I am a member of Air Academy Federal Credit Union (not for long now) whom I have already had two car loans in the past (only one currently). A couple of weeks ago I contacted the credit union to get pre-approval to buy a 2005 Audi A4. I was informed that I was pre-approved for $23,000 at 5.49%. It took me two weeks to finally find the right car and get a fair price for my trade in. Every time I was at a dealership they wanted to pull my credit report to offer me financing, I would always tell them "no" since my credit union has pre-approved me for my loan.
After finding the right car and writing up the bill of sale with the dealership I sent the credit union the information on the car I purchased. Later that afternoon I received a call that my loan was "upside down' due to the value of my car. I stated to them that this was absolutely impossible, I had personally viewed the NADA index for this exact make and model that included all the FACTORY INSTALLED extras that this car has (note there are NO after market components on this car).
Basically the credit union was using the base value amount that NADA provides with out taking into consideration all the factory installed components my car actually has. They stood by their original figure of $16,000 when NADA clearly has my car valued at over $23,000. What's even more screwed up is that it is my understanding that Audi generally does not even manufacture the base model that they are using for their $16,000 valuation. (this would be a car with no radio, hub capped wheels and cloth seats)
These guys are wrong on so many levels I can't even begin to you, I purchased two cars using this credit union and at no time have they ever used a base NADA figure when determining my loan. Personally I feel their auto lending practices are discriminatory. How and why they are discriminating me is yet to be determined, but mark my words, I will find out.
To justify my cause even further, on AAFCU.com they have a page that gives you NADA figures. On their OWN WEBSITE IT LISTS MY CAR VALUED at $20,000 that is still not the full value as it only allowed 7 options when my car has approximately 10 factory installed bringing the total to over $23,000. This is clear justification that the $16,000 base valuation is absolutely incorrect.
In order for me to obtain the car, I ended up paying a much higher percentage rate, all due to the credit union using absolutely incorrect valuation for my car. I'm going to refinance the car I have currently financed through them, and remove every penny I have in this credit union and absolutely never, ever use them again. I live in an area that has several credit unions, and in fact the final loan I obtained was from another local credit union here in town.
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