SPIRE Credit Union

SPIRE has researched the incident reported by Ms [redacted] As a credit union only the primary member is able to close the account / withdraw the last $in the share account (which is their membership share)We acknowledge that we did not provide Ms [redacted] with other options which were available to her at the time of the interactions and we apologize for thisWe have called Ms [redacted] twice to present those options to her but have not been able to connect with herSPIRE has mailed a letter to Ms [redacted] providing the options she has available to her

Dear Ms***, SPIRE received a copy of the complaint which was filed with the Revdex.com and have completed our investigation into the matterIn regards to the issue you noted regarding the automatic (ACH) payment for your auto loan with us, here are the detailsAt the time the auto loan was taken out, you signed an Authorization for Automatic Payments form which authorized automatic payments to be taken from your checking account at another institution on the 6th of each month in the amount of $and applied to your loanWhen automatic payments are taken from another institution, the actual amount due for the loan is not able to change/fluctuate until we receive written authorization from you to do soAs stated on the document you signed and received with your loan closing paperwork, the payment will continue to process even after a loan is paid in full and the funds received by us will be deposited into the your savings accountSo what happened in your case is that the amount of last payment due for your auto loan was $296.27, the scheduled payment of $came in so the “overpayment” of $was deposited into your share savings account with usThe only way to prevent this from occurring is if you would have contacted us requesting to complete an ACH Change form to change the amount of the automatic payment at least business days prior to it pullingWe have cancelled the automatic payment from occurring again in the future on your account as a result of being notified by you in your complaint that you do not wish for it to continueInvestigation into the second issue mentioned in your complaint regarding complications with closing your account with usI reviewed the email correspondence you forwarded to me that had been submitted to [email protected] what I am able to determine, the letter and/or document you attached to the email was received in a format too small for us to be able to verify / compare your signature with documents we have already on fileDespite SPIRE’s best efforts, the size of the document sent remained at 2.5” x 1.75”, so we were unable to verify the signatureOur Contact Center Representative sent the following statement to you in an email on Tuesday, May 10, @ 12:33pm: “However, we are not able to read the letter as it is too smallWe do need to be able to verify your signature in order to close out the accountYou may fill out the attached form and send that into us and once we can verify your signature, we can process your request”It appears from the review of this communication, that you then attempted to resend the document, but we still were not able to review it in a size needed to do our comparisonThat is when staff stated we will need to have your signature notarized, which led to your frustrationAs I explained when we spoke on the phone, SPIRE is required to verify signatures on documents / requests we receive from members anytime it will make a change on their account (i.echanging an address, changing an automatic payment, closing an account)As a financial institution we are tasked with the responsibility to ensure that changes made are made by the member and not someone attempting fraud / identity theft, so we have procedures in place to assist us with thisUnfortunately, these processes / procedures can lead to additional steps to be made by the requesting individual ultimately cause frustrationI thank you for taking the time to speak with me this afternoonEnclosed, you will find the check to close your account and an Account Closure FormAs we agreed, please sign the enclosed form and return it to me as soon as possible in the Postage Paid Envelope at your earliest convenienceI will the place this document in our files to evidence your request to close your accountPlease feel free to contact me if you have any additional questionsSincerely, Sue [redacted] Risk Management Officer ###-###-#### s [redacted] @myspire.com

Dear Mr [redacted] , This letter is in response to the complaint which you filed with the Revdex.com on 09/07/in regards to your ATM depositI have reviewed your complaint, completed additional research and have determined that the evidence SPIRE has in regards to the $ATM deposit substantiates our claim that the envelope was empty at the time you placed it into the ATM In regards to your statement “Not only did they lose my money without any methods of filing for my lost funds they allowed their employee’s to steal from their customer {rather} than follow it up by discriminating against me because of the amount of money in my account wasn’t a staggering amount” – that statement is not trueSPIRE did complete a thorough investigation into the matter which included watching videos and the conclusion is that video evidence shows that the envelope was empty at the time you deposited it into the machineSPIRE operates under dual control procedures when opening and balancing the ATM and we did not deviate from our procedure on the day your ATM deposit was processedWe are able to show that two SPIRE employees opened the envelopes in the presence of each other to verify the contents matched the amount stated for the depositBoth employees witnessed that the deposit envelope for your transaction was emptyThey notified the appropriate department of the empty envelope situation and we followed our procedure of capturing any debit or ATM cards associated with the account to protect the credit union from additional lossesThe two staff members that you are accusing of theft are responsible trustworthy individuals and have access to large amounts of cash each and every dayThe cash / deposits they have access to have been in balance and there has never been an accusation of them being dishonest In regards to your statement “you will not bank with us anymore” SPIRE has exercised our right to limit services / products provided to you by not allowing a debit or ATM card to be issued to youThe decision to not allow access to a debit or ATM card was made after researching this claim and reviewing your past claim history / account history with SPIREIf you decide to maintain your account relationship with us you will simply need to access your funds by conducting transactions in person There is no regulation that provides protection to you as a consumer when making a deposit via ATM and SPIRE will not reimburse you $as you requested due to the results of our investigation Sincerely, Sue [redacted] Risk Management Officer Cc: Revdex.com

I am rejecting this response because:
They did not respond to request to close CREDIT accounts. I am NOT asking and have NOT asked that they close the membership held jointly with my ex-husband. I only want the LINE OF CREDIT and CREDIT CARD account that my name is on closed effective immediately. Their response shows there clearly has been no research done on the matter. Any research into my request would show the attached referenced chat with their online representatives from 2/13/2018. The other attachment is to prove that these accounts I request closure of are at a zero balance

SPIRE did provide information and the appropriate document Ms*** would need to sign to close the credit accounts in the letter we mailed to her on Our procedures, that are applied to all members, state that whenever we close a credit line (line of credit or Visa credit card) we obtain a signature from the memberDuring our research we did see the online chat Ms*** refers toWe see that SPIRE informed Ms*** that we would need a signature (see response from Kristen to Ms*** at 3:45:07)This is why we enclosed the appropriate form for Ms*** to sign and provided a postage paid return envelope for her convenienceBy obtaining a signature it provides a clear audit trail to show that the member is the one who requested the closure and that the line was not closed by the credit union This allows us to report it correctly to the credit bureau SPIRE provided information to Ms*** about removing herself from the account which is currently held jointlyWe did this in order to present Ms*** with all options available to herMs*** appears to be concerned with obligations she could be held liable for if they were advanced, so we provided her the information to remove herself from the accountBy remaining on the account Ms*** will be held liable along with the primary member if the account goes negative for any reason SPIRE made the decision to close the line of credit and Visa credit card effective today, without obtaining a signature, in this situationA letter will be mailed out to the primary member to inform him about the closures to make him aware that he will no longer have access to the credit lines

Dear Ms. [redacted], SPIRE received a copy of the complaint which was filed with the Revdex.com and have completed our investigation into the matter. In regards to the issue you noted regarding the automatic (ACH) payment for your auto loan with us, here are the details. At the time the...

auto loan was taken out, you signed an Authorization for Automatic Payments form which authorized automatic payments to be taken from your checking account at another institution on the 6th of each month in the amount of $525.41 and applied to your loan. When automatic payments are taken from another institution, the actual amount due for the loan is not able to change/fluctuate until we receive written authorization from you to do so. As stated on the document you signed and received with your loan closing paperwork, the payment will continue to process even after a loan is paid in full and the funds received by us will be deposited into the your savings account. So what happened in your case is that the amount of last payment due for your auto loan was $296.27, the scheduled payment of $525.41 came in so the “overpayment” of $229.14 was deposited into your share savings account with us. The only way to prevent this from occurring is if you would have contacted us requesting to complete an ACH Change form to change the amount of the automatic payment at least 3 business days prior to it pulling. We have cancelled the automatic payment from occurring again in the future on your account as a result of being notified by you in your complaint that you do not wish for it to continue. Investigation into the second issue mentioned in your complaint regarding complications with closing your account with us. I reviewed the email correspondence you forwarded to me that had been submitted to [email protected]. From what I am able to determine, the letter and/or document you attached to the email was received in a format too small for us to be able to verify / compare your signature with documents we have already on file. Despite SPIRE’s best efforts, the size of the document sent remained at 2.5” x 1.75”, so we were unable to verify the signature. Our Contact Center Representative sent the following statement to you in an email on Tuesday, May 10, 2016 @ 12:33pm: “However, we are not able to read the letter as it is too small. We do need to be able to verify your signature in order to close out the account. You may fill out the attached form and send that into us and once we can verify your signature, we can process your request”. It appears from the review of this communication, that you then attempted to resend the document, but we still were not able to review it in a size needed to do our comparison. That is when staff stated we will need to have your signature notarized, which led to your frustration. As I explained when we spoke on the phone, SPIRE is required to verify signatures on documents / requests we receive from members anytime it will make a change on their account (i.e. changing an address, changing an automatic payment, closing an account). As a financial institution we are tasked with the responsibility to ensure that changes made are made by the member and not someone attempting fraud / identity theft, so we have procedures in place to assist us with this. Unfortunately, these processes / procedures can lead to additional steps to be made by the requesting individual  ultimately cause frustration. I thank you for taking the time to speak with me this afternoon. Enclosed, you will find the check to close your account and an Account Closure Form. As we agreed, please sign the enclosed form and return it to me as soon as possible in the Postage Paid Envelope at your earliest convenience. I will the place this document in our files to evidence your request to close your account. Please feel free to contact me if you have any additional questions. Sincerely, Sue [redacted] Risk Management Officer ###-###-#### s[redacted]@myspire.com

SPIRE has researched the incident reported by Ms. [redacted]. As a credit union only the primary member is able to close the account / withdraw the last $10.00 in the share account (which is their membership share). We acknowledge that we did not provide Ms. [redacted] with other options which were...

available to her at the time of the interactions and we apologize for this. We have called Ms. [redacted] twice to present those options to her but have not been able to connect with her. SPIRE has mailed a letter to Ms. [redacted] providing the options she has available to her.

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2015/06/26) */
SPIRE's response to this complaint is attached. Please contact me with additional questions.
Initial Consumer Rebuttal /* (3000, 7, 2015/07/01) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
I do not...

accept this response, although SPIRE is saying I was not approved. As well as saying I paid for services provided. I wasn't provided services because when you ppay for services you get them. I paid for loan docs that were not provided due to them coming back and telling me before closing that we were declined. I paid for an appraisal on a home that SPIRE didn't provide me a loan for. If we knew we weren't approved after a month of actually being approved, we would have never moved forward with the loan or paid for loan docs or appraisal. You can't tell someone they are approved, make them pay for everything then decline them once you collect the money. This is the worst experience I have had with anyone. For being loyal customers and keeping the amount of money that we do with SPIRE, I was hoping for a little more effort. I will be taking my business elsewhere, and you will not have my business in the future. As far as my money for the apprisal, I want it back because I didn't get what I paid for. I cant pay for something that is not even used. Also, loan docs would of been printed for the closing which I also paid for, therefore I would like to see that money back because no loan docs were need since you declined us.
Final Business Response /* (4000, 9, 2015/07/10) */
I have attached a written response, along with 4 corresponding attachments. There are a total of 5 files attached.
Final Consumer Response /* (3000, 11, 2015/07/14) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
I don't accept this response because I was wrongly charged. Yes an apprisal was done, but no SPIRE did not provide me with services, they kept making me run around in a circle before deciding that I can't provide them with something. I want my money back because the appraisal I Paid for I could not use. I had to go with a different mortgage company to get a loan and I paid for a whole new appraisal. Plus, the loan docs I paid for have not been used because once again I did not close on the loan I paid $230 for nothing for loan docs that were not used on a loan. SPIRE does owe me this money and I want it back one way or another. You can't say you provided services for someone when you denied their loan a day before closing. You charged me for two things I could not use because you didn't approve my loan even though I jumped through hoops just to get you guys to approve it.

Dear Mr. [redacted],   This letter is in response to the complaint which you filed with the Revdex.com on 09/07/2016 in regards to your ATM deposit. I have reviewed your complaint, completed additional research and have determined that the evidence SPIRE has in regards to the...

$400.00 ATM deposit substantiates our claim that the envelope was empty at the time you placed it into the ATM.   In regards to your statement “Not only did they lose my money without any methods of filing for my lost funds they allowed their employee’s to steal from their customer {rather} than follow it up by discriminating against me because of the amount of money in my account wasn’t a staggering amount” – that statement is not true. SPIRE did complete a thorough investigation into the matter which included watching videos and the conclusion is that video evidence shows that the envelope was empty at the time you deposited it into the machine. SPIRE operates under dual control procedures when opening and balancing the ATM and we did not deviate from our procedure on the day your ATM deposit was processed. We are able to show that two SPIRE employees opened the envelopes in the presence of each other to verify the contents matched the amount stated for the deposit. Both employees witnessed that the deposit envelope for your transaction was empty. They notified the appropriate department of the empty envelope situation and we followed our procedure of capturing any debit or ATM cards associated with the account to protect the credit union from additional losses. The two staff members that you are accusing of theft are responsible trustworthy individuals and have access to large amounts of cash each and every day. The cash / deposits they have access to have been in balance and there has never been an accusation of them being dishonest.   In regards to your statement “you will not bank with us anymore” SPIRE has exercised our right to limit services / products provided to you by not allowing a debit or ATM card to be issued to you. The decision to not allow access to a debit or ATM card was made after researching this claim and reviewing your past claim history / account history with SPIRE. If you decide to maintain your account relationship with us you will simply need to access your funds by conducting transactions in person.   There is no regulation that provides protection to you as a consumer when making a deposit via ATM and SPIRE will not reimburse you $400.00 as you requested due to the results of our investigation.   Sincerely,   Sue [redacted] Risk Management Officer     Cc: Revdex.com