Santa Cruz Community Credit Union in Santa Cruz, California

I support Santa Cruz Community Credit Union for their commitment to the community, not the level of convenience that is associated with the big guys. Sometimes it is frustrating not having access to a teller when I am out of town, or not having mobile check deposits, but that is the cost of doing business locally!

I have been with this bank for over 5 years and in that time I’ve been a victim of fraud about 6 times. This bank still doesn’t use chips and I think that is why. I’m all for supporting local business and credit unions are the preferred banking choice but this is ridiculous. On top of that none of the clerks are very helpful and I would go so far as to call them rude.

Firstly, is the bank slower and have fewer hours of availability? Yes, if you want a large bank that will not know your name and who you are their are plenty of those institutions. I have been a member for many years. I have had a few days where expanded hours would have been great. However, life and death situations can be handled with an emergency credit card that is ONLY used for such times. The flexibility (loans, savings, business start up) and help(personal understanding) this Credit Union offers is far worth the lesser hours of available open business times. In my experience, a day or two longer for loan processing and such will occur. However, few banks offer used car loans. As with most credit unions they offer MANY free services that even I do not take advantage of. They are well worth looking into if you are sick of the fees upon fees of the Big 3.

Not there for you if they are almost off the clock. Won’t call you back. Hard to deal with while trying to start a business.

Some fees are less here than at huge corporate banks, so they get two starsinstead of one. Ten years ago, this was a welcoming community banking establishment with well trained long term staff and policies reasonable for the setting. Now, this is a nicely decorated warehouse with untrained staff, rude and unhelpful management, laughably behind technology, and less access to one's own funds than anywhere else. Decide for yourself if the stuff below is worth your time. Here I have experienced: getting checks with the wrong account or routing numbers (multiple times); never receiving a new debit card after the expiry of previous card, even when asking for a temporary card in person; a completely botched attempt at changing my last name on my bank paperwork to match my new legal last name; the ATMs refusing cash deposits regularly; the ATMs doling out less cash than promised but alleging I got it all, though the cameras would show that I did not; being unable to use the bank's parking lots to go in or use the ATM because they rent out the spaces as $10-20 spots during minor league sports games; check deposits taking 7-10 days to be available funds; the really poor website doesn't have transactions from the last 1-3 days, so you could have your account fraudulently drained and not know until it's too late; daily spending limits arbitrarily assigned, so that a $5 transaction may end in embarrassment when it's declined, because your bills got paid that day (though you won't know it until a day or so has passed); being double charged fraudulently and SCCCU never crediting that $3,000 back to my account; many more problems over the years.