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May 2022 by SideShow B.
Absolutely terrible with no recourse. I submitted my flood insurance and they must "not have received it," so purchased flood insurance on my behalf. The letter from Pen Fed informing me had their customer service phone number, but I was unable to reach a person. Their official site Contact Us only has that same number and a street address listed. I'm done with any business that doesn't respect me as a person. If you won't let me talk to you, I won't give you any more money.
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April 2022 by D B.
Absolutely the worst banking experience of my life. Over a period of 6 weeks I attempted to open a CD with them. Long phone holds, ridiculously ill-informed customer "service" agents, and a ream of forms to download, print, and send. Finally, all were completed, sent in with a letter of instruction and a check, and the wait began. Over a period of 4 weeks, I checked the online banking site daily, waiting for the account to fund. I placed many calls, sometimes giving up in despair over the long hold times. When reached, the agents asked the same questions over and over, and couldn't seem to comprehend the situation. All my paperwork (and check) were claimed to have not been received. In the meantime, their bots demanded that I release my credit freeze (placed for my protection from hacking) so they could check my credit - so I could deposit money with them!! So I released it, and then had to re-place it. Still, no money in my account. More calls by me. Customer service reps "promised" and "swore" they would look into it an call me back. NONE of them ever did. Finally, after a month, and still no action taken on my account, I placed a stop payment on my check (cost me $31) due to fears that my check was lost/stolen. Days later, I got a curt note from PENFED that my account had not been funded due to the stop payment! No explanation as to what had happened to all my paperwork and the check during the exceedingly long delay time during which they claimed never to have received anything from me! Many, many lost hours of my time and severe anxiety and frustration over the whole ridiculous affair. In the meantime, I found First Internet Bank of Indiana. Almost the same interest rate. Took me less than 10 minutes to open the account. Real people answer the phone, and their website is easy and seamless. No forms to download, no credit check, no problem. I asked them to let me know if the check didn't arrive in a few days. They instantly replied and told me they had flagged the account and would watch for the check. In all, I have spent less than an hour to open the same type account with virtually the same interest rate, with real, actual, competent, account representatives who know what they are doing. They made me smile! AVOID PENFED if you value your emotional state and mental health.
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March 2022 by Marycarmen A.
Stay away from this bank , terrible a pure nightmare to access our HELOC money ! Lack of communication, and la k of professionalism. They will keep your money the longer they can and change you fee when you're trying to transfer to a PenFed account. Nothing was explained and they question you why you are transfer o getting money out , that belongs to you ! Stay away .
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February 2021 by Robert P.
Absurdly poor service. Only the drive thru is open, and it's 20 minutes between drive thru customers. Not an exaggeration. The only way I'm spending the time now while waiting, is writing this very well earned review on a Wednesday afternoon.
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February 2021 by King T.
I got a mortgage with these folks over ten years ago. I had automated payments, but they still managed to periodically screw it up. Now I've paid off my mortgage two months ago and I am still getting notices from them and alerts to the credit rating agencies. As others have said, RUN, do not walk, away from this place!! Navy Fed has better rates anyway. Write your congressman and tell them to end the tax free status of these credit unions.
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February 2021 by Christi C.
I need to change my bank ...you can't get anyone to help you...tellers are down and won't take deposits...says come back when drive thru is open...they shut their lobby down due to Covid...seems no one wants to work there and drive thru hours are not helpful for a busy person like me...every time I tried to go the line of cars wrapped around building...we are customers please open your lobby and please take deposits after hours thru teller machine I am beyond frustrated
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August 2020 by Frances S.
Terrible customer service. When you call the service center - it is obvious that reps are not trained. And when they give obviously wrong answers or just say they don't know - and you ask to be transferred to a supervisor, the answer is NO. They are not allowed to do that. Or if the rep has a thick accent and you cannot understand them, they will also refuse to transfer you to another agent. When I finally got through to a Senior Analyst (after calling the Chairman's office), I was told that my inability to understand a thick accent is an insult to their staff and a sign of discrimination. I am not good at other languages and I also am tone deaf...so trying to understand someone with a thick Spanish, French or Hindi accent is impossible for me. Per PFCU, though, my inability to understand thick accents is a sign that I am essentially a bigot. While the senior analyst did admit that the multiple errors in my account were indeed the fault of PFCU staff (who also were poorly trained just like the reps) - she ended the conversation by saying it was an insult for me to have assumed their customer service was offshore just because all the reps I spoke to had thick accents, and since they did not have a good command of the English language - they did not understand the issues at hand. Why I am the problem when it is PFCU who hired customer reps who could not easily communicate in the language virtually all there customers speak? PFCU is to be commended for hiring non-native English speakers but PFCU owes it to these hires to offer ESL classes and once their English skills improve, then provide adequate training for the position. It should also be noted that the third rep we spoke with (the only one who spoke without a heavy accent) - refused to help us as he told my husband that he was from a country near India, and he took PERSONAL insult at our inability to understand a thick Hindi accent. He actually hung up. And when the senior staff member called me (after I reported the situation to the Chairman's office), she defended him - saying it was okay to hang up and not service us since we insulted him by saying we could not understand the prior 2 reps. Apparently we are bigots because we pointed out communication problems. As a hard core liberal (who leans left more than 99% of people) we welcome all to our country and stand firmly behind immigration; in fact, we have picketed in support of immigration. So for PFCU to twist a reported communication problem into being a bigot is unforgivable.
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July 2020 by Choosy C.
RUN RUN RUN. I used them years ago for a credit card. They have charged me fraudulently, told me it was a mistake they corrected, then filed reports with all three credit bureaus fraudulently stating that I had a delinquent account. Trying to contact them to fix it is next to impossible and calling them at any number gets you robots, musak, robots, commercials, robots, more commercials, robots, and NO HUMANS TO HELP WHATSOEVER. Sad that a credit union can be this bad.
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December 2019 by Emma M.
Confirming what others have stated, this bank is a nightmare to deal with. I ended up with them after my other credit union was taken over by them. Here are just some of the issues I've encountered: - Messed up a wire transfer for a home closing - Made an error that had a hard inquiry in my credit account for no reason - Rude customer service My husband is a veteran and I thought they were an organization that prioritized veterans and their families but it is clear they are not. Very disappointed.
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August 2019 by Felicia S.
I agree with some of the customers. Once any fraudulent charges are noticed and your debit/credit card gets closed, you have to wait about ONE week for your new card which is inconvenient. Before Belvoir Credit Union was bought by penfed, they used to be able to issue a card on the spot. I am very frustrated because I will be out of town in a few days and still waiting to receive my new one. I am thinking about close my account.
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August 2019 by Wally S.
Pentagon Federal Credit Union was a really good credit union. Over the past several years they have expanded by buying up other credit unions. So now they are really big, but as a consequence their service has suffered. I have been with them since 2002 and they have many good features but overall they have very unreliable service. If someone bounces a check that you deposit, they may or may not block your ability to deposit checks on the phone app. This is a problem for a bank with few locations that are not in a secured military base. You can't reliably deposit checks by ATM since the machines are prone to destroy the check. Their phone app, while mostly effective, is a generation or two behind other banks as is their website. The check deposit app is unreliable. The website does not have two factor authentication. On the plus side they tend to pay high rates on CDs and their online savings account, though burdened with many restrictions, pays a very high rate. I was actually able to run a manual "zero based account" using my credit line and their online savings so that my net interest rate was negative, i.e. I made money on my working cash. This makes it so tough to change banks. BofA and its cohorts have mastered how to extract fees. But I bet their service is good. PFCU? A good product, but their service is unreliable...which means it will fail you when you need it to work the most. For example, I had a bunch of payments scheduled, but all of the sudden I could no longer deposit checks remotely--because someone bounced a check to me in the prior two weeks. Their stated policy is that they will charge fees if you deposit a bad check but not that they will cut off your ability to deposit checks. They cut off my remote check depositing service while I was overseas without warning. In summary this is a decent bank if all you do is auto-deposit your paycheck into the account and use their online savings account and they finally got a decent bill pay service...if you qualify. Their mortgages are not a good deal and their underwriting is really conservative. Combined with their bad service, I regret ever getting started with this bank.
