Customer No-Service

Like many other consumers intent on protecting their credit and identity, I recently placed a fraud alert on my credit report.  Fraud alerts are an added layer of protection that forces lendors and banks to contact you and verify certain details before opening accounts in your name.  I have since opened three accounts, and yes, it means waiting a day or two for the bank to receive my driver's license, etc, to verify that I am who I say I am, but it is fine, and I can rest assured that nobody can just walk into a bank and immediately open an account in my name.

But when I applied for a Ft. Knox account, the website said "withdrawn" loan status. Nobody called me or emailed me or anything.  When I called, the agent said that I had to wait 6 months to apply again because there was fraud on my credit.  I explained that it wasn't fraud; it was a fraud alert I had placed. She didn't seem to know the difference. She spoke to a supervisor, then came back and said the same thing, suggesting that she had no way of verifying who placed the alert.  I asked to speak to a supervisor and she said that wasn't possible.  I asked another question and she never bothered to answer. Several minutes of dead silence and the call was over.  

When fraud alerts were set up, they were never intended to be used by banks in this way.  If you are a smart consumer, financially savvy, and eager to protect your identity, don't apply to this bank.  Their policies about fraud alerts (which the agent herself admitted, were not written down) are backwards.  I honestly think this bank assumes there is fraud on my account.  The board at this bank needs to revisit its policies and training for supervisors and agents.  I plan to follow up with the NCUA to ensure that no other customer experiences the same trouble just because they were trying to protect their credit.