First Tech - Cupertino Avis 36

The individually tailored service!!!!

Josh helped me today by executing about 6 transactions all done expeditiously with a smile. I prefer going in rather than doing things on their app so I have printed receipts.

Por este medio quiero expresar mi gratitud y satisfacción por el excelente trato que uno de sus oficiales me trato. (Marisa Ambriz) Fue muy Amable y su profesionalismo y dedicación fue mas allá de lo esperado Dandole una muy buena reputación a la institución la cual representa. Me sentí como si estuviera hablando con una persona que conocía desde ante. De nuevo gracias por tener a un personal excelente como la oficial del dept de servicio al cliente. Att: Roberto Perez.

My release of lien was sent to the wrong address originally and I was having issues getting the title to my totaled car. Angela Cobb in the Collateral management department went ABOVE and beyond to get me a new, notarized release of lien document and NEXT DAY shipped it to me so I can be able to get my title from the DMV.
I had gotten in an accident and currently don't have a vehicle. Angela listened, and responded with understanding. She single handedly turned my whole situation around. What a Godsend!

The staff is always very professional and helpful

Excellent service! Especially from Asst. Manager Mithu, Pujan & Francisco.

Thanks K. M.

I have been a customer of Firsttech since 1999. I feel its a bank you can trust compare to all the other banks who don't care about your interest.

Easy, quick knowledgeable.

No waiting very good customer service

Detailed explanations, on time, quick to reply the voicemail.

My experience at FT has been great with customer service. Any issues are resolve promptly and with the most helpful and knowledgeable manner. I would like to mention Mithu Sarkar from the Cupertino, CA branch. Mithu is very knowledgeable in financial matters and is extremely helpful.

Some of what I thought was to happen still has not! My account was to be increased by $3,481.50 (I wrote a check for $3K) and it has YET to take place. My contact told me that permission had to be granted and this would take a couple days. I visited the branchon 3/16/23 and today is 3/20/23 -- still nothing has happened. Maybe it still needs more time? Nevertheless, untill my transactions are complete and accurately noted, I cannot respond positively.

Would like to express my appreciation to Francisco Aranda. His services is "SUPER". Went above and beyond to help me when I needed it, knowledgeable and great Services. Everyone in the bank is very friendly as well. Like the greeting from the staff at reception counter each time enter the bank :)

Shortly after starting work at Hewlett Packard in 1975 I joined the HP Credit Union. Some years later it became Addison Avenue Credit Union and sometime after that it degenerated into FirstTechFed Credit Union. As a septuagenarian, I'm "Old School" and expect good customer service, especially from a financial institution. On multiple occasions over the past seven years, FirstTechFed demonstrated incompetence in handling routine financial services to the point they are now UNACCEPTABLE.

FirstTechFed's decline began with transitioning to a "new" online banking and bill pay system in 2016 that was fraught with problems. The "new" site did not follow modern html5 practices thus it is not responsive to browser window width resulting in unreadable overlapping elements being displayed. All the previous payee information was lost so everything had to be re-entered. Complaints using their "secure messaging" got the following reply on 26 August 2016 at 2:21 PM, "The transition to the new online banking platform and new Bill Pay has not been a smooth one."

Almost four years later on 23 Jan 2020 at 11:07 AM I send a complaint that the "new" system can't do simple arithmetic and provide the total amount of scheduled bill payments on the dashboard summary page. I got the following reply 23 Jan 2021 at 3:14 PM, "This is currently a bug in the system that our IT team is aware of." It took ten months to teach the "new" system how to correctly add up bill payments. On 22 Oct 2020 at 3:19 PM I received the following, "I am very happy to report that the count for scheduled bill payments on your Dashboard is now showing accurate."

On 28 Feb 2022 I access my account using online banking and get totally confused. Bills were shown as successfully paid but the account balance was wrong and bill payment transactions did not show in the account. I have no idea what is the true balance of the account or what bills were actually paid. I called customer service and the service agent was unable to access my account as her terminal kept freezing due to "system issues". It turned out that FirstTechFed back-end system updates are asynchronous thus allowing the possibility of obsolete, partial or recent information or a mixture of all three to be displayed by online banking.

Now the proverbial "straw that broke the camel's back". On Monday 22 Aug 2022 I am using online banking to update credentials and verify information. I find three debit cards and one credit card being active for my account. I only have one debit card and one credit card so I "lock" the two unknown debit cards and call customer service. The agent removes the unknown cards which were linked to an old no longer used account which was then closed and funds transferred to my current account. I was assured that my active debit card and credit card were working.

Later that day I attempt to get cash from a nearby ATM (the same ATM I've used for years) and it fails with "This card is restricted." I call customer service again and the agent "checks things out" and once again assures me the cards are working. Wednesday evening I attempt to get cash from the same ATM and again it fails. I call customer service only to find they are only available during working hours.

Livid, I wait and call customer service on Thursday morning. The agent "checks" while I wait on hold then says the problem is that I tried too many times to use that ATM so I have to use a different one or go to a FirstTechFed branch. Say what??? I only tried to use the ATM once on Monday and once on Wednesday and that's "too many times". It's too much of a co-incidence that the debit card started failing right after I had the unknown debit cards removed. No matter, the obvious fix is to reset the software - a trivial thing to do. Nope - that's beyond the comprehension and capability of FirstTechFed. The only other thing they can do is send me a new debit card in 7 to 10 business days - no big deal to them that I won't have any cash for 7 to 10 business days! I am totally angry now and fed up with FirstTechFed.

I drive to the nearest FirstTechFed branch in Cupertino and withdraw all funds except those needed to complete the current in-progress online Bill Payments. As soon as Social Security updates auto-deposit to my new financial institution I will complete the withdrawal and closing of anything to do with FirstTechFed after 45 years and I strongly recommend that you avoid having any interaction with them. They obviously do not care about providing good or even any customer service. I remember when the entire purpose for credit unions was to provide better customer service without fees than banks.

FirstTechFed has totally forgotten their roots.
AVOID FIRSTTECHFED AT ALL COSTS!

Can't post addendum to FirstTech reply due to character limitation :-(

Not good, average at best, one to many things falling through the cracks. Poor turnaround time to my questions or concerns.