First Northern Credit Union — Local services in Chicago

I refinanced my vehicle in ‘21 w FNCU and tbh I had a good loan officer Syria so I was pretty much satisfied w every bit of service she offered and sold me. Since then I’ve never had any issue with this bank, my payments have always been timely, motor insurance in check. Fast forward to October ‘24 I noticed an adjustment of $2,070 added to my balance. I reached out to them and I was told they had tried to send me several mails so they were forced to purchase insurance on my behalf because my insurance was cancelled in August, I said no, I’ve insurance so I reached out to my insurance company and found out that my insurance was indeed cancelled because the credit card they had on file had expired and was unable to be charged. I repurchased a new policy immediately and reached out back to FNCU making them aware of the situation and why my insurance was cancelled, I also told them the reason they were unable to reach me is because my job required me to travel a-lot (Travel RN) and I moved homes so I must have missed their mails. Tell me why these greedy people issued me a refund of $1,214 and charged me $856 for not having insurance for 2 months, (bear in mind this vehicle is in amazing condition) and had the nerve to tell me they could reverse the remainder if I provided proof for the period of August to October, which means they could actually issue a full refund of the total $2,070 but chose not to. I requested to speak to someone by the name Chris Durkin and a Kathy Waner and they both with so much sarcasm in their responses said there was nothing they could do to assist. They offered me the option to paying the $856 in a lump sum, a 12 month equal pay or extending my loan term. I laughed in my mind saying to myself do these greedy bunch think I’ll watch you rob me of $856, past interest made of thousands of dollars, then let you extend my maturity to even make more money off me, you must think you’re speaking to an illiterate or think every black person in America is broke and foolish. I requested to pay off the loan, because what rubbish? I could’ve paid this loan off a long time ago but like I said earlier I was pleased, had no inconveniences at all, didn’t even mind purchasing a new vehicle with them, so I didn’t mind running the account. Now this was the height of their foolery, I purchased GAP for the period of my loan term (valid till Nov ‘27), I reach out back to them, I’ve scheduled for this loan to be paid off and since I had GAP in place, what’s going to happen to the unused portion of my GAP insurance, these thieves had the never again to tell me I didn’t qualify for a refund because I didn’t cancel in the first 90 days! I said what? Why would I cancel something I was still using and needed in place? Why is your policy different from all others on the market? You can’t refund me for something unused but had the nerve to charge me for a period I didn’t have insurance and no mishap was recorded on this vehicle? See the pattern here? Pls if any one intends to purchase a loan policy from this company, please be careful! I thought to come on here to share my experience so no one else falls a victim of...

This review applies to my interaction with First Northern in general, not to any specific branch. I am rating one star due to a recent negative experience. I had just paid off my auto loan called to requested the vehicle title. I spoke with Patty V of the lending department, who had a bad attitude. She checked the records and told me that the title would be put in the mail the next day.

Two weeks later, I still hadn't received the title, so I called back for a status update. I was told that there was a stack of titles that needed to go out and that it would be sent out by the end of the week. Another week passes and I still didn't receive the title, and I was moving to a new apartment as my lease was up. I call back again, and now I'm told that the title had been sent out on the day that I had called to request the title in the first place! They tried to blame it on the fact that I had changed my address in the online system, but I hadn't done so until 2 weeks after the date that they claim to have sent it. I looked up the cost to obtain a replacement from the Illinois Secretary of State, and it is $95. The representative refused to do anything to mitigate the cost, despite this being 100% their screw-up. I asked them whether they would consider using some sort of mail with tracking for sending out such important documents with some sort of tracking. The response "the Secretary of State sends them out in the regular mail too." That should be all that you need to know about the state of customer service at First Northern. I will be sure to take my business elsewhere for my future banking needs. Think twice about dealing with people who lose vehicle titles and refuse to even apologize to customers...

This place is something else. never have I been so insulted and treated with such horrible customer service in my entire life and I only have just refinanced my auto loan with this place a week ago their website is so backwards and confusing that it’s hard to figure out where you can properly make a payment plus they force a savings account onto you so when you start asking questions about it ( being a new member and all ) you either get short answers or condescending ones. My account rep. Took an entire day to figure out that I was sending my auto payment information to the wrong fax number and when she finally set it up she didn’t email me back to let me know it was complete and I was all set. I had to ask her twice on the following day to finally get a “yes” from her and when I said something against her customer service skills she threw me this snotty attitude. I hate RATE GENIUS for refinancing me to this company I may have been paying higher rates on my original loan but at least I didn’t have to go through the stress and bs this place is already...