Credit union members say their money being held hostage, can’t access funds

Tyisha Fernandes
·2 min read
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Several members of a local credit union say their money is being held hostage. Some say they haven’t had access to their direct deposits for two weeks.

Members of the Atlanta Postal Credit Union told Channel 2′s Tyisha Fernandes that they can’t make withdrawals and their automatic car payments are not going through.

Carolyn Hawkins said she has an account at the credit union.

“They need to tell us really what’s going on because it’s our money that they’re using,” Hawkins said.

APCU has six locations in metro Atlanta. On their website they mention a system outage and said as of early morning on March 25, members can now access online and mobile banking.

Fernandes spoke to several members Thursday who said things have not been restored online or inside the credit union.

“I came here several times, and they said the system is down so I was not going to get a paper receipt, but the money would be in there. And they said it’s been down for a while. They don’t know what happened,” Hawkins said.

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Fernandes also went to the credit union’s Decatur location and the main branch in southeast Atlanta. Managers she spoke with said they couldn’t comment.

There’s also a credit union branch inside South DeKalb Mall. Fernandes spoke to a member there who said she’s been trying to get a cashier’s check for two weeks.

“Well, I feel like my money is being held hostage and I cannot complete transactions because of this,” the member said, not identifying herself.

Other members told Fernandes said they haven’t gotten their direct deposits and that things they had on automatic payment aren’t getting paid.

“They can’t give me a date and a time when it’ll be cleared up, they just keep saying the system is down,” the member said.

Atlanta Postal Credit Union is a member-owned, not-for-profit organization. As of December, it had nearly 105,000 members and has more than $2 billion in assets.

The credit union sent Fernandes a statement late Thursday night, saying:

“We are pleased to share that Atlanta Postal Credit Union and Center Parc Credit Union have made significant progress in addressing the technical issues experienced by our members.

“Both online banking and all our branches are operating as normal. Please note that any funds in our members’ accounts were not impacted and continue to remain available and secure. While we are in the process of sharing more information with our members and employees, we will continue to provide notable updates regarding our investigation into the scope and nature of the incident.

“We appreciate our members’ patience and understanding as we have worked on these issues. Our priority remains the same: providing high-quality service to our members and addressing their needs.”

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