UPDATE 6/10/20 In April of this year I had to file a National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) complaint because I still did not have access to my account and interest was 8 days late. At this point I wrote the President of Andrews, J. Hays, on their secure messaging system, copying as many support staff as I had email addresses for and informing him of my NCUA complaint and referencing this sitejabber report link: " Mr. Hays: There are unresolved issues with Andrews Federal Credit Union beyond what my NCUA complaint has addressed that require additional consideration. Having previously experienced great difficulties in actually becoming a member through what Andrews euphemistically refers to as online membership plus having to endure nearly a month of being locked out of my own account... The hell your goofy system has put me through demands additional compensation. " Soon afterwards Andrews rebuilt my account manually because it failed to transfer and I was contacted by Andrews IT specialist, Nikia Hackley, who took an additional two hours to finally get me into their system where I could login and access my account. Another two months slipped by before I received a letter by postal mail on June 10th of 2020 from Andrea Ashcraft, Director of Sales and Service and apparently part of Andrews supposed 'member advocacy' group (I use that term loosely). Again the Andrews secure messaging system was wiped clean Including all contacts. There was no evidence of my letter to J. Hays summarizing my complaints and indicating the additional compensation I demanded. The $75 additional compensation was posted to my savings account. See the attached photocopy. However, I'm still not out of the woods yet because I have to use their goofy system to transfer money to my home account as I doubt they will honor my preference to pay future interest by check. So that will be another fun experience I'm sure. UPDATE 4/10/20 At the time I completed my initial review on Andrew's Member application system I optimistically made the statement We'll see how it goes with investment performance. My desire not to repeat the same experience as their application platform was short lived. I was able to briefly access my account under the old system that supported their moronic online member application form but the new digital system was to be even worse. It's apparent that Andrew's wanted the additional capability that allowed members to do all kinds of interesting things with their phone app like paying bills, managing personal finances, securing loans as well as accessing one's credit union account. But I wouldn't know because It would be nearly a month and a half after i joined before I would gain access. They soon began a transition to the new digital platform My first indication that there would be problems in this undertaking was when my existing password abruptly got cancelled. This is a periodic nuisance in the banking industry at large where every year financial institutions require you to change your password. However the new credit union system would not allow me to change mine because well. It no longer existed!. So now you can appreciate the level of intelligence of the vendor responsible for implementing this transition. And as you might expect on my third attempt to initiate a new password I was summarily locked out. Now the fun begins! But you say, Hey you're still on the Andrews secure messaging system so no problem!. True I do have my old password and they didn't cancel it so I could get help. That may be how a secure messaging system works elsewhere but I was told during the application process that not everyone was on it. Now it's still true that their member support group is on it but alerting them to a problem is akin to the notice that your mailman gets when he sees the little flag raised on your mailbox. Ho Hum! Besides when I actually did get a response from support on the secure messaging, I was greeted with the same demeanor as one uses when they have to inform some kid that he needs to zip up his fly. The best response in this category was You can't login because you're using the Opera browser! AND the most revealing response was support stating due to the sensitive nature of my request" I would have to talk to them directly which means they didn't want any evidence of the problem leaking out to the public. Complicating credit union support was their phone queue where virtually each and every time I called they were experiencing heavy call volume. I now believe that was rigged to both free up support to concentrate on the immediate upgrade problems at the expense of the membership. During this time I actually did get several support people to force the system to generate a special secure pass code required to gain access so you could set your new password but none of these codes ever worked which made me suspicious that the problem was far deeper than Andrews knew. I was involved in other pressing matters during this event so I didn't have the time to pursue this issue consistently. After several weeks of sporadic contact in which I witnessed cases where the system continued to reject multiple pass code attempts in succession that I realized present entry was impossible. In subsequent phone calls to Andrews I happened upon one honest individual in the support group. Statistically that had to be true because nothing is zero probability. This lady told me there was no record of my being in Andrews system. Suddenly like a load of hay falling on me, It all made sense. I figured if I was ever going to gain access to my account it was going to be from outside pressure. I filed a complaint with the National Credit Union Administration here: https://complaint.mycreditunion.gov/CAC/500t000000TEruP In a little over a week tone of their IT people called and set up a time to assist me in gaining access. It still took over two hours before I was able to get in the system and no surprise that some of the software features weren't working as I expected that the upgrade debugging process would be ongoing for some time. I still don't have my interest now 10 days late but I expect this to be resolved fairly quickly because Andrews doesn't want the bad publicity. I think I'll hang on to the NCUA complaint link, I have the feeling I made need to use it again. Member Application Process In today's world one is often compelled to do things out of the ordinary because of prevailing market conditions. Investing in a credit union instead of bank or brokerage offering to get decent interest rates is an example because you need to be a member and historically membership was limited to military or government personnel resident in a specific area. However today the requirements have relaxed considerably but the easier standards have provided a platform for abuse. Companies get away with the abuse because the FED has enabled them by artificially suppressing interest rates. In December of 2019, I applied to Andrews Federal Credit union to take advantage of a particular investment. Although I didn't reside in their geographic location I met alternative requirement criteria. The first step at Andrews was to complete a comprehensive three page online application. In today's financial world there is a recognizable move towards fascism. Essentially having to demonstrate that one isn't laundering money by giving information that must be confirmed real time is suggestive of what happens when you're arrested. (Just so you know freedom is essentially dead in the finance world.) This has to be done online because people will simply ignore these questions otherwise. Online you are prevented from going further until the machine verifies the response as dictated by its programming protocol. I had to provide my membership number in the American Consumer Council which the system verified in real time or I couldn't continue. For some time I could not get beyond the first page of the credit union application although it contained nothing more than my Name, Address and Phone number, etc. Finally I noticed that the machine only accepted street direction notifications with a period' at the end of the street direction, e.g. west 47th street would have to be input as w. 47th street.' It failed to recognize the abbreviated street direction preceding the name without a period. You may be able to input the complete street name but it's just another case that must be tested by trial and error which I didn't care to investigate. Generally there were no instructions on the form except in a few specific instances. This is because the machine checks the address in real time which suggests that no real person ever looks at anything other than the completed form. Now the second page. The form asks me to upload a photocopy of the back of my driver's license BUT then WOULDN'T UPLOAD IT! (It's either a glitch or the system expected to verify my identity directly with the Dept of Motor vehicles. Somewhere along the way in this process I received notification that I was added to the Andrews secure messaging system, remember that because it will come up later. I had to provide a photo copy of my social security card as issued and write a short note, scan it and transmit it to Andrews before they will process my application. If I didn't want them to process this monstrosity why the hell was I bothering to complete it?! I had to READ their lists of credit union rules and conditions and check off that I had read each one. The system verifies each Read' and doesn't let one continue until every choice offered has a check mark next to it which puts an extensive labor burden on the applicant I now got to the part which asked for my social security number. This was the only page that offered instructions as to the required input form. The number was to be input without any dashes - I entered it both with spaces and then running all the numbers together to no avail. The popup window gave two choices (1) Confirm social security number or (2) confirm by email. (See Error5) I called an Andrews Rep drawing Marla Bethell and explained what I experienced and she assured me she would pass it along to their IT group or whoever is responsible (Obviously it was ignored.) The problem persisted and I sent a 2nd screen shot in a subsequent call to another Rep informing them I reported this bug to Marla earlier but the young lady s response was just try it again. Even though they had a photocopy of my social security number the system would not confirm it so no one is looking at the individual pages. I quit for the day and decided to try the email confirmation option the next day. So I selected the confirm by email option. But when I tried the system came back with a message telling me that I wasn't on the same computer as yesterday! (Error8) I had to completely exit the Andrews online application and come in fresh before it recognized my IP address and allowed me to proceed. The system sends a security code to the email address you enter. When you receive the email there is a code phrase you are to place in the confirmation box' and thereby allowed to move to the next page. Again the same two choice confirmation screen appeared so I selected the email option which worked before but as soon as I did, it flipped the screen to ask me to confirm my social security number. (Error4) Why give the user two choices when the system rejects the one chosen? It would not confirm my s. S. number. Some system! As I indicated to the Andrews rep whom I had to call again the system does nothing when the social security number option is selected. It simply cycles infinitely (Error6) sending you more emails with security codes to enter every time you click this option. I called the rep again and she must have done something because I got to the next screen when I got back into the online editor. Finally I was confronted with funding my account. I encountered another two tab choices to fund the account (1) Fund from an Andrews member account or (2) Fund from an external source The choice was obvious as I wasn't a member nor do I have relatives who would or could fund my account. The only way I could fund was to authorize a five dollar ACH transfer in an attempt to complete the application. I exited the system twice before on this point because the ACH option offered incomplete funding information. The system only allows one to fill out the top line on opening amounts under the ACH option but puts whatever amount you place in the first line directly in the LINE BELOW! WTH? The maximum you can input is $10,005 dollars. How useless is this? It quickly becomes obvious why Andrews earned a Better Business Bureau custom review rating of 1.5. https://www.bbb.org/us/md/suitland/profile/credit-union/andrews-federal-credit-union-*******2626 Be sure and read the BBB report before you borrow money from these people, So I had to get on the phone once again drawing a young Rep named Laura or (Lauren) for help. Her first suggestion was to print out the form and complete it by hand. That defeats the whole process, huh? Then I asked if I could use the ACH option although there was still no way to input my bank and routing number. She didn't know but suggested I try it and it worked! I wouldn't have had to do that if Andrews's goofy computer system allowed me to fund with a check. But the option worked and I exited this idiot system. Now the fun really began! After a couple of days I got a message from the credit union with another security code to access the communication: "Please enter the following security code to check the status of your application(s). 2bb928" The message was that my application was being processed and they would inform me via email when approved and provide an account number, etc. In a few more days, I received (you guessed it) another email referring me to the Andrews email system but I could not gain access because it rejected my confirming information. Once more I was on the phone to a Rep whom I asked why didn't Andrews send the message over its secure messaging system where I could login? The response was the membership uses a different system! What sense does this make? Processing time on the application was now approaching seven days and I was hot. I sent an email suggesting that if the credit union couldn't process my application in less than 7 days they should get a new computer system or get out of the business. On Jan 4th I received an email on their secure system which asked if I would accept adobe's electronic signing. I declined. That got their attention because shortly thereafter I received a call from one of the executives at Andrews and I stated that I didn't trust their system and explained the difficulties their system was causing and that if they required any signatures, they would have to mail them to my residence. Finally I received a regular email with their signature forms etc. I copied it, signed it and mailed them back. Shortly afterwards I got a message in their secure email with my account number and thought I was all set. But I WASN'T. In order to actually open the account I had to click on the link in the secure message system which took me to another security screen (SCN7) which had 3 input fields, (1) account Number, (2) social security number, (3) and email address. At this point I had had it when I called Andrews Support. The Rep I drew was named Sabrina (how appropriate because you'll need mystic powers to complete this on-line application). I explained all the incidents I've experienced with the Andrews system and then being sent yet another secure message asking for the same information that I've already input and I wasn't going to continue. Apparently the problems I identified finally made it to the right places. But I was appalled that they would wipe my Andrews email account clear of all documentation of the errors I encountered but I had anticipated that so I made copies of my secure messages. Sabrina's job primarily involved setting up accounts for new members manually. So why didn't they offer me that option initially? Because it's likely they needed a guinea pig to help develop their convoluted on-line system. As the Rep talked me through the manual process all I needed to do was enter a dummy ID for the member name and password and I was in. Next change the user name and password to my choice and I was nearly done. Once inside I was able to set up the type of investment instrument desired and the funding method, etc. I checked my Andrews secure email account again on Jan 28,2020, it was still empty. No messages of any kind Why? Perhaps to prevent this very performance review. We'll see how it goes with investment performance but this was an experience I NEVER want to repeat.