A wave of consumer disgruntlement, culminating in Saturday's so-called "bank transfer day," boosted the membership rolls at local credit unions.

The movement, the brainchild of Kristen Christian, a 27-year-old Los Angeles art dealer, urged consumers to transfer their money out of banks and into not-for-profit credit unions.

While Saturday was a busy day for Sacramento-area credit unions, the really big numbers piled up in the days leading up to last weekend.

Scott Ingram, a spokesman for Sacramento-based The Golden 1 Credit Union, said, "Golden 1 has seen tremendous growth in membership and new checking accounts since the beginning of October following the BofA debit fee announcement.

"In October, our membership grew 25 percent over September, and our net checking accounts grew by 82 percent. … Bank transfer day was very busy for us. We saw new members in each of our 83 branches across the state."

The story was the same at the Sacramento-based Schools Financial Credit Union, which has 11 area branches.

Schools Financial spokesman Roy Worley said Saturday was "our biggest new membership day of the year," with nearly 60 new sign-ups.

Worley added that the credit union "had a tremendous October with 1,064 new member sign-ups."

North Highlands-based SAFE Credit Union, which has 21 branches throughout the region, also reported brisk business, with a 73 percent increase in new members signed up in October compared with September.

SAFE spokesman Paul Hersek speculated that the bank transfer day movement was "about more than just resentment. There seems to be a strong desire out there for a different approach to banking, one that consistently follows through on commitment to individuals."

Locally, account changes occurred with relatively few problems, although there were some vocal activists among 100 protesters outside the Wells Fargo bank along Capitol Mall on Saturday. Activists complained that Wells Fargo was impeding the closing of accounts, a charge the bank denied.

Other Sacramento residents said they were just pleased to make a change.

Sacramentan Pat White opened credit union accounts "for the family. … I'm not much of a joiner or marcher, but when we looked at the numbers, we just thought we'd get a better deal by switching."

Roseville resident Linda Ruiz made her decision in the middle of last week: "I'm now a credit union member and loving it. I've been meaning to do this but it took (the bank transfer movement) to finally get me off the fence and get it done."

In early October, Christian, a Bank of America customer, became upset with myriad fees and what she called poor customer service among large banking institutions.

She aired her complaints on Facebook and quickly drew tens of thousands of supporters. The bank transfer day movement was not linked to Occupy Wall Street, although the activists have endorsed it.

Amid the recent public outcry over bank fees, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co. scuttled planned trial runs of debit card fees. And last week, Bank of America said it was abandoning its just-announced plan to charge customers a monthly $5 debit card fee.

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