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My CUSO Introduction

Kaight
  |     |   1,192 posts since 2011

Today I was introduced to CUSOs, completely unaware throughout the experience. CUSO stands for Credit Union Service Organization. I'm such a dummkopf, I thought I was speaking with an actual employee of my credit union. The "tell"?:

What should have been the tell was that the person on the other end of the conversation, supposedly a level 2 rep, constantly had to put me on hold in order to obtain answers to my questions. But I didn't catch on. What finally gave it away was that she sent me an email containing her name. Out of curiosity I (only later) looked that up and discovered she is not employed by my credit union and has no banking background. Instead she works for this CUSO:

https://www.s3cuso.com/

I requested a couple of times to have the call escalated, since I could tell she didn't have answers to my inquiries straightaway, as I would have anticipated from a level 2 rep.  It never happened. I was patient; perhaps too patient. I'm still processing this entire matter which comes to me as a surprise.  But I can understand that an S3 employee might try to avoid escalation of an inquiry because that could reflect negatively on the level of service S3 was providing.  Of course, again, I thought I was speaking with my credit union, not with S3.  Had I realized I would have handled things differently.

About my only contribution, with this post, is to raise awareness that CUSOs exist. If you already knew, I apologize for having wasted your time. I didn't know until today.

ETA

As I wrote earlier, I'm still processing this matter.  Something just occurred to me:

I can tell the person who took my inquiry at S3 is a couple thousand miles distant from the HQ of my credit union.  Now remote service is not anything new in this day and age, though it is I believe more prevalent with the big money center banks, and my credit union is no behemoth.  Still this stateside S3 employee, who does not work for my credit union on a direct basis, had full access to all of my credit union information.  I cannot say I'm entirely comfortable with that notion.  

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Steve58
  |     |   460 posts since 2018
Thank you for the fine post and insight. Now every thing makes much more sense. I never knew this. Working with Credit Union CSRs this past months has had many moments of frustration. Like how can you not know what I am asking you. Working for this credit union you must get this same question 50 times a day. For example asking about early withdrawal penalties for a CD of certain length. Say what? Don't get me wrong they are all friendly as heck. But knowledgeable about "their" credit union products, not so much.

This week for example, probably my biggest 'tell'. I called CHCU multiple times. As a member, I opened up two CDs this week (24-35 month).

Yesterday, I told the CSR that when you open the CD online and select the 24-35 month CD you do not have an option to make it 35 months. She told me they have been very busy and that is probably why. Huh? She eventually put me through to another person who was able to make the selection for me.

Today I called to make the same request for the CD I opened today. They put me through to a level 2. She said she could edit the CD so it would read 35 month CD and not 24-35 moth CD (you know how you can edit an account name).  I said no, i mean I want the CD to have a maturity date in 35 months, not in 24 months like the account detail tab was showing.  So, she said she could not help me so she tried to transfer me to a "CD specialist". She was unable to make the transfer after several attempts. So she told me to call the number again and ask for a CD specialist. I called again, asked for the CD specialist, they put me through, and I got excellent help. So while I had the CD specialist on the line, i hit a whole littany of requests that you cannot do online when opening up a CD. I could not make it a Joint CD, even though my previous one a month ago when I joined was made a joint CD. She fixed that. I requested all interest to go into savings. She set that up. I asked to apply my previous CD beneficiaries to the two new CDs. She said that the previous one had not been set up. I told her I sent all the details/signed paperwork, DL copies via internal online messenger as requested via their messenger and they acknowledged it was received and forwarded to the LOAN DEPT. Ok, that should have maybe struck some alarm bells last month. She did not seem to have access to these communications, even though I could go and look at copies of the documents and conversation that I had with them last month in THEIR online messenger. She said they would be sending me new documents to sign that will cover all 4 accounts. OK, I thought, but this is ridiculous.

This also makes sense why so many have had trouble with opening CDs at this specific CU. Calling never seemed to help. They never could give a reason for why they were rejected.

My recommendation to all, when calling about CDs at any CU, ask for a CD specialist when you first make contact. That might save you a lot of heartache.

Steve
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JustLearning
  |     |   24 posts since 2023
This tracks with experiences I have had opening CDs these last months as well. HOURS on the phone actually. I am very confused why I have to state my social in full in order for a CSR to find my account and "prove" it is me. A local CU has a special code word you create to access your account. I love that, and it is the only CU that has that model so far across 7 institutions I have opened with. It's pretty uncomfortable to give the keys to the city out when the person could be jotting the number down. Thank you for this info.
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