| Show Customer Is Always Right Except At America First CU ti- ti Weekly Whine By John Nielson Editorial Editor I was struggling with an idea for this edition of the Horizon I wanted to write about President Clinton and Bob Dole I almost decided to until I went to my credit union on the way to school I belong to America First Fast Credit Union According to all the literature that I receive from them I am a member owner of the institution Well if I am part-owner part I sure dont don't want the credit union operated the way it currently is I guess I should explain the inci inci- dent I went to the America First CU at the Harmons on South and West to cash two checks for my roommate My roommate just moved here from Ohio and has not opened an account in Salt Lake yet So I thought I would help him out and cash the checks for him He endorsed both checks to me and we got in line The tellers were moving fast so our wait in hi line was only a couple of minutes My turn arrived quickly and I stepped forward with all the courage I could muster I presented the checks to the teller and asked her to cash them or to deposit them into my account and then give me the correct amount of cash back The teller acted like I was the first fast person to ever show her a check that had been endorsed by the original recipient The teller said she would have to get the transaction approved and quickly took the checks and went into the office in the back Iwas I Iwas Iwas was getting excited that I might actually see sec my roommates roommate's cash shortly I was wrong The teller returned and said that they could not cash a check that was not directly written to toa toa toa a credit union member I asked her if this was wasa a brand new rule since I have performed this newly forbidden transaction many times before She returned to the back office and another teller came over to the counter and told me that it was actually illegal for the credit union to cash the check using funds from my account if the check was written to someone else I was amazed at this new revelation I asked her how long it has been illegal and she said it always has been I must confess then because I have been breaking the l law w since Iwas I Iwas Iwas was nine years old and my grandma wrote me checks for birthdays I learned back then how to endorse a check to my mom who in turn gave me the ten bucks in cash My whole family family family fam fam- ily could be in prison right now for these seri seri- ous offenses My original teller returned from the office a second time to tell me that they would let et me deposit the checks into my account this onetime one onetime onetime time only Wait a second I was just told that it was illegal by a highly trained professional teller for the credit union to accept these checks but now they will allow it So is America First aiding and abetting a criminal act by allowing me to deposit a check that was endorsed to me into my personal checking account that had enough funds in it to cover the amount I know its it's a run-on run sentence but it makes my point If America First Fast is making illegal exceptions for me are they allowing all their member owners this same courtesy We have already had a savings loan scandal in recent years will a credit union scandal be next My personal opinion is that the teller who told me it was illegal to accept my roommates roommate's checks has no clue about banking laws She was just making up a story that sounded good to her Yet another teller told me it was for my myown myown myown own protection that the credit union wont won't accept endorsed checks Her explanation made madea a lot more sense than its iCs illegal It seems that some tellers at America First dont don't know the difference between policy and law It is a simple difference but they must not cover that in their training I used to think that the customer was always right I was simply asking for a check to be Y r V uri 1 v II cashed through my account I I had bad enough funds in the account to cover the Complicating matters was the fact that the checks were from out of state They were from froma a county government in Ohio and the first rust teller even joked that the checks would be good but a hold had to be placed on them any any- way I have had friends in Tucson cash checks written to me from Utah through their bank accounts and it never took fifteen minutes of wrangling with the tellers for the transaction to tobe tobe tobe be completed The customer is always right at most busi busi- nesses Maybe my remember employees Im I'm America First feel supposedly an owner owner at at that because I am an owner I dont don't need to be treated the same way a customer does docs I hope that is not the way tellers get trained but it sure seemed that way Being told my request was illegal is just asi asi- asi- asi nine Im I'm definitely not Albert Einstein but I have enough intelligence somewhere within me to realize when I am getting lied to by a creative teller I didn't have time to research banking laws but I spoke with a friend that is a teller at another bank She told me she had never heard of a law that made endorsing a check illegal I thought America First Fast Credit Union was a better institution than some of their competitors I guess I was wrong |
