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Educators Bank Milwaukee

Investment Banking Education / January 16, 2017

2243 N. Prospect Ave
Milwaukee, WI 53202
(414) 301-7500

Love love love Educators!! Where do I begin? It was really easy for me to open up my checking and savings account! I was working with Robin and Nick with educators. Robin helped me open up my checking and savings and in the process they gave me a print out of my credit score. They also noticed I had a car loan with a bank and asked how much in interest I was paying. Let's just say it was more than a person should be paying. They were able to refinance my car to get me not just a lower car payment but a lower interest rate! Since I did not have that much more to pay on my car I was also able to use what was left over from the loan and pay off some things in collections!! They were both such a big help and so friendly!!! I walked out of here one happy and relived person!! I honestly don't know why it took me so long to come here! The tellers are also extremely friendly and they are always willing to help you in anyway they can! All in all they took this huge bolder off my back, helped my raise my credit score and helped me the best way they could!! They are awesome! The end!

My wife and I have been members of ECU for many years. Doing business in person is a nice enough experience, however, our experience with their online offerings has left much to be desired. For example, many times you will not be able to do electronic deposits from your iPhone or Android device, especially on weekends when you're most in need of phone-based transactions. Another area of concern for us is their lack of current debit/credit card technology. Despite the fact that ECU promised to covert to chip-based cards in early 2016, it's December and they have still not made the conversion. Because more and more business and personal financial matters are conducted online and from mobile devices together with the security concerns of using non-chip cards, we can only give ECU two stars.

Do you remember how the U.S. banking industry tanked our economy with criminally irresponsible behavior, then we bailed them out with our tax money, and they recovered on the collective backs of same said tax payers by jacking up fees and rates and reducing services at the same time? Well, most Americans don't remember, and instead, are fine with scapegoating public sector union workers for our economic problems and budgetary woes. This has NOTHING to do with credit unions and small banks, who for over a century, haven't acted much differently than George Bailey in "It's a Wonderful Life." We should give them our business for being ethically grounded, financially responsible, and living in our neighborhood. It's not hard to patronize this place, they have convenient hours, friendly, competent staff, and their advisers care enough to give very solid financial advice.

If you are looking for a financial institution with little to no banking fees and competitive interest rates, then this is the right place. So what's the catch? It's, pretty much, hit or miss on whether you will be dealing with a competent employee, which should be of great concern when it comes to the handling of one's money. Unfortunately, from what I can tell, this issue goes right up through to upper management. The most recent debacle effected all members, when the launch of the new home banking website, headed up by VP Kim S., proved to be an epic fail. Rather than making a smooth transition on (for example) a Sunday night, the VP decided Monday April 15 (tax day) would be a good time to take all members accounts offline and transfer to the new site which wasn't ready. As a result, no info could be obtained and transactions could not be completed. After waiting a long time on hold, CSRs could only answer with "I don't know." Again, not what you want to hear from someone who is handling your money. The transition is now in day two and only parts of people's accounts are up and the best answer from customer service is, "I don't know." When I rated Educators I had a hard deciding between 2 or 3 stars, because it is true you can save a fair amount of money banking here and there some competent employees, but overall you really need to lower the bar on your expectations of professionalism. If you can accept "I don't know" from a financial institution then I say go for it.

ECU will serve you exceptionally well if you are a student or teacher and you live in Southeastern Wisconsin. When I moved from Milwaukee to Chicago I was forced to close my account and move on to a new bank, which has thus far been unable to live up to the high customer service bar set by Educators. Educators Credit Union can provide you with the personal attention of a small credit union yet with the resources of a large banking network. If you do open an account, make sure you get the Educators app for your phone to easily track your accountsl

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