Philadelphia Federal Credit Union

Customer service training is in order here. Yeah, sometimes people aren’t nice. And yeah, a segment of the people who come in here seem to be under the influence. But if you can’t be pleasant & cordial to customers– get another job! Most of the tellers here are scowling & unhappy. I always greet the teller with a «Hi! How are you?» No response. It’s as if they are annoyed.
Only get two stars because they have Saturday hours.

I wish I stayed with my old bank, PNC. I went to PFCU because they were close to where I live and work. I have had accounts with other credit unions when I lived in Other parts of the city and my experience has been great. Now that I have had an account with PFCU I will never use another credit union again.
Let’s start with how they show appreciation to new customers by placing a 7 business day hold on all checks. This means that it takes 2 weeks to actually use the money your paid. In my case it meant that I was late on rent and other bills incurring me over $ 200 in late fees.
Next, let’s talk about using your check card. For debit transactions over 10 a month, they charge you $ 1 each swipe. This means you can easily rack up $ 20-​$ 30 in «convenience fees» each for buying coffee in the morning.
Now after your first 30 days are up they are supposed to have checks clear in 2 days. I run a business so cash flow is important to me. One time I deposited 2 checks at once (both I’ve been paid from before, both multimillion dollar organizations) and because I deposited 2 checks at once they decided to place them both on a 7 business day hold without giving me any reason.
I could go on and on from the rude staff to only being able to withdraw $ 200/​day from the arm. Bottom line is if you want a good bank, go to PNC.

I once came into this branch to open a checking account and the whole place was mobbed. I have lived closely to this location for a year and I can vouch for the fact that it’s always mobbed. Even if their customer service was awesome, always having to wait in a line is not something I’m interested in.
Most of all, their customers generally suck. Their ATMs attract people all night long and the people who stop by at those hours are usually blasting their stereos. They double park their cars on the trolly tracks and stop traffic. Yesterday, I witnessed a customer in a BMW abandon her car for 25 minutes, holding up the trolly for most of those minutes, and gave the trolly conductor ‘tude like an entitled asshole does when she reemerged and drove away. 20 seconds later, with traffic going around the trolly because of said asshole, an elderly couple crashed into the parked cars on the street while trying to dodge traffic. These poor folks had to have their damaged car towed and was charged as the cause of the accident and the asshole got away with a parking ticket.
I also love it when their customers park where the trolly X’s are painted and I have to squeeze in between two running cars to board the trolly.
I think credit unions are great. I’m glad my neighborhood has a branch here, but they need to move to some place with a parking lot. As a resident, this place is a pain in the ass.

First issue: They keep using my checks that I clearly mark «for deposit into savings only» front and back as loan payments. One time I could not even resolve this because the CSR could not even spell «principal» let alone understand why this was a problem for me.
Second issue: They will sell your information to third parties for money, particularly the Hartford Insurance Company. If you want to get onto their non-​solicitation list you have to call an outside company that prompts you for your social security number.
Staff: See above, the CSRs on the live chat (although nice that they offer it) have the IQs of decomposing cucumbers. Downtown branches, personable tellers and desk workers. Germantown, there is not a live person to be found, you have to interface with a computer monitor and condescending people in some hidden bunker. It must turn into a war zone or something when the lights go down. There is a coin counter here, but thanks to misinformation from a teller bot I had to re-​shovel $ 300+ worth of coins back through the machine. Again, nice that they offer it.
Final thought: I have seven more car payments and I’m done with these people. The interest rate would have had me parking my emergency fund there, but overall «quit your big bank, use a credit union» is not sage advice when dealing with PFCU. I gave them two stars instead of one because the free umbrella that they gave me held up for two years. I thought the umbrella meant that they cared about if I got rained on or not and it was the start of a beautiful banking relationship, but instead it was just a bribe to litter my home with junk mail and inconvenience me.

After Capital One bought out ING, I wanted to move my emergency savings somewhere that I could at least get a semi-​decent (at today’s rates) interest rate. Upsides of this location are the very nice physical branch and short wait times. Downside is that I find the staff at this branch to be pretty brusque. I had a lot of questions about their fee schedules, etc, and for some of them the person I was working with kept telling me to call the customer service number. Why should I do that when I am sitting right here in front of you? Eventually I got the information out of her that I needed, but I kept getting the impression that she was tired of me.
On the other hand, I do really enjoy the PFCU’s online services. They’ve recently overhauled their online account pages. I haven’t done much with them, but they seem much cleaner and user friendly. I also love their chat function for customer support. Representatives are always helpful, and if they are rolling their eyes behind the scenes I can’t see it and don’t care. Plus you can have a transcript of the chat emailed to you after the fact.
PFCU isn’t amazing, but it’s good enough for my savings accounts.

I have had an account and going to the West Philly branch for 4 months. It has all of the features that my other bank TD Bank has, with a few extras. There are computer terminals, which people can use. The drop box deposit is genius in its old school elegance. It is faster to go into the bank and fill out an envelope than go to the ATM or wait in line.
I have online banking and electronic balance reports. Debit/​credit card that works fine and decent telephone customer service.
I could say something about the unattractive bullet proof glass, but injured tellers would be a worse thing. I feel reasonably safe, although I never take money out of the bank, only deposit it.
Credit unions are pretty awesome and this one is alright for me.

I have used this credit union for nearly 10 years now. They were great when I first used them, but in the past few years they have really gone downhill. They have now lost a long-​time customer because they have gone from being friendly helpful people to being a fee-​mongering bureaucracy.
They required tons of documentation to change my name post-​divorce (much more than any other account I have) and even once I got them everything they wanted, they still took much prodding to actually change my name. The name on my debit card still hasn’t been changed, 2 years later.
The straw that broke the camel’s back, though, is their ridiculous bill payer fees. If you click through to their bill payer service, they will charge you $ 5.95 a month if you don’t use it. I don’t recall ever using or signing up for this, and they are not able to provide me with evidence that I did or a copy of the agreement I supposedly agreed to. The kicker, though, is they sent this $ 5.95 they applied to my empty account to a collections agency which added a handling fee of another $ 15. I paid that and asked them to remove the bill payer service, and they charged me another month fee. I am through with them… well, I will be once I manage to satisfy everything they want to close the account (including the $ 2.50 left from the last stupid billpay fee that they just can’t refund).

I tend to like credit unions better than banks. I blame this on a horrible experience with Bank of America several years ago (they made me cry and wouldn’t let me close my account). I feel like credit unions are more personal. And they are more likely to be helpful when you end up in a weird, crazy situation and desparately need access to your money. So when I moved to Philly, I looked for a credit union. And I ended up here. And I was in the process of buying a house. I had just arrived in the city. My bank in California wasn’t being helpful and I needed to open an account. And I needed access to transferred funds fairly quickly. Since I was desparate at this point, I was undeterred by the 40 minute wait in the bank lobby before someone was available to help open the account.
I had arrived 40 minutes before closing, and still wasn’t helped before the bank closed. And then I sort of felt bad because some poor employee had to stay late to help me open the account. At least he was nice about it. I went back later (after the account was opened for another transaction) and the line was out the door. It seems like they desparately need more staff. I don’t like waiting 40 to do my banking. I ended up leaving and going to bank that wasn’t mine and paying a fee.
The fees here seem kind of high (they charge standard fees for overdraft, but also fees if you use a teller too many times in a month, or if you use debit too many times in a month, or if you sign up for online bill pay but don’t use it for two months, or really if you do *anything*). It seems like there are a lot fees and there isn’t much service.

Beautiful new branch located where there aren’t many bank branches.
The fancy new coin changing machine is worth the trip! Woo hoo!