ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Several customers who bank at McCoy Federal Credit Union called Channel 9's Deneige Broom for help when they said they couldn't get access to their money before or after Hurricane Matthew.
One of the big complaints from people has been that the credit union didn't communicate the problem until Monday and then did so via Facebook.
A credit union spokesperson told Eyewitness News that bank employees put extra money in the ATMs so customers could withdraw more cash before the storm. But, people said the problem wasn’t the ATMs, but that employees didn’t put money into the customer’s accounts.
Jose Lopez said they had to leave their mobile home before Hurricane Matthew and find a hotel on Thursday, which was the day before payday.
"My sister was able to book with her credit card and then I was going to pay her Friday, which my direct deposit is supposed to come in,” Lopez said.
Deposits at McCoy Federal Credit Union didn't come in on Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Lopez said he didn’t get access to his paycheck until Monday night.
"We were depending on that money. We're not all rich. I myself, I'm a family man. I got two kids and I've got to live paycheck to paycheck,” Lopez said.
Lopez wasn't the only one. On McCoy Federal's Facebook page, more than 50 people expressed their anger that the money they earned wasn't in their accounts.
The credit union reopened Tuesday following Hurricane Matthew and Monday was a federal holiday.
Ron Nesbitt, a spokesperson for the credit union told Eyewitness News that someone has to be in the office to manually get files from the Federal Reserve. He said they tried to do it on Saturday but had a problem.
"We were not able to upload those direct deposits because the Federal Reserve itself was having some particular issues and those files weren't available to us,” Nesbitt said.
Nesbitt said the Federal Reserve didn't give the credit union the files until late Monday, at which time McCoy was able to deposit customers' money.
McCoy plans to refund all overdraft fees or third-party fees associated with the problem.
Eyewitness News reached out to CFE credit union to see if it had had any problems. Their spokesperson told Eyewitness News that they have an automated direct deposit system so they were able to leave their offices on Thursday, and customers could still get their deposits on Friday.
Cox Media Group
