DGEFCU History
The average person joining a credit union today has no experience with loan sharks. But, back in the early 1950s, some hard-pressed District of Columbia government employees were all-too-well-acquainted with them. Loan sharks were bleeding them dry.
Then as now, folks who didn’t make much money had a tough time getting banks to make them loans. So loan sharks—unscrupulous individuals who made loans at exorbitant rates—stepped in to fill the void.
In 1953 a loan sharking ring operating in the District Building in the Department of Sanitation and Engineering was charging its victims $0.25 on the dollar every payday. The kingpin of the operation, a department employee, was driving around in a new Cadillac every year. He came to work when he felt like it and, after getting there, spent much of his time shining his car. (His supervisor couldn’t do anything about it, because he was among those indebted to him!)
Then, one day, following the discovery of damaging information in his locker, the IRS paid this scoundrel a call. Thinking the police were there to arrest him, he panicked and leapt out the window. The IRS never got to talk to him. His body was found floating in the Potomac two days later—a suicide, the police officially concluded.
Although this did not bring an immediate end to the loan sharking ring, it did inspire Commissioner F. Joseph Donohue (one of three presidential appointees who made up the city government then) to launch an effort to organize a credit union to meet the borrowing needs of lower income city employees. The District of Columbia Credit Union—as it was then called—opened for business in September 1954 with an all-volunteer staff. In 1964, the credit union received its federal charter and became District Government Employees Federal Credit Union.
Federally Insured by the NCUA
Copyright
© 2001 Visions Ink., Inc. All Rights Reserved. Developed by Visions
Ink, Inc.