I'm a member of two. One tries very hard to act like a big mean corporate bank. The other is just all about customer service, etc. Never had "real bank" loan, etc. even my mortgage started with a CU and then got bought by Suntrust.

If you are wondering - the credit union acting like a big bank. Deposits - at the Good CU I can walk up, hand them a check or cash, tell them my account number, they say thanks, here's your receipt and anything else we can do? The Mean CU - gotta fill out a deposit slip. For everything. Want cash back? Gotta show ID - even though they have a scan of my ID on their computer associated with my account. When I first got a Visa branded debit card, I assumed like any other ATM transaction if there weren't funds they'd block it. Apparently they only block if you are withdrawing from their ATMs - any other ATM, McDonalds, etc. they let the charge go through and charge you $30 for not dealing with the declined payment. I even confirmed with them (one of my students was a developer for them) it was in the payment processing code to deny if it were their systems the withdrawal was happening on.

^^^ As I stated earlier ... about two decades ago, CUs started to grow, evolve, and have become more like traditional banks. Definitely not the same as CUs were way back when .... but still a no-brainer for most. If a CU sux ... just find another one ;)