Credit Unions

[Danielle1981]

I'd like to join one....but will they accept me with a bankruptcy? I went to one and they said not if you had more than three acct in collections and if your score wasn't at least 650. This was prebankruptcy...but I do recalls them saying you couldn't join their credit union within 3 years of filling bankruptcy.

[newstart]

I joined a credit union after bk. I would call and ask what do they check to open an account because my credit union only checked with telecheck and after bk I cleared those account up so I was free and clear.

[Danielle1981]

I don't have any bounced checks whatsoever....never have. That scares me because that's something I could be put in jail for. But I think as soon as that discharges I'm going to start looking for a credit union.....maybe there are some more lenient ones.

[FilingOnMyOwn]

I've never heard of someone being denied for a savings account just because they filed bk. But it doesn't mean you can just go and get approved for all of their products and services tho.

[Danielle1981]

They very specifically said that they would automatically deny you membership if you declared bankruptcy in the last 3 years. You could not have any type of account there.

[newstart]

I wasn't referring to bounced checks, I was talking about accounts closed by the bank reflecting a negative balance reported to chex systems, telecheck or scan to prevent you from getting a checking account. I agree with filing if you can't obtain the checking right away open a savings account and build from there.

[CindyLou]

most credit unions are more lenient than bank. i would verify with them again. i just took out a 3300 personal loan from mine, which i joined post bk. good luck.

[Danielle1981]

I have never had my account in a negative balance nor bounced checks. I have good banking history with Wells Fargo, US Bank, Washington Mutual, and Commercial Federal/Bank of the West. They pulled my credit report....which I found odd. I understand checking the chex systems and what not but my credit report? They said no based on the fact I had more than 3 accounts in collections and if it was less than 3 years post bankruptcy. Maybe I should keep looking around.

[tazabear]

credit union

We have two credit union accounts. The first one is a smaller credit union I would say. We only have savings. They run Chexsystems but only for checking, so we can't get an account there or couldn't when I tried a few years back. We had our account open with them only 1 month and got approved for a car loan. They base credit on how your account has been with them, but base the interest rate on your credit. We have had that account for 3-4 years and have had 10 loans with them. 9 cars and 1 unsecured loan.

Our new credit union, seems more strict. We recently moved 3 hours from our old credit union but still using them. They run a credit check on you to open a account other than savings. So, we only opened savings with them.

Stefanie

[sfbehr]

I can tell you from personal experience that Patelco Credit Union is BK-friendly. Patelco is based in San Francisco, and while most of its members live in California, anyone can join. Go to http://www.patelco.org to find out more.

I joined Patelco about 2 months ago and opened a savings account there. I then applied for their gold Visa card, and was approved for a $5K limit...with a fixed interest rate of 8.9%!

I'm just past 2 years from a Chapter 7 discharge, and my FICO scores are in the high 600s-low 700s.

A couple of other major CUs that are known to be BK-friendly are Navy and Digital FCU.

[Danielle1981]

Great information thanks. I wasn't sure even where to start looking.

[sfbehr]

Great information thanks. I wasn't sure even where to start looking.

No problem.

The other point I forgot to mention in my previous posting is that it's not likely that the credit unions will approve you day 1 post-discharge. But nothing wrong with starting out by joining a CU, maybe getting checking and savings through them (you must open at least a savings to join)...and then wait and apply for something once you've had a chance to work on your reports and have maybe opened another card/credit product in the meantime. Depends on how clean your credit reports are and what your scores are like, too...

The way I look at the CUs is that you can build potentially lifetime business relationships with them...not so with most of the "bad credit OK" companies.