g. the phone number listed for the branch now takes me to a maze of twisty turny voice menus — and is the same number for every other branch. I guess they don’t want me dealing with the friendly, helpful people I can find at the branch, if only I could get there during its limited hours.
Other than that, it’s all standard big bank behaviour — repeated spam about mortgage insurance I’d already refused, misleading «spin» that puts a pseudo-​positive face on rate increases while managing to imply the increase was mandated by the government (!), etc. etc.
It might still be better than Wells Fargo, but that’s not saying much.

First Tech is the best; they have awesome customer service, don’t put holds on checks, reimburse you for ATM fees, and handle any issue you have right away. I once went in to cash a check then received an email the next day thanking me for banking with them — seriously so friendly! I had an issue with my debit card number being stollen and they caught it before I did, walked me through everything I needed to do, and had my money back within days. It’s also super nice that they print their debit cards on location so you don’t have to wait for one in the mail whether you’re signing up for the first time or getting a replacement. Not to mention the location is really convenient (for me). Thanks First Tech, you rock!

This is now First Tech federal credit union.
I agree with the previous reviewer that these people are pretty good. They have many features that make on line banking pretty convenient. The physical branch office is a former Charles Schwab building I think. Parking is limited.

Addison Avenue Federal Credit Union is, without a doubt, the closest thing I’ve ever found to a perfect financial institution.
I became a member with a $ 5.00 online deposit, and the next day I got a call from my Account Relationship Manager. Within a few days, I had a savings account, a checking account, and a Visa credit card — all of which she took care of over the phone. I just had to sign and fax back a signature card and e-​sign the forms for the Visa card.
I also can make eDeposits (I scan my incoming checks and upload them, and voila, the deposit is done), which is very convenient for a self-​employed person like myself who receives a lot of checks. Just the gas I save not having to drive to a C.U. to make the deposits adds up to like $ 10.00 — $ 20.00 a week for me.
I have to take issue with some of the posts that complained about the branches not having cash. I’ve never set foot in any of AAFCU’s branches, but members can transact business at more than 6,500 credit unions across the country, and I’ve never had any problems getting cash from any of them once I provided my account number and photo ID. And I live in New York!
So all I can say is, Addison Avenue FCU absolutely rocks! They have my highest recommendation.
–Richard

I had gotten my debits cards stolen the Friday night before. I called their Lost Card department and I got my cards canceled right away.
The next morning, on a Saturday, I went to the Cupertino Branch to get settle matters. I was able to get new debit cards in the branch! Their tellers were so nice. I had a rough night the night before, and going to the branch first thing in the morning and being able to get new debit cards and cash really made my day. The teller spent time with me to review any activities on my two accounts to make sure nothing was charged while my cards were stolen.
To a previous review: it’s a wonder how anyone could be a member of this credit union and not how this bank works. The Cupertino branch DOES have cash as I was able to get cash from my wonderful teller. Unfortunately, because of the Unilocal culture, people feel that they have the right to complain to an open forum rather than deal with the problem directly.
Thank you Addison Avenue!