GLENDALE, Calif. – After expressing initial defiance, Glendale Area Schools FCU has agreed to an NCUA request to remove a controversial web ad that suggested its deposits are safer than area banks and competing credit unions.
But Stuart Perlitsh, president of the $500 million credit union, said rather than responding to NCUA’s directive he removed the ad because the credit union’s server could not handle all the traffic it was receiving after news of the controversy hit the media.
"We’ve been flooded with hits to that because of your publication so we took it down," Perlitsch told The Credit Union Journal yesterday. "My email box is full of CEO correspondence encouraging me to keep it up. But we’re working on building up our server now because I can’t wait to put up my next newsletter."
The ad asked members to consider how safe their money is by showing rankings put together by bankrate.com which lists Glendale Area Schools FCU as a "five star" financial institution while failed big banks like IndyMac and Washington Mutual were given only one star, while WesCom CU, Telesis Community CU and SchoolsFirst FCU were listed as two and three star institutions.
The ad attracted the unwanted attention of NCUA, which asked in a Feb. 12 letter that the ad be removed. But Perlitsch was defiant and vowed to leave it up.
After speaking with NCUA again on Feb. 27 the determination was made that the ad would be removed from the website. Perlitsh said there was no reason to risk irking the regulator further when the ad had already clearly served its purpose.
