Firstlight Credit Union

Lesson Learned.
- Maiden - Monday, November 21, 2011 - 6:28 PM

They gave us every reason to expect great service. What a disappointment. We opened a savings and checking with them in order to have a local bank so that we could access someone in person if needed. Thank goodness we didn't close our other bank's account. From the start we had problems. Tellers would not pay close attention when we asked for cash back from deposits, which account to make deposits into, etcetera. Getting help over the phone was pure insanity and the problems never ever got fixed. Their website and online banking...don't even get us started, let's just say you'd think that the internet was a new thing for Firstlight. What a mess of a "credit union."

Will Do For Now
- sanchlis - Tuesday, May 24, 2011 - 1:19 AM

I really haven't had much luck with banks so I tried First Light. My experiences were positive at first but some problems arose here and there. First they talked me into signing up for overdraft protection that would take money out of your savings if your checking account was overdrawn. This seemed like a good opportunity especially since some of the companies we deal with take out automatic withdrawals each month but at somewhat random times. We live paycheck to paycheck so I was more than happy to sign up for it and insure I didn't rack up fees we couldn't afford. If you were overdrawn on your account it would cost you nearly $30 in overdrawn fees. This was very helpful, or at least I thought it would be, until the first time they had to take out from my savings account to cover the shortage. They still charged nearly $20 overdrawn fee for every time I was short despite their overdraft protection. I went back into the bank and asked to speak with a representative and they explained to me that I had it all wrong, that I was told wrong and then explained to me their current policy. What they were now telling me was that I'd rack up fees with the overdraft protection so my best bet was to have them not let the payment go through electronically if the money wasn't in the account. I signed some paperwork and I thought the issue was resolved until of course we were short and low and behold I began racking up $30 fees again. I went back to the credit union and again I was told I was misunderstanding what their policy was, again, despite that this time I had a brochure they had handed me. So my moral of the story is that no matter what they tell you, protected or not, you're still going to be charged. On a positive note, they do however give me no trouble about cashing third party checks, my husband's paychecks without his presence, and have returned some of those horrible fees they deducted. They have pretty good service. The tellers are friendly and compared to my past experiences with Bank of America, I'm happy to deal with the whole overdraft hassle.