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It's Alliant Time Again...

racecar
  |     |   628 posts since 2014

Well it's that time of year, (Jan/Feb) when Alliant (secretly) holds its "membership" meeting, with Alliant's board being the only ones now allowed to actually attend, since Alliant will not tell people when and where it is beforehand anymore, nor allow them (according to their own website) into their main office.

Purpose of said meeting includes deciding which Alliant members to throw out each year, and they do not need to furnish a reason why.

It doesn't matter if people have CDs, IRAs or whatnot, they simply close everything out (without penalty) as they kick people out the door without telling them why. Since they are a state chartered CU (Illinois) rather than a Federal credit union, there's not much anyone can do.

This has been discussed here and on other finance sites every year around this time as some people get kicked out. Alliant's OLD management would freely advertise when and where the yearly membership meetings were being held on the monthly statements, and invite members to attend. No longer, not since their new management took over some years back.

I'm a satisfied Alliant member (at least for now) but because of this policy (espcially refusing to say why someone was kicked out so the rest of us can avoid it), I won't ever get a credit card (which if cancelled screws with one's credit score), IRA (a pain to transfer funds), or any long-term CDs with them.

Hopefully no one here on DA will be affected this year, but it'll be interesting to see what they do. A lot of people loaded up on those high-rate CDs they had a while back. Kicking out a bunch of them just for that would save Alliant money now that rates have declined. You never know.

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belko
  |     |   168 posts since 2021
It would be interesting to know whether state-chartered CUs as a group were more or less likely to kick out members without giving any reason, vs. federally-chartered CUs. With some very brief searches I could not find even a comprehensive list of state-chartered CUs in the U.S., much less data on their “kick-out” numbers. (I did find that in California alone there are 109 of these entities, so they are not that rare.)
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racecar
  |     |   628 posts since 2014
One easy way to tell is... if it has "FCU" (the "F" in FCU standing for "Federal") or "Federal" in its name, then you know it's a Federally chartered CU -- but I don't know if there are cases where a CU is federally chartered but they don't have that as part of their name.
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outtempster
  |     |   32 posts since 2010
well, I was a long term Alliant member, and I got kicked out last year, without a reason. I didn't have any fraud charge or dispute around time. I called and the customer service said they don't know the reason and Alliant can cancel any membership without any reason. And there is no appeal or anything, once it's decided, it's done.

I quickly moved out and opened an account at Ally. It's actually easier to move large amount of money with Ally. So, maybe that was a blessing in disguise to me.
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outtempster
  |     |   32 posts since 2010
they do tell you by which date all accounts with Alliant will be closed. I moved all money out quickly once knowing that nothing can change their decision.
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racecar
  |     |   628 posts since 2014
Sorry to hear that, and thank you for the post.

Do you have any idea yourself what might have caused it?
(Too much of doing one particular thing?)

Hey, since you have nothing to lose at this point, want to take 2 minutes to call Alliant to see if they'll divulge to you when their yearly membership meeting is? :)

(I think we both know the answer, but if you're bored for a minute, want to give it a try?)
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outtempster
  |     |   32 posts since 2010
The only thing I can think of is that I used Alliant as my central bank, it's linked to all my other banks. When my CDs mature (most of them), I move them to Alliant, and decide what to do or where it should go. So, there is enough "traffic" in my account. However, Alliant didn't provide any good CDs for a while. Most of the time I moved the money out to open CD somewhere else. There is not a lot of $$ that I have in Alliant (vs previously I have large amounts in CDs and normally >$10K in saving for urgent use).

I did receive a letter in 2023 (the account was closed in 2024) that the fraud department suspect that I use my personal account for commercial usage, which was not true. I called customer service right away. They contacted fraud department and told me that was a mistake and that I can ignore the letter.

I received account closing notice in Feb 2024 (the actual closing is April 2024), which was about half year after the fraud department. After I received the closing letter, I called customer service again, and listed potential reasons and customer service none of that should be a reason. On the fraud department letter, the customer service said if they talk to the fraud department and confirmed it was a mistake and I should ignore the letter, then that shouldn't be the reason neither. However, they don't know the reason neither. 

Customer service did provide me a written address for me to write a letter to ask, but I got a plain reply that they don't need to give a reason.
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me1004
  |     |   1,381 posts since 2010
This bit of not needing to have a reason or give it flies directly in the face of "once a member, always a member." You can't have it both ways.
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