Dumb & Dumber: Credit union treats member like small change

Due to a lack of timely intervention at the Okemos Branch, the MSU Federal Credit Union (Lansing) experienced a casualty Saturday. Joyce Banish, the credit union's vice president of university and community public relations, acknowledged Monday that "better judgment" would have been the proper treatment.

Kimberly Schulz, a member of the credit union, waits tables. Some of her tips come in the form of change. It's her habit to take the change to the credit union once a week or so, drop it in the coin counter, get a receipt, then deposit the total in her account.

Schulz walked into the branch Saturday and discovered that the machine was out of service. So she informed a woman at the front desk that she wished to deposit the money - all $15 dollar's worth - directly into her savings account. The woman told her that wouldn't be possible. In an e-mail to me Schulz described the encounter this way:

"I asked why and she said she had no way of counting it ... I showed her the small amount of change I had, but she said (the credit union) wouldn't take it."

Let me reiterate some key facts here: Schulz is a MEMBER. She was trying to DEPOSIT the money. The credit union's change counter was NONFUNCTIONAL. Schulz's change TOTALLED $15 (and, by the way, was mainly in quarters).

Schulz approached a teller and offered to arrange the change into one-dollar stacks. And no one, she said, was waiting in line behind her. But the teller refused to accept the money.

In her e-mail Schulz wrote: "I was flabbergasted. I understand their policy to normally not take (uncounted) change, since they have a change-counting machine right in their office. But when the machine is not working, you would think Customer Service 101 would kick in ..."
Exactly.

Responding my inquiry, Banish said the branch takes in a lot of change and that, with the coin machine down, the "no change" policy was aimed primarily at people with large bags of uncounted change.

Stopping to count it, she pointed out, could cause service delays for other customers.
Banish also said Schulz could have used a change counter at another branch.

But she conceded, in the end that "better judgement would have been to count (Schulz's change)."

Don't let this happen in your credit union.