Deceptive Advertising by CUIS

April 22, 1996

Martin Zook, Publisher
Credit Union Information Service
11300 Rockville Pike
Suite 1100
Rockville, Maryland 20852-3030

Dear Mr. Zook:

Several credit unions have contacted NCUA complaining about your subscription solicitation entitled "Advisory Letter to Credit Unions." They have provided us with a copy of the advertisement which they received in the mail. The complaints were directed at CUIS's obvious effort to make the advertising appear to be an official NCUA "Letter to Credit Unions." We, however, are more concerned by your offer to provide new subscribers with a copy of "The NCUA's Examiners' Priority Checklist."* Since NCUA does not maintain any such checklist we assume it is a document of CUIS's creation.

We would appreciate it if you would advise your subscribers that the checklist is a product of CUIS and not NCUA. We would also appreciate it if future CUIS documents did not mimic official NCUA documents. While NCUA has no proprietary interest in protecting the appearance of official NCUA documents, we believe that such actions are misleading to people who are trying to stay informed about what their regulator is doing.