My brother is in the Navy and stationed overseas. His 18 year old daughter just moved in with us to go to attend college and needed a car. My husband found her a great deal on a new car and my brother and she got a loan online with his credit union. Before shipping out a few months ago, he granted me general POA via a military POA and sent it to the CU. CU approved the POA and sent me a nice letter that stated they would be happy to help me conduct any of my brother's business during this time of service.

Fast forward a few months. The POA contains what the JAG officer says is now standard language stating that it excludes the authority to apply for open or closed end consumer lines of credit. The CU will not let me sign the note or endorse the check for the auto loan because of this. They are arguing that a car loan is a closed end line of credit. I tried to explain that this is a single advance consumer closed end loan - not a multi advance, which would be a line of credit. They are not hearing it.

Am I crazy? Do CUs have a different definition of "line of credit"?

Could they be worried about SCRA? You may wish to post in the business threads (I am far from an SCRA expert)

Oh, no. They never once mentioned SCRA - they were pretty specific in that the problem was that a consumer car loan was a line of credit. Other than that, they would be happy to let me do anything else in his name. Including cancle a loan. (They had mistakenly made him loans on the same car and mailed us two packages and two checks!)

I'm really just venting, I guess. They aren't going to trust me I know. And I have to approve all POAs at my bank, so I understand the risk. I just can't belive that's their definition of a line of credit.

Might it have to do with how they're issuing payment for the vehicle? I know when I financed a classic car through my
CU, they sent me a check for up to $XX and I just had to add the payee and the amount. I would try calling the corporate headquarters and see if they would be willing to help. Good luck POA's are a pain in the butt but a military CU should be more than used to dealing with them and have risk mitigation procedures!!

Well, there are a couple of problems, one is that a POA is nothing more than a permission. It is not a court order. So any business may chose to accept or deny a POA at anytime. But since they agreed to accept it, knowing what the transaction was, I am quite suprised that they are reniging on it now. The other problem is interpretation of the JAG language. Certainly it could be taken as they are describing. But the purpose behind the language is prevent someone from running up a lot of unknown debt in the name of the military member. Clearly, that is not the case here. Perhaps you can get beyond someone that just blindly follows what they believe a policy is and make it up to someone with actual decision making capability?

Look at the loan docs, some CUs use a CUNA LoanLiner product know as "OPEN END" (THis is from back in my CU days) they may not have it anymore.

It is single credit application "line of Credit" that can be advanced for Cars, Boats, campers, cash, etc. Each advance will have its own payment and payback schedule. To the borrower, you may not even realize that it is one loan, but it is open end credit.

They like to use it for Cars alot.

Thanks DD, I was trying to remember this.

DD is right, a lot of credit unions use this. Not the one I was at, but I saw it at others. Everything falls under one open end credit agreement. It's specific to credit unions and seems to be a huge pain in the a**.

Good luck.

Yeah, here it's referred to as a FastTrack agreement. I'm not a fan, results in "new" loans based on information that can be years old.

Since it's the Navy, I'd have to make the assumption that the CU he's affiliated is the most logical one, and the most massive one. I don't consider any CU that's under CFPB authority to even be a CU at all Good luck! And don't forget, CU's make up their own rules anyway, just because we can!

Now THAT'S a slogan!

"We make our own rules, just because we CAN."

Yeah, ONE of the reasons I didn't like them either. But amazingly, people would have STINKY credit, but always paid their CU.

That's because they love us! We take care of them while the bankers are just big stinky jerks

We see that all the time. Get bankruptcy notices on people we have had great relationships with for years, only to find out they screw everyone else under the sun.

"Not only that, but we don't pay taxes, either, just because we don't have to."

I have a friend that owned an independent mortorcycle shop for years. He had a sign that read.
"Store policy -
We screw the other guy and pass the savings on to you!"

Not so fast....

Fact is Credit unions do pay taxes, including property, local and employer taxes. However, because credit unions are not-for-profit——they’re exempt from federal income tax.


Should Girl Scouts pay taxes too?
I don't hear the Keebler elf telling the girlscouts to pay taxes.

What are banks afraid of? CUs hold 2.1% of the financial assets in America. Up a whopping .1% from 10 years ago. The average size of a CU is $4million. Yes there are a few big ones. And most of them are growing from merger in smaller CUs that can't afford to work in todays enviroment, not because they are stealing customers from banks.

Tell them that you'll be happy to take this story to the local paper...

Probably a mute point since the Congressional Federal Credit Union is at $720,000,000.00. I dont anticipate that Congress will be passing any laws anytime soon that would start charging their own credit union more taxes.

::Fist bump::

HMMM. My issue is not with the $4 Million CUs, it is with the $100 Millino CU's competing agianst the same sized community banks. The fact is the NCUA is a cheerleader and not a regultor and many if not most credit unions are state charthered. This leaves the state regulatory agencies to examine for compliance. In many cases the $100 million credit union does not and will not face the same buzz saw of regulatory scrutiny the same sized community bank faces. THAT is what galls me. If you want to behave like a bank then get examined like a bank. I have seen the loan liner program and it is implimented incorrectly. I have also seen documents at credit unions that would make a Federal Banking Compliance Examiner drop dead in complete shock
Okay off my soap box

I will have to say the exam I received from the state examiners (OHIO) were as good if not better than and OCC or FDIC I have recently gone through.

Now, the NCUA, that was a different story.

The products of banks and credit unions are essentially the same now. Yet banks are stuck with a 35% income tax rate.

How can that be a level playing field?

It is the big one you woudl assume is associated with the Navy. And I understand that they can choose which POAs to accept. But my brother talked with them about it (and sent a copy to them) BEFORE he left so we wouldn't have to deal with this.

Now, they tell me to "overnight" the package to him for his signature. "Yep, sure thing. I'll have the paperwork back to you by the end of the week."

I am glad to see that the CU paid attention and followed thru on a risk based approach to the signature issue. Everyone know that a signature signed in front of a notary on a POA has a much greater risk than one received via the mail :sarcasm font:

is it possible that whomever your brother talked to before he deployed was:

1 - not empowered to make assurances
2 - that the CU changed their process/procedure since the conversation took place
3 - that your brother misunderstood their "assurance"

is it possible to reach out to the same person your brother spoke to and ask for their assistance in this?

Bottom line is you will need to jump through whatever hoops the CU is placing in front of you to secure the financing...frustrating as that may be

Our State team is worthless on compliance, it's just S&S from a balance sheet perspective with them. We're big enough ($330 million, haha at those puny $100s!) to get a joint exam with NCUA every year now though, and that has helped a lot with getting compliance back on the table.

We could argue about business lending caps, investment restrictions, having unpaid board members (who are generally worthless) "leading" us, and such as the differences, but in the end, who cares? Are we driving you out of business? I'm pretty sure no. From a compliance perspective, we're pretty evenly being dumped on and we should leave the competition to the rest of the FI's departments where they actually care about the guy down the street.

::Hugs it out::

And yeah, Navy...they're, um, well, never mind. I won't publicly share an opinion on them, lest I find someone in dress blues standing outside my door tomorrow with a black back to put over my head!