Big Valley Federal Credit Union

EDIT — - We moved all of our accounts from this bank, including the childrens’ and have been banking someplace else for almost a year with no security breaches. Not one. Meanwhile, someone I know who still has an account here has been hacked TWICE in the past eight months! They’re still blaming «the merger». Frankly, I am convinced it is their «security» team because it all sounds like an inside job.
Begin original review: When I was 18, I worked up the street from this bank. It used to be Safeway Employees Credit Union, and my dad worked for Safeway, so when I got my first check, he took me to the bank, and helped me open an account. It used to be great. Now, it isn’t.
One advantage of banking with a credit union is the lack of service fees. I like that. Banking is cheap with a credit union. It’s one reason I’ve stayed here for such a long time. My children have savings and checking accounts here.
The problem is that for the past few years, my accounts have been hacked quite a bit. It seems like we get hacked two or three times per year. The issues always get resolved, however, I feel as if their monitoring team doesn’t have my back. Sometimes they call to let us know, sometimes not.
A few weeks ago, my husband’s VISA debit card was compromised, so they issued a new one. Immediately after that, they called to let me know my card was hacked again, only it was for a card that they deactivated in 2014! I’m glad they let me know an ancient card was used and that nothing went through.
The problem is they will deny our legitimate purchases. If I take my child to Laguna’s Awesome Party Palace, which has a mere $ 7 admission fee, they will deny it because it looks «suspicious». This past Friday I could not buy $ 25 worth of pizzas from a local pizza place.
When I sat down to do the weekly bills on Saturday, I noticed our account had been hacked. Are you following me? I could not buy pizza on Friday, but on Saturday morning three VERY large cash transactions were allowed to go through. In Las Vegas. A place I have never visited. The transactions had actually taken place a few days prior to Saturday.
There were no phone calls to let me know my account had been compromised again. I discovered it on my own. When I called the monitoring company, they said, «Oh. Yep! Yeah, there are the transactions right there,» as if they had no idea! This makes me suspicious of the monitoring company. Are THEY the ones hacking my account?
When I asked how long it would take to get my money back into my account, I was told «We don’t help with that, we are just the monitoring company.» I said, «You are? Really? The bank pays you to do this, and this happened on your watch? Who has my back? How did you allow this to happen?»
Big Valley has merged with some US credit union, and maybe the security will be better, but we are not sticking around to find out. We are done with the lack of security on our accounts. We are moving our money someplace else this week.