Hacker News Reader

Comment by nachbo | Hacker News Reader

Your local credit union. Not-for-profit. Low to zero fees. Why anyone would use a commercial bank I do not understand.

I banked with two credit unions and both nickel-and-dimed me with ridiculous fees. A coworker of mine has filed suit against the credit union at my current job.

I have banked with a huge commercial bank for the past twenty years and never had any issues. YMMV

My experience is the opposite - Chase nickle and dimed me and made me pay fees if I didn't jump through certain hoops. It made me go back to my credit union.

Yeah I use a local credit union and they are not the worst but they have fees and will hit you with overdraft penalties and whatnot like any bank.

For the record I have not used a credit union for close to 10 years so this may be different now.

But there is something to be said about having an actually usable banking website, modern ATMs, and most importantly some support options during non business hours when something goes wrong.

Also being able to reliably find a branch if you are traveling.

While you can argue that support at a credit union may be better when you can get it, there are real advantages to going with a major bank.

Also as someone else said... the fees, minimum balances, etc were ridiculous.

Also for the record, I only tried one but I really didn't feel like making the jump to another bank if the second one didn't work out well.

> But there is something to be said about having an actually usable banking website, modern ATMs, and most importantly some support options during non business hours when something goes wrong

An example of all of this wrapped up in a credit union in California - School's First Credit Union.

What's great about modern banks/credit-unions is the ability to issue cards that can use payment processors like Mastercard (school's first uses this), making almost every ATM work for you. I was able to make purchases in London without doing anything special.

The account monitoring is also top-notch. I buy gas, driving up to San Francisco and someone buys some shoes in Los Angeles when I had just stopped in San Jose, I get a phone call. I try to purchase more than $X with the card, it won't go through without me allowing it (you can configure your max daily, ofc). Loan rates are great. It goes on and on.

I just don't understand why anyone uses big banks anymore.

Within the last 15 years or so, a bunch of the Credit Unions have 1) modernized their online banking stuff and 2) formed some sort of sharing agreement with regards to physical locations and ATMs. The one that I notice as a little odd is that the alliance that my CU belongs to partnered with the company that supplies ATMs to 7-11 stores. Which is always funny to see when I pull up their ATM map.

Though I get most of my cash through free cashback when I do grocery shopping or whatever.

You really think these kind of things haven't markedly changed in ten years?

I moved cities 5 times in 8 years. The last thing I wanted to do is try and evaluate a credit union each time.

I look at it now and think about it, but I have to deal with international things and the last thing I want to deal with is trying to get a hold of my bank from ten timezones over.

Most credit unions are in a network with each other so you can use other CU's ATMs and branches. There are a few limitations, generally around large withdrawals, but the nearest actual branch/ATM of my CU is ~250 miles away and I do just fine. I've done both an auto loan and a mortgage with them without ever having to go into a branch.

Thanks to modern banking, you don't need to be in the same city as your credit union.

I've used the same CU for 20 years, the last 8 of which has been 2000 miles away from it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com