After Technology Credit Union's 2018 annual meeting, I opened my article like so: "All of us suspect financial institution executives are SOBs, but most of them have the decency to act dignified in public. Not San Jose, California-based Tech CU." Three years later, nothing has changed.
Some background: in 2012, Tech CU tried converting from a state-chartered credit union to a bank. Members overwhelmingly rejected the proposal: "Of those casting ballots, 77% rejected the idea of becoming a bank." Did Tech CU's management apologize for spending member funds on their cockamamie idea? Nope. Did any of Tech CU's directors or executives resign? Not a one. In 2011, Diana Dykstra of The California Credit Union League, which represents the state’s 428 credit unions, criticized Tech CU's conversion plans, saying, "In the end, those members could be left with a financial institution that no longer strives to put their interests first." Dykstra was more right than she knew.
On May 1, 2021, Tech CU updated its membership agreement, granting itself the kind of absolute power European royalty would have envied pre-French-Revolution. From Page 10-11:
We reserve the right to deny all services ... if any of the following occur: ... You fail to conduct your business with Tech CU (including at Shared Branch locations) in a civil and businesslike way... You agree to pay any attorney’s fees and court costs we incur to enforce our member conduct policy.
Who needs a corrupt workers' union when employees have lawyers apparently unaware unconscionability under California Civil Code 1670.5? Remember that a credit union is a union of members with some common interest, whether location, group membership, or workplace. If a credit union can arbitrarily expel anyone, membership means nothing. One also wonders why the state in "state-chartered" lacks initiative when substantive due process is absent, but I suppose American governments stopped feigning interest in the individual when they realized debt was more lucrative than taxes. Vanguard, the model of member-based financial organizations, remains an investor's best option, but when it comes to regular banking services, American consumers are bereft. A government more dependent on debt than taxes is incapable of neutral oversight regarding consumer-facing financial institutions.
I wasn't wrong when I called Tech CU executives SOBs, but I wasn't as thorough as I should have been. I should have also named California's Division of Financial Institutions. I don't know if they're SOBs, but given their failure to disallow Tech CU's overly broad, one-sided membership terms, we'd be better off if California legislators were replaced by monkeys.
© Matthew Mehdi Rafat (May 2021)
Bonus: a court filing involving Tech CU's alleged misuse of its membership terms can be found at the following link:
https://www.scribd.com/document/506030928/Obj
More court filings are available by searching Santa Clara County's court website for case number 21CH009964. A video of the alleged "incident" can be found on YouTube: https://youtu.be/-zIvzCMIeCc
Update August 2022: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/credit-union-sees-workplace-violence-restraining-order-reversed
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