Montgomery County Teachers Federal Credit Union

This place used to be great when it was MCTFCU. When it switched to Educational Systems a few years ago… well, I could say that the service «plummeted abysmally,» but that is really too generous. I could write a novella on my poor experiences dealing with ESFCU, but I will try to be as concise as possible, and I won’t even touch on the utter pandemonium that ensued when the switch happened as myself and everyone else I know who uses this credit union lost control of their accounts, were locked out, etc.
Customer service falls somewhere between unhelpful and non-​existent. They have an email contact on their site (which is more convenient for me than phone), but every time I need help (which is often with them), even if it is just a simple informational inquiry, I am told I must call the help line. I’m pretty sure from the content of the messages that the emails are not robotic, so I have to assume they are paying someone to do this. The help line is almost as bad, as the customer service representatives are sometimes less knowledgeable than myself, and that is really saying something. Getting exemptions for my card to be used in foreign countries has been a nightmare. I’ve gone through this process 5 times now with ESFCU, and never has there not been an issue, and every single time the process for getting those exemptions has been different. Twice I was told the bank could not do this at all and I needed to contact Visa directly, to which Visa was completely perplexed. Twice I have been abroad and had my card fail to work despite ESFCU telling me my exemptions were in place. Once when I contacted them they claimed they could find no issue and my card mysteriously began functioning about an hour later. On my most recent trip I had a family member’s name added to my account to preempt having an issue and not being able to get in touch. There was in fact a problem, my family member spoke to ESFCU, and she was told that exemptions must be renewed every 2 weeks despite the card working abroad for 6 consecutive months before this. I can’t even begin to imagine how this level of inconsistency and customer service failure can come about.
ESFCU also contacted me on a regular basis for a long time, asserting suspicious activity. This almost always happens when I use the card abroad, despite the exemptions, but it became a plague at home as well. Often the suspicious activities are things such as I bought gasoline multiple times in one day and other trivialities. This continued to get worse over time, to the point where I felt like I was being harassed in my own home by the credit union. Is the money not mine to spend? I am not an extravagant or strange spender except for airline tickets, which have never caused a problem. I finally sent them an exasperated and angry message, spilling my utter frustration at them and telling them in so many words I was sick and tired of the nonsense and to leave me alone. Not my most mature moment, but they did stop calling my house so often after this. Subsequently, I have found that when they call about suspicious activity, if I simply ignore the calls they never follow up.
On one occasion, I noticed a mysterious $ 8 charge on my account from a company I was fairly sure I had not done business with. I got in touch with ESFCU to ask about it, and was told that if I wanted to cancel the card they would be happy, but there was nothing else they could do for me, including giving me any info on where the charge came from or looking into the trace number. I’m not sure if this is standard bank procedure or what, but it doesn’t seem right.
To cap it all off, and I wouldn’t share this anecdote unless I had been there, I went to ESFCU with a friend who wanted to close his account because he was also deeply unsatisfied with the service. I watched as ESFCU cut my friend a check on the spot for the sum of his entire account balance and never ask to see his ID.
I truly hate to bring my business to a big name bank for various moral and ideological reasons, but the service at ESFCU is beyond unacceptable, beyond inexcusable, and truly beyond all understanding and comprehension. I would never recommend that anyone join this institution, unless she needs a good excuse to rip all her hair out. I would rather chew tinfoil while dealing with Verizon customer service than try to get anything done with ESFCU.

This bank used to be really great until it changed it’s name to Educational Systems, I started getting nightmares, they messed up all my accounts and charged me multiple overdraft fee since I have multiple sub checking accounts, when I use one check, it just withdraws from a random checking account and when you call customer service, they just tell you «oh i’m sorry mam but our system is just confused right now since it’s not able to recognize which check you wrote», seriously!!! A banking system gets confused… and they can’t do anything, Bad Customer Service, I felt so bad that they have to change from MCT since I’ve been banking with them since ’06 but not anymore and will never deposit a dime ever again! This bank sucks your money big time! And one thing, my CC gave me better interest than them, I am actually generous to give them 1 star for taking all the time fixing their mess. Stay away from this bank!

Awful experience! Lost one of our incomes, tried to renegotiate terms of equity line, from 6.5%, refused to discuss! raised rate to 7.5% with threat to sue us. (Had been with ESFCU for 26 years, no longer). Unbelievably rude and so unwilling to work with a customer. Stay away from ESFCU if you ever have a problem, they will not help.

Another terrible customer service day. Coin machine out of order. They do not accept loose coins. Really?

this place makes a mockery of all credit unions after dealing with them… it makes me wanna deal with the big name banks… this place has gone downhill every since they moved near svhs.
i dont like their set ups at all… they have it set up like ur at the mall with the two little kiosk and the lines are so close that patrons can hear all ur personal financial biz.
the lines are outrageous. so long so long. only two idiots working. no reps in sight if u need other services besides cashing a check or withdrawing… «have a seat someone will be right with u» turns to be almost an hour. the chick who does notary is a nosy rosy who wants to be all up in ur biz and needs to know the 411 of why u need a notary… its nunya… i hate when ppl assume that i dont know how to speak or comprehend english and speak to me in spanish. yet im persian/​italian. dont assume. long story short avoid this dump. here it appears like the ppl who work here act like they are running a lemonade stand. i was here for the cheap auto loans but forget it. ill stick with navy fcu and mcefc but if you like long lines esp on saturdays and dealing with teenie boopers who dont know nada by all means stay here.

OK. This financial institution is an absolute mess. Their on-​line system is down as much as it is up… but when i call about it they ALWAYS tell me it is an issues on my end. lol. seriously. It’s a train wreck and they are all in denial.
Several years ago i requested an education loan, but it was misprocessed and somehow they added the loan to my existing overdraft protection loan. When I asked them to correct it, I was told that i had to reapply… which could take another 10 days. Yeah. Nice move. since it was a student loan to pay the difference of my GWU tuition, I kinda needed it then. Talk about frustrating. I had to leave it as an overdraft loan. Which is just plain ignorant on their end.
But the worst thing ever is on a loan my husband and i both have jointly. I was late on a payment and some girl named Brandy (? will edit later with correct name) called him and started telling him about ALL of my other accounts. You know… Accounts that are MINE, and not his. (i.e. they had no legal right to dicuss my checking, savings, and loan accounts with him then later stated that they have a right to discuss ALL of my accounts with him because of credit laws. Oh… this is so not true.
The worst thing to date was when they cancelled my Visa gold account right before Christmas. Ho-​ho-​ho. When i called to find out why… the guy told me it was because of an exceptionally high AMEX balance. I denied this as a possibility. He proceeded to tell me that my AMEX had a balance over $ 22k. I had not even USED my AMEX card ever at that point. As it turns out… they confused my husband’s report with mine. OPPS… and they were giving ME his *very* personal information. Talk about a violation of rights! Even better, when i spoke to the loan officer named Jennifer about this cancelled line of credit, she started lecturing me about debt. My debt is less than a month’s salary. I make a nice 6-​figure income… lol…I suppose she cannot fathom this amount compared to her income, so from the perspective of her pay… I suppose my debt looks huge. Also, I mentioned to her that one of her colleagues shared private credit info with me from my husband’s report… and she puts me on hold… oh for a good 10 minutes. Then the guy who made this violation of rights picks up the line and tells me that Jennifer said i wanted to speak with him. Nice professional manners. Not to mention wasting my time.
Basically MCT is the absolute worst financial institution that i have ever dealt with. Given that i spent 6 years writing compliance software for financial instiutions… I have experience with many, many banks and credit unions.
The customer serive is positively wretched. The lines on a Saturday are upwards of an hour wait. The phone system is quirky at best (I’m disconnected rather frequently while on hold.) One benefit is the interest ratred on loans and linew of credit is exceptionally low. Erm, this is the ONLY reason i even have an account there now. Also, one other benefit is that they are part of a credit union conglomerate where I can make deposits and pay loans at OTHER credit unions… never having to mess with the unpleasant people at MCTFCU! YAY for small favors.
I’ve physically been to both the Germantown and Rockville branches, and spoken with people from all branches via telephone. To date only ONE person has proven to be respectable… a service rep who called ME back after we were disconnected when *my* cell service was dropped. She actually cared enough to call me back. She should go work somewhere else, lol… because she’s a rarity at MCT.
I supported MCT initially because I was anti-​big bank. They’ve changed that, and i am very, very happy to do all of my main banking at Chevy Chase… which is awesome, even after being acquired by CapitalOne.
Don’t go to MCT unless you want a low interest loan. Just be careful because they can and will cancel it on you for no valid reason. My advice if you want to bank at a credit union… go with Justice FCU or Lockheed FCU. way better!!!

This was my local bank & I loved them. The lines inside are never long. They have a coinstar machine. And their customer service was (still is) impeccable!