Contents
The Offer
- American 1 Credit Union is offering a 6.00% APY rate on a 12-month CD. Minimum $1,000 to open.
Seems like this is available nationwide. There is a hard pull to join the credit union and there is a $3-$8 cost.
Our Verdict
This is a new rate leader from High Yield Savings Accounts & CDs. Feel free to share your experiences with this credit union in the comments below.
According to reader Looney Tunes, per customer service: “In order to become a member, you will need to fill out an application and undergo a hard credit pull (verification). You must be a United States resident with a valid Social Security Number and Government-issued photo ID. There is a start-up cost of eight dollars. $3.00 is for the Co-Op membership fee, and $5 will be deposited into your savings account to keep the membership open.”
They gave me 5 days to make the deposit after opening the account. Told me to wire, yea no thanks. Lost the $3 to join. The rate difference for me wasn’t worth the trouble.
Not anymore!
https://www.american1cu.org/savings-rates
Bummer. No more 6% offering for any term. 4.75 for 5 years seems pretty good though.
Early withdrawal penalty is any dividends earned over the normal .5% in addition to the last 90 days paid dividends.
Can anyone join this credit union?
anyone can join
Does it allow CC funding?
No, there isn’t any CC funding
anyone apply yet ? let us know how it went.
I applied 4 September. Incredibly intrusive appication form.
On 5 September I received an mail response saying they were swamped ith application (yeah, 6% APY will do that) and that there will be a delay.
Tail end of that E mail said they needed more data and wante dme to use a click on chart to pick a one hour window for them to call me to provide additional data orally over phone. I picked 4:00 PM to 5: PM, and that was about 1:oo PM Pacific time on 5 September.
No indication on the “clck an hour form” as to whether they were using Pacific time or Eastern time (Michigan is Eastern time IIRC) .. Refardless, today 9 September, will be the fifth of the one hour windows diring which they would have called me.
I’m getting a tad suspicious and doubtful.
Update Sept 8 2023 10:50 AM comment
I dug out the contact data from my E file and called the 800 number about 12:30 PM Pacific time on 08 Sept 23.
Reached a general “help” number with a pretty standard telephone tree. Drilled down until I reached the appropriate level for help with accounts. Reached a phone que with what was announced as being the 33rd person in thwque, and about an hour wait. Wsa offered a “call back from the bank” option with a promise of not losing place i line and took the option.
About 45 minutes later received a call back from a customer support lady who gave her name as”Amber”.
I lucked ot, best customer support experience I have ever had, and being 76 yoa I have had a lot of customer service experiences, and far too many have not been fun.
Long story short, bank was swamped. and customer support readily admitted after about a 7 minute search on their computers, customer support lady said this was no good and that she wuld get it fixed by redoing the applicaton over the phone. Asked all the questions on the application again, and she typed out the form, and did the “extra information” questions as well which consisted of five multiple choice questions from a credit report, where I was to say if one on the list was the “correct” answer, without telling her what the “correct” answer was. Idea was to confirm from stuff on the report that I was actually me by asking things that only I, but not some imposter, would know. Things like : Here is a list of five banks, 1,2,3,4, and 5. Have you ever had an account at any of these? but not asking which one. Or here is a list of five street names, have you ever resided on one. Similarly structured questions, each a list of 5 possible answers from a question about a data piece in a credit report and asing if there was one in the list which was correct, without asking what the correct one was.
Anyway, long story short, f that was the hard pull test, I apparently passed it.”Amber: said because she was in Michigan in the eastern time zone and it was almost closing time, while I was in the Pacific zone, three hours earlier, it was not likely that the opening package would go out until Monday.
So, I am less suspicious and doubtful.
And also very closely watching both my E mail in box and my mailbox.
Last update, everything came through on Monday the 11th, and CD is open and earning.
There was one wrinkle on Monday, though. Usually I use ACH transfers to fund these things. This Cs U’CD terms required funding within 5 days of account opening. My experience with setting up ACH transfers is that the setup and first “real” transfer completion takes 6 business days, Three days for the initial “micro deposits to go from my “hub” bank to the new acct. at new bank; then an
additional day for the “validation” to clear my hub bank, and only then can the “real” CH transfer be made. And that “real” transfer itself usually takes 2 days, That would have put me outside the 5 day window with Amer1can CU.
So I used a real Wire transfer. That left my hub bank at 2:53 PM Central time and was credited at Amer1can CU at 2:55 PM Central. Cost me a $ 20,00 fee collected by my hub bank, contrasted with the usually “free” ACH transfer, but at least I had certainty.
And yes, I did a lot of cross checking and verification of the wire transfer delivery address and instructions before sending the wire.
Hard pull = hard pass
I save hard pulls for CC SUBS like Chase Ink preferred which will net me 140k UR points.
So freeze EX (or EQ if that’s what Chase pulls in your area) before you apply.
Worst that can happen is you get a data point.
Is that the credit card SUB you’re doing right now?
Crazy stuff to see my hometown credit union on here. Got my first credit card there in 2001.
This CU’s name reminds mes of “America First”….. So political
America “One”, not First
America 🇺🇸 is indeed THE FIRST.
Don’t like it? I’ll help you pack!
How is it “so political” for a bank to be named after the country they operate in? Do you get equally bothered by Bank of Canada, Bank of China, Bank of France, or Bank of England?
I think that
Jack would only be offended if they were called “Canada 1”, “China 1”, etc.
What’s the return on hassle?