PSECU

I refinanced my car while my wife and I were separating so it would be in my name only. I should have checked the reviews on the lender the dealership was using. While I haven’t been the best at paying in a timely fashion in the last year that’s not what this review is about. PSECU is completely frustrating to use; weather that be online or over the phone. For example– if you want to pay over the phone you need a user account number and pin. If you don’t have them they have to send them to you via USPS. They can assist you after a submission of you S.S.N though. the online banking is set up in a fashion that makes you wish you banked through PSECU. If you would like to pay a loan you have with them from an external account you have to submit your external routing number and account number, which is standard procedure for most sites. My problem comes in the next step in which PSECU transfers a small sum to you external account and you have to verify that the amount was received. I may have misunderstood the website directions and if so I’m sorry. To my current understanding this must be a method of covering their 6 in identity theft and fraud i guess. It really is a pretty big pain. I could also write another review on the out of date phone service but I’ve gone on enough.

Place is a joke. Going through a divorce and was out of funds. Needed a loan. Was working 2 jobs too make ends meet. Could not get a loan, took a few months to get things situated. long story short, psecu sucks. Credit rating in toilet. Now I am making over 100k a year. Bet they would like to have my business now. good riddence psecu.

Told me hey turned off my credit card due to fraud because I was traveling. However no one contacted me to tell me they suspected fraud. Really disappointed in the service I am getting lately.

About 10 years behind the rest of the financial world technologically, although thank god they just updated their website a bit now you can actually log in. Just tried to deal with customer service over the phone and it was a bit of a nightmare. There was no wait time at all so that’s a plus I guess, but the conversation I had may have been with a human or may have been with a robot I’m still not sure. But my parents work for the state and they say they «have a good rate» so there’s that.

Originally, I rated PSECU 1 star with the review below. I am retracting, because after I had given up on them, someone in their customer service department took it upon themselves to review all my phone calls and correspondence with them. They called me, and apologized. They contacted all the credit bureaus and removed the negative marks. Now that’s what I call — «doing the right thing.» I was blown away. You just don’t expect this kind of thing from a financial institution.
Original Review: I used to think highly of PSECU. Until recently. They just screwed me big time! I had a first and second mortgage with them. For 8 years, I made payments on time, every time. When it came time to sell the house, we had a closing scheduled, and the payoff amounts for the mortgages were all set in stone. I did not make my payment that month. I had emailed and called them to explain we were closing on the house, etc, and they would receive the full payoff within 30 days of being late. They stated that that was fine. They did not process the check until after the 30 days, and then they reported me as delinquent on two accounts. Needless to say — my FICO score was slaughtered.

I appreciate PSECU servicing my banking needs for over the past decade and then some. I joined many, many years ago due to the fact that my father worked for the state, and I have not left since then.
I have had my checking and savings accounts with PSECU and have not even thought about going to a traditional bank to complete my banking needs.
Pros:
–Low minimal balance to have an account.
–24 hour automated phone service
–Fraud protection
–mobile app
–loans and credit cards available
Cons:
–Local branches are few and far between
–Hours to talk to somebody aren’t convenient for everyone

I’ve had nothing but good experiences with PSECU. I had the opportunity to join back when I started college, and afterward it didn’t take me long to dump my old bank.
There are some places I dread calling, like the cable company for example, but PSECU’s service has always been great. I recently had some trouble with my debit card and called in to check if there had been any issues with my account. I spoke to Bonnie in Card Services, and she quickly determined that the problem was a malfunction with the card reader, not my account. Moments after getting off the phone, I got a voicemail from her, saying that she’d thought of one other thing she wanted to check on, so I called back. Turns out my card reached its expiration date a few months ago and she noticed that the replacement had never been activated — must have gotten lost in the mail. I hadn’t even noticed, since my card somehow still worked on the rare occasions that I used it. I was impressed that Bonnie caught that detail and actively reached out to me to solve it.
This was just my most recent experience (and what prompted me to write this review), but it’s been similar every time I’ve needed to contact PSECU. Their phone reps have always been polite & helpful, whether I wanted loan rate information, or needed to temporarily raise my daily transaction limit for a large purchase, or had card troubles, or whatever.
I like how they’re keeping up with technology, too. I’d tried using online banking with my old bank a couple times, and it was just painful & ugly (though to be fair, the concept of online banking was still somewhat young, and it was a teensy local bank without much infrastructure). PSECU has always had a good online experience, as far as I can remember. When their iOS app first came out, it was a little unpolished, but it was a good start. It’s a great now, and I love how easy it is to instantly transfer funds between my accounts and keep tabs on my credit score.
The best feature, though, by far, is the ability to deposit checks with my phone. In the past, that was my one pain point in banking with PSECU — the lack of physical branches and having to do envelope deposits at ATMs. Depositing a check meant making a run to the next town over, to the nearest PSECU-​networked ATM. (I had a friend in a nearby city who also used PSECU, and when they shut down the only PSECU ATM in his area, he had to drive nearly half an hour to the next closest one.) But NO MORE! Now I sit at my dining room table and take two photos, and the funds are sitting in my account.
Then of course, there’s all the reasons credit unions are better than banks, which I won’t go into; you can find that info anywhere. But one little thing I really like is that PSECU reimburses me for ATM fees (up to a certain amount per month). I try using fee-​free machines at places like Wawa as much as I can, but it’s nice when I’m somewhere unfamiliar and get surprised with a heavy fee. It gets dropped right back into my savings account the next month.
As a side note, unrelated to their services, I appreciate now nicely designed their mail communications and website are. As a designer myself, I can’t help but notice those things, and it just kicks the experience up a notch. Well done.

Worst customer service I have ever experienced. They do not care if you are a state employee, they have never tried to help me when I needed it, they have been very rude to me, and don’t expect a loan unless you have PERFECT credit.

It’s a credit Union and I’m a member! This account actually pays me interest on every account. Gives me free checks, even PAYS me a dividend once a year, and $ 20 in other ATM fees a month if I use another banks ATM The bill payer is the best! Why would I pay fees at a bank?

Good things: They are Inexpensive — Only $ 5 minimum balance. They will transfer money from your line of credit or other accounts to cover overdrafts, several times (6?) per month, without charges. The Bill Payer cuts checks quickly — the checks seem go out in the mail the same day you set them up vs. 2 – 3 day delay at other institutions. Bad things: Customer service via phone and on-​line isn’t very customer-​focused. Overall they are technologically way behind and don’t offer services other institutions offer. Setting up a bill on bill pay can be a pain because there might be 25 IDENTICAL addresses for a credit card company, e.g. Chase Cardmember services. However, the setup process will reject almost everyone you try. They don’t publish WHICH payee (e.g. Chase) is for your account. So you can try every one until you find one that is not rejected, or make a manual request via email and wait a few more days.
Unlike other institutions, where you can set up a payee like «Bob Smith» and set up a payment at the same time, PSECU requires you to wait for THEM to set up a new payee. There are quite a few reputable companies out there that allow me to pay a friend TODAY. I guess PSECU doesn’t want to be in the Bill Payer business, based on the need for customers to beg for a payee to be set up.
They also seem to DELETE payees rather quickly. There are charities that I donated too over a year ago, and when I attempt to make a new donation, the payee is not in my list of payees and not even on file! I have to wait for the payee to be set up again! They seem to have gotten less proficient in the past 2 years while other institutions’ payment services are getting better and quicker.
Getting a response for checks drawn against my line of credit, with a promotional rate, is also frustrating. It took them a week to respond to an email requesting more checks with the promotional rate. (I have an excellent credit rating and needed to borrow a little.) Meanwhile, I had more creditors than checks so I had to make one big check out to myself, put it in my checking account, and then paid off several credit cards with the proceeds. Unfortunately, checks payable to myself or cash carry a hefty interest rate — about 3.5 times the 2.9% promo rate. Great — they take a week to respond to a request for more checks and another 7 – 10 days to get them to me, but somehow they have the resources to identify checks that are not made out to a specific lender. Their slow response cost me hundreds.
Update fall 2015: Not much has changed on the Bill Payer side.

We belong because we worked for the State. No better no worse than any other. It is what it is.