ComplaintsforSalal Credit Union

• Initial Complaint

  03/19/2024

  Complaint Type:

  Customer Service Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I notified Salal of my mothers death in Jan 2024. I am the executor to her estate. I closed accounts she had with Salal at that time. She had a ****** HELOC loan with Salal. I was told by the Bellevue branch staff that the loan department would contact me about my moms HELOC loan. When I spoke with the branch 2 weeks later and said, no one had contact me, I was reassured that their service recovery or loan team had been notified of her death and they would contact me. The service recovery team called me 6 weeks AFTER I notified Salal of her death. Now I have requested a 10 day pay off amount. I discovered that salal was charging me over $900 in late fees and interest for the time which I waited for their team to contact me. They waited 6 weeks while they made money (interest and late fees) off my dead mother. That goes against their fiduciary responsibilities and into the realm of predatory lending practices.

  Business response

  04/11/2024

  Please see response to member attached. Reimbursement check will be sent separately. 

• Initial Complaint

  01/02/2024

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  Salal credit union would send you deceiving statement with different due date to trick you into paying late. This was what they did to me, sending me statement with date later than my no interest due date. Naturally I went with the statement date instead of checking the contract, since I thought it would be the same. Now they refused to undo the interest that was levied on my account. Basically scammed me of my money.The statement I received has 1/12/2024 as due date with no mention of 12/11/2023 as the date that I need to pay off the loan to avoid interest. In the statement, the box where the loan is show it's being zero percent interest rate. It's very convincing that 1/12/2024 was the due date before interest rate kicks in. The statement comes after the contract, and the deferred loan was a year, so I naturally think 1/12/2024 was the date I need to pay off the loan before interest rate kicks in. This is an intentional tactic to gain interest payments, Salal CU could easily put a statement there to remind their customers of the date paid to avoid interests.

  Business response

  01/09/2024

  Dear Mr. ******************* you for the feedback you provided on January 2, **** regarding the confusion around when interest began accruing on your on Deferred Loan. You state your December 2023 Letter reflected ****% interest rate with your payment due on 1/12/****. When you applied a payment to your loan on 12/28/2023 interest had already accrued on your loan.

  
  We understand that there can be confusion on when interest begins for deferred loans, this is why Salal tries to inform members multiple times before interest begins accruing on your deferred loan. On the Retail Installment Contract, it specifies the deferment period ends 12 Months after singing the Completion Certificate. In the Welcome Letter that was sent to you at closing specified that in order to avoid interest you must fully pay your loan by 12/11/2023. For your reference I have enclosed a copy of these documents for your review.

  
  Thank you again for contacting us and helping us to improve our processes, we will take your feedback into consideration. Please contact me directly at the information below, should you have additional questions, or if I can be of assistance to you. Please know we value your membership and appreciate your feedback.

  
  ***************************
  Senior Consumer Lending Manager
  ************
  **********************************

  Customer response

  01/10/2024

   
  Complaint: 21087908
  
  I am rejecting this response because:

  The confusion can be mitigated very easily by simply putting in every statement letter the date when payment needs to be made to avoid interests.  I have seen this with many banks and it was very helpful.  This is a very easy change.  The confusion came from the fact that the last item I received from Sala CU was one of these "statement" and that does NOT have this important date anywhere, instead I was mislead to believe to another date with 0% written everywhere around it, completing this confusion/illusion that ultimately lead me to missed the date, costing me undue and unfair fee.

  I like to see Salal CU put this "avoid interests by" date in every of their statement going forward to prevent further customers confusion. If Salal is honest at serving in the best interests of their customers, is is a very easy change and is a no ******** decision.
  
  Sincerely,
  
  **** Le

• Initial Complaint

  07/11/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  Salal gives out home loans for solar. After paying off 20% of the loan you can re-amortize the payments to be lower. IF you maintain your current payments which are OVER what the monthly bill is, nothing goes to principal. It is 100% extra finance charge. This is theft. I have bought cars, a home, HVAC with loans and have never had anything work like this. Even EIDL Covid loans are not like this. By overpaying these people on your monthly bill you are literally just paying more interest for no reason. You cannot set up a recurring payment without FILLING OUT A FORM and resubmitting it. You cannot see existing "loan payments" in their system that were not made automatically from your account. You cannot set up recurring payments to include any amount of principal. The woman on the phone just kept telling me it was autocalculated. I asked her I changed my monthly payment to $500 instead of $124 if the extra $376 dollars would be finance charges and she can't answer the question. Specifically charged exactly over the amount due monthly in finance charges and NOTHING more going to principal. This is stealing and anyone paying salal more than what's required for their monthly minimum should be figuring out a lawsuit. You can't even get digital statements online. The whole thing is designed for you to not have any idea what's being charged and they only send you quarterly documents in the mail. No loan I've ever had has worked this way, ever. They are stealing your money.

  Business response

  07/17/2023

  Please see attached complaint response. Thank you. 

• Initial Complaint

  05/30/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I requested a payment account to be removed and it was not. I unexpectedly got charged to two separate accounts. I wanted to update to my autopay to a different bank account and I expected that once I did that to no longer be charged to the old account. To my surprise, I had the monthly bill be charged to both accounts. I wanted to remove the old account but was directed to print off a form, wet sign it, and mail it back in. Of all of the companies I have ever paid a bill to, I have never had to do a wet sign to update a payment method. I easily updated my payment method for every other bill with zero issues. Printing and mailing a form was not a feasible option for me so Salal mailed the forms which I promptly completed and emailed to the email address given to me. I never heard anything back from Salal and ended up being charged to one of the accounts but not both despite requesting all accounts be removed. I want all automatic payments ceased and I want the extra payment from my old account returned.

  Business response

  06/08/2023

  Good morning,

  Please see attached letter for the ******** complaint.

   

  Thank you.

• Initial Complaint

  06/27/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I has requested a payment for six months in advance which the SALAL processed on May 30th. The SALAL took my payment along with card information and processed my payment. However, company policy that the employee was not aware of is that the company only allows three months in advance instead of six. So no payment was processed and I was hit with a late fee and my credit report was affected. When I called SALAL to complain, they at first said they would remove this from my credit report, on 6/22. Now they are saying they will not even after it was their employee misunderstanding about their own policy.

  Business response

  07/05/2022

  Dear member,

  
  This letter is in response to your complaint filed with the Better Business Bureau, who notified Salal on 6/27/22, You shared concerns regarding information you received over the phone while making your loan payment and subsequent credit reporting.
  
  Summary:  You stated that you called Salal Credit Union on 5/30/2022 to make the payments on your loan for the rest of the year.  This call was processed through our overflow/after hours vendor, with the payment instructions and payment   You received incomplete information about your loan payment and as a result your loan payment was not processed and a negative remark was left on your credit for being 30 days past due.
  
  Salal Credit Unions Procedure: Dealer Direct loan payments can only be advanced up to 90 days from the current due date.  Due to this due date advance policy the payment was not processed. Salal called to advise you of this on 5/31/22 and left a message that this payment had not been processed.
  
  Resolution:  Salal Credit Union has sent an update to the credit reporting agencies to have the 30-day late remark removed and replaced to show as paid.  This will reflect after the first week of July when we send our updates.  We have also sent information to our overflow/after hours vendor to provide coaching to ensure complete and accurate information is provided at the time of the call.
  
  We apologize for this miscommunication. We pride ourselves on providing excellent member service and we understand in this instance we did not meet the expectation. We appreciate you giving us the opportunity to work with you to make things right and thank you for your membership with Salal. Should you need further assistance, please feel free to contact me directly at ************ or **********************************

*Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business. ↩