I too have had difficulty with USA Federal Credit Union. This happened a few years ago and I am no longer a member.
I was a federal employee and had a checking account with USAFCU. I had direct deposit, and for the past 6 years my checks were deposited every two weeks. Well it was three days after my first pay day in December (in the year in question). I stopped at an ATM on my way to work to withdraw some money, but my account balance was only a few dollars! I thought "boy those checks cleared fast!" See I had written checks the day before payday, and mailed them, knowing that the checks would clear after my money was on deposit. Seeing the low balance, I actually thought that I had made a math mistake and that the balance shown was an accurate balance after the checks cleared.
After 10 days I got a notice from the credit union of insufficient funds for a couple of the checks I had written. Boy, I thought, I really must have made a mistake in calculation.
Well the next day was payday again, and when I checked my balance at the ATM I found that I had 10 checks bounced and was assessed a 20. Fee for each check. I immediately called the credit union, and they told me that they had no record of any direct deposits for the last two paydays!
I explained that I had an account with direct deposit for 6 years, and never made any changes. They told me to contact the finance center that processes my pay and sends it to the credit union. I did that and the as usual. WHERE WAS MY MONEY? When I told the credit union that the money was sent to them as usual, they told me that they would do a search.
To make a long story short, one day before I would have been eligible to claim a penalty payment from them of 3 times the amount in question, they called me and told me the funds were there, but when received there was a some sort of mishandling and the funds were put in an "unknown account" file.
I asked them to cancel the 200 worth of bounce fees, and to credit me with 120 for the bounce fees that I had to pay 6 of the people I wrote checks to that bounced. They canceled the 200 bounce fees that they had charged me, but as far as reimbursing me for the 120. They actually contacted each of the creditors and got them to waive the 120 in charges. That was a really bad month. But I guess when We make a mistake in our accounts we have to pay the penalty fees, but when they make mistakes, they get out of it somehow.
Based on this horrible customer service, and their uncaring attitude, I canceled my account and never looked back.
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