My friend told me that he loves his credit union, since his banker does his bank reconciliation for him. That's terrific. A shout out to Mallory Thrush at Oregon First Community Credit Union for helping the guys stay on track with their bookkeeping.
My experience with a local credit union, BECU, was not so good. I wanted to buy a car with financing, so I lined up some loans. BECU came in at 4.5%, as did Key Bank, and another place came in at 5%. I chose BECU, since it was a credit union. They would only qualify the loan for 30 days, and it took me 4 months to find a car, so I had to re-qualify over and over again. I was at the auto dealers, closing the loan, only it came in at 5%. I was stunned, since weeks before I had gotten a qualifying letter stating 4.5%. BECU said my credit score had gone lower in the last couple of weeks. I think my credit score went lower because they pulled my score so many times. The .05% difference will cost me $1200 over the life of the loan.
Overall, credit unions are the better bet, since they aren't for profit. More money stays in the bank, so they can offer more and better loans. But in this one case, it didn't work out better for me.
