Sandia Area Federal Credit Union — Local services in Albuquerque

Wow, Omar: amazingly bad first impression. I needed to open a business account for a new business, and chose to bring my business to this bank because I recently got a good rate on an auto loan through them. I regretted it, and have chosen to take my business to a more professional organization, Nusenda, and here is why. Before I drove over there, I looked on the website for Sandia Area to figure out what I would need to open an account. The website says just call or show up to find out what you need. I called and got my business documents together. When I arrived, I was ignored by the receptionist who was playing on her phone for a few minutes until I greeted her, and introduced myself. Without looking up she asked what I needed and she had me sit down to wait for an appointment with someone about a business account. Here comes Omar. Yells my name from the office door into the lobby (I was the only person in the lobby), and turns away to go back to his desk assuming I would follow him. No greeting, no handshake, did not introduce himself. General attitude of an apathetic teenager, which is a theme I was starting to detect after my experience with the receptionist. We sit at his desk and he stares at his computer while starting to ask some questions until I interrupted him and asked for his name. Great, we have now completed introductions. He gets started on opening the account, and I come to learn that this bank requires hard copy documents to start an account. Great, I have them digitally, I'll just send them to you and you can make your own hard copies, I offered. Nope, this bank can't receive documents and won't print for you. Well that would have been a great thing to let me know in advance so I could bring everything I need to start the account. I let Omar know that I could have brought hard copies if the website or someone on the phone would have let me know, and he responds that yeah, we've tried to get marketing to do that for a while, but it hasn't happened. So they know about the problem but can't perform simple communication through the organization to get it fixed. He gave me an appointment for the next day so I could go home and get the printed documents for him. In the first 30 minutes of interacting with this branch, I have learned that Sandia Area FCU condones an attitude of disinterested apathy in their staff, they have an amazing inability to communicate between departments to solve simple problems, can't carry out simple tasks like receiving or printing digital documents from customers, knowingly avoid listing requirements on their website at the expense of their customers' time and effort, and pay little attention to creating a positive or professional customer experience in general. Having researched online, driven to the branch, and generally gone out of my way to bring them my business with zero effort input on their part, I find that they do nothing but make it even harder for me to do business with them when I get there. No thanks. I'll bring my business to another organization that doesn't make it harder for me to give them my hard earned money. I spoke to someone at Nusenda this morning who told me exactly what I need to bring and gave me a same day appointment in just a few hours. Amazingly bad, Sandia Area FCU, I hope I save someone the trouble of struggling to do...

I'm glad I'm not the only one with this experience it seems. Please read! I started out w/ a good experience here. I overdrafted my account in 2013 and BY ALL MEANS I ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR IT. (This is not a story about how I'm mad at this bank because of something I did, it's a cautionary tale to people.) The only thing is while they have been reporting 471$ Overdraft charge off to the credit reporters, they have secretly been adding fees on to their charge off. So 471$ and four years later I now owe 1,359$ I had no clue about this. I genuinely thought I only owed the 471$. Imagine the shock when I went to pay it off in full today. I have received calls "you owe xxx amount, do you want to pay it off", or your "credit card with us has been closed due to unsatisfactory payments". But not once did I receive a notice that if I don't pay it off, I will owe 800+$ in fees. More then half of what I owe and what they haven't been reporting I owe in fees. Be careful with this bank, the "collections officers" they call them, who call you are really short tempered. I had their lady call me twice in 2013 and just because I didn't know what I wanted to pay as a min back to them and wanted to call back, she got really mad and that's when I got charged off. At first she kept pressuring me to pay the entire balance off, and at the time I told her I was out of work and was still like 23 years old, and going to school full time. So when I told her I can't pay the entire balance off, that's when she became even madder it seems. More communication could have been attempted on their end or they could of sent me notices like I said above "if you don't pay xxx amount off, we will be adding fees onto your account over time" I mean every good credit card I have at least sends you some kind of terms. But not this bank. They just silently let you accumulate fees over time. I just want my tale to be a cationary one to people who are currently Banking here. Like I said I take full responsibility for all of this because after all it is my fault. I just don't feel it's right I have went all this time thinking I owe this amount and not have been warned that I will owe fees if I don't pay. I mean I'm graduated school and have an excellent job so I'm paying all fees and my balance off tomorrow. Just be careful with this bank when you over draft...

This branch is horrible. Do not use them!! They are lazy and unprofessional, they don’t return phone calls or emails. You need to pressure them several times a day to even speak to someone. …Johanna. After weeks of horrible customer service I then went to the branch manager Martianna. That must be where they learn their work ethic of not returning calls. I left her several messages to call me daily! I called the main company to get her direct extension and finally I got a hold of her. We were applying for a secured loan with huge collateral and a six figure income. We couldn’t get any answers and then finally after making them mad they said we still didn’t make enough money. What a joke. We then went to Wells Fargo and got approved for $20,000 cash signature loan and we didn’t even have an account with them at the time We have been members of Sandia Area for quite some time and have had nothing but great experiences until this experience with this particular branch and it’s team. We weren’t going to mention this experience but the management at Sandia Area needs to hear it. I...