Gesa Credit Union is headquartered in Richland and is the 3rd largest credit union in the state of Washington. It is also the 61st largest credit union in the nation. It was established in 1953 and as of June of 2023, it had grown to 709 employees and 286,577 members at 32 locations. Gesa Credit Union's savings rates are 6X the national average, and it has a B+ health rating.
Membership in Gesa Credit Union is open to: (1) anyone who lives, works, worships, or attends school in the state of Washington; (2) residents of the Idaho counties of Benewah, Bonner, Boundary, Clearwater, Idaho, Kootenai, Latah, Lewis, Nez Perce, or Shoshone, (3) residents of the Oregon counties of Clackamas, Clatsop, Columbia, Gilliam, Hood River, Morrow, Multnomah, Sherman, Umatilla, Union, Wasco, or Washington, or (4) a close relative of anyone eligible for membership.
See current membership details
I can't count the trouble I've had with big business banks over the years and I finally got fed up a few months ago. Many of my friends recommended credit unions to me and to be honest I never really knew what the difference was. Eventually a friend turned me onto Gesa Credit Union, telling me all the perks and advantages I would receive. The biggest thing I got was a peace of mind, no more worry about Bank of America or Washington Federal hassling me over every little thing. I walked into the Credit Union and they were warm, friendly, and nothing but helpful. They quickly set everything up for me and it was a complete breeze. I now recommend Gesa to everyone I know, even the people who aren't having problems with their current bank. This company is professional and actually cares about it's customers and leaves you knowing that your money is safe.
Rude staff, from the teller to the head teller to the manager, no regard for customer service. Not only were they more concerned with flexing their power over my account but they had little regard for my time.
I started out with School Employees Credit Union over 30 years ago. They were GREAT !
Then they changed their name to Inspirus or something crazy like that, they were still pretty good, great service and loan rates, good CD rates a very customer service oriented.
Then they merged with GESA Credit Union and that is where thing started getting screwed up.
For some reason some of the customer service people are very difficult to work with and don’t seem to care about the customers.
I did figure out that when I get a difficult person, I just say ok, hang up and call back until I find an intelligent reasonablef person that can take care of my needs.
No use wasting time with a jerk that is not willing to look into things.
Sometimes they offer good CD rates, but if you close before maturity they take a minimum of 90 days of interest. If you have a checking account they charge high fees to order checks.
They make it difficult to stop a CD from rolling over, they send a form in the mail and you have to mail it back on time if you don’t want it to roll over, or call the day of maturity. It’s a mess.
The high interest savings is nice, but they stopped the high interest checking and now you have to use your debit card so many times a month or you don’t get the high interest. A total pain!
I just don’t feel like a valued customer as I did when it was School Employees Credit union.
Customer Service department needs major overhaul.
I have called Gesa’s customer service line 6 times over the last 2 months and have gotten no real help. I hang up angry and frustrated every time. We have enough equity in our home to remove the PMI from our mortgage loan, so I called them to get started on that process. The first time I called they said they would send me something in the mail and I had to wait to receive that before I could move forward. I was a little surprised that it’s 2022 and this can’t be applied for online or even over the phone, but the information has to be sent in the mail. They said to call back once I received the packet, so I did. The packet said that if the house is worth the same amount that we paid for it, then we do not have enough equity to cancel PMI. The only way to cancel PMI would be to hire an appraiser through Gesa to show that the property has gone up in value enough that we have enough equity. We were fully aware of this and know that our equity is coming from a change in the market as well as improvements that we’ve made to the house. Our real estate agent did a current market analysis on the house and reassured us that the house is easily valued at a high enough price to give us the equity we need. The paperwork said that in our state it would probably cost $525 to hire an appraiser, but there are factors that play into it so the cost might be different depending on our situation. I called a second time to check and they said yes, it would cost us $525. I needed some time to budget the money so I said I would call back when I was ready to pay. I called a third time about a month later when I was ready to make the payment. The woman who answered the phone this time told me that an appraisal has already been ordered and nothing was due. She said my file said that they would take care of the appraisal and we didn’t have to pay anything. This sounded completely different than what I was told before so I questioned her. She sounded annoyed by me doubting her and assured me that all I needed to do was wait for an appraiser to call me to get the appraisal scheduled. I said ok and hung up, but was confused about why we now didn’t need to pay for the appraisal. I didn’t want to wait around for weeks for a call from an appraiser just to find out I was wasting my time because one was never ordered because we didn’t pay. So the next morning a called back again, for the fourth time. This time the person who answered told me that an appraisal had NOT been ordered and they would not order one until they received payment from us, and that the payment due was $150. I made the $150 payment and was told that once the payment went through we should hear from an appraiser, they will call us to get the appraisal scheduled. Once I saw the payment process through our account I called a fifth time to make sure that an appraisal was ordered and I wasn’t wasting my time waiting for nothing. This time I was assured that they had received the payment, so an appraisal was being ordered. They told me all I had to do was wait and an appraiser would reach out to me to get it scheduled. I waited 3 weeks and heard nothing. I called back today, my sixth time calling about this, to check the status and make sure the appraisal was ordered like they promised it had been. I was told that an appraisal was never ordered because we hadn’t payed the full $525, we had only paid $150 and we still owed $375. At this point I am in tears because I am so frustrated with all the back and forth and this has been such a giant waste of my time. Why wouldn’t they let me pay the $525 when I called to pay it over a month ago? When I tried to pay the $525, they wouldn’t let me and said it wasn’t needed, then they make me pay a smaller amount, then they tell me that because I haven’t paid the $525 they haven’t been able to go forward this whole time. They have been confusing, contradicting and entirely unhelpful. It is absolutely unbelievable to me how long it has taken for me to get absolutely nowhere in this process. I thought I would apply online, pay whatever I needed to pay and be done. Instead it has been a painfully long, drawn out, confusing nightmare. I just wish that I had straightforward answers from the beginning so I could have quickly done what needed to be done to get the ball rolling. Instead here I am, SIX phone calls and over TWO MONTHS later and I’ve gotten no where, just gone in circles. Gesa, PLEASE either make the information/application available online to take these steps to order the necessary appraisal in order to have PMI removed from your loan OR get your customer service department properly trained on the process because this has become completely RIDICULOUS.
Overall | |
---|---|
NCUA # | 68278 |
Year Chartered | 1953 |
Employees | 709 |
Primary Regulator |
Profit Margin | |
---|---|
Return on Assets - YTD | 0.99% |
Return on Equity - YTD | 10.98% |
Annual Interest Income | $107.5MM |
Assets and Liabilities | ||
---|---|---|
Assets | Q2 2023vs Q2 2022 | $5.44B$5.40B |
Loans | Q2 2023vs Q2 2022 | $4.35B$4.20B |
Deposits | Q2 2023vs Q2 2022 | $4.36B$4.51B |
Equity Capital | Q2 2023vs Q2 2022 | $493.2MM$484.6MM |
Loan Loss Allowance | Q2 2023vs Q2 2022 | $0$25.7MM |
Unbacked Noncurrent Loans | Q2 2023vs Q2 2022 | $17.3MM$12.9MM |
Real Estate Owned | Q2 2023vs Q2 2022 | $0$0 |
Always verify rates and promotions with the bank or credit union. We are not Gesa Credit Union; we are a rate comparison website and cannot provide official rates or promotions.
* The APY shown varies based on the deposit amount. Expand the listing to see APYs for other deposit amounts.
APY | MIN | MAX | ACCOUNT NAME | VIEW DETAILS | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
7.00%* | - | $500 | Student Checking Account | ||
OTHER TIERS: 0.01% → $500+ | |||||
7.00%* | - | $5k | SmartPlus Checking | ||
OTHER TIERS: 0.01% → $5k+ |