Washington Mutual

I opened a free checking account at Washington Mutual and all I can say is that you get what you pay for. I used the online bill pay service to pay my rent which is due on the 5th of the month. On the 29th I went online and checked the appropriate boxes to have a check sent to my landlord, received a confirmation number and was told it would arrive no later than the 4th. The money came out of my account immediately on the 29th.

On the 6th I was contacted by my landlord (while I was on vacation) and told that the check had not yet come so I immediately called the 1-800 WAMU “customer service” number. After pushing 2, pushing 3, pushing 5, pushing 1, pushing 0, holding for 15 minutes I finally was in contact with a girl from India who could not understand me and could only read from a script. After 10 painful minutes of trying to find out where the promised check was, I was put on hold AGAIN and transferred to a guy in Texas who told me to wait a few more days. So after more than an hour on the phone, nothing happened. Meanwhile I am incurring late fees and was told that WAMU would pay these.

This went on for at least an hour every day until the 16th when I finally put a stop payment on the check and was told that the money should be back in my account within 5-7 business days! They took my money out of the account in moments yet somehow cannot put it back in for a week? I was able to finally pay rent on the 21st by taking time from work and driving a money order across town (because I do not trust their checks at this point). Then began the arduous process of getting WAMU to pay the $90 in late fees owed to my landlord.

When I returned from vacation I went into my local branch where the branch manager had to get on the phone, push 2, push 3, push 0, put on hold for 15 minutes etc etc etc. After an hour of watching this “manager” go through what I had daily for the past 2 weeks, I told them just to call me when they found out which form I needed to fill out or whatever.
To date, Washington Mutual has said they are not responsible for my late fees. The injustice is what makes me so crazy. Crazy enough to post this complaint on every site that will take it, and I tell all of my friends and associates to NEVER use Washington Mutual. YOU are dishonest and clueless about where our money is. If I displayed this level of incompetence at my job, I would be perpetually unemployed.

I am going through a divorce and part of the temporary settlement was for my husband to give me 3000 to assist me in moving to a new home. I deposited 1500 in cash and a 30 check in the ATM because the branch was closed.

I was moving in the next morning, so I wrote two checks to the apartment complex for my security deposit and first month's rent. I also wrote a check to my cable company for installation. Over the past week and a half, I've had to write a few more checks for household goods, a doctor's visit and groceries.

I was informed that My two checks to my apartment complex were returned as NSF because Washington Mutual put all of my funds on hold. My direct Deposit went in last friday, and all but 100 of that was put on hold as well. I had two small checks that would be covered by the available balance that I checked before I wrote them.

Updated On: Monday, May 12, 2008

One of the ridiculous messages I got:

NSF Transaction Amount Action Fee Date
Check 0009 283.56 Returned 0.00 50808
Check 0010 30.64 Returned 0.00 50808

As of the time this notice was generated (which may be later than the time the transactions were presented), the available balance in your account was 533.33.

Even better:

Thanks for contacting WaMu. I'd be happy to assist you and apologize for
the delay in responding to your request.

I apologize for the inconvenience. Our records indicate there were four
checks returned. You did not receive any fee for each of these checks.
There was a check returned on May 6, 2008; one on May 7, 2008; and two
on May 8, 2008.

As you requested, the records for your account have been reviewed.
Unfortunately, the following items were returned unpaid:

- Check 6 in the amount of 750
- Check 7 in the amount of 931
- Check 9 in the amount of 283.56
- Check 10 in the amount of 30.64

The ledger balance in your account on May 6, 2008, was 1,417.21.
However, part of your deposit in the amount of 1,530 that posted on May
5, 2008 is due to expire as the date of May 12, 2008. The funds will be
available on May 13, 2008.

The original cash deposit was made on MAY 3rd. Another deposit was made on MAY 6th. A payroll direct deposit was made on MAY 9th. There were more than enough funds to cover all of these transactions.

I was informed that WaMu posts all debits prior to posting any credits. So if my payroll deposit goes in at midnight, any and all debits will be posted prior to the direct deposit. I have seen my direct deposit not get posted until 4PM.

Avoid this company at all costs.

Summary: While I love my WaMu checking and savings accounts, I am throughly disappointed in their credit card. Just stay away -- there are plenty of better offers out there.

I switched my savings and checking accounts to WaMu about three months ago and couldn't be happier. The online banking is the best I've seen, everyone I've dealt with in the three branches I visit is friendly and helpful, and email/online customer support is fast. Thinking a WaMu credit card would be equally if not more stellar, I applied for a one the last time I visited a branch. Wow, am I disappointed so far.

Things started out looking very good. The application process was easy -- the teller asked for the required information and put it into the computer. I didn't need to fill out any forms, which was awesome. She explained everything clearly, I signed the privacy policy and I was done. Simple.

The credit card division has its own website. Once the card arrived, I registered for this website and got my account setup. I immediately run into problems because wamucards.com says my Gmail address with a plus sign is invalid. It’s actually perfectly valid, and the funny thing is that the wamu.com banking website accepted it without complaint. After creating my account with another email address, I immediately fired off a polite complaint. They responded by saying that their system considers my email address invalid. After all of the other quirks I’ve experienced already (below) I responded that I expect their webite to be fixed or I will take my business elsewhere.

After logging in to my online account, I am discovered that WaMu’s credit cards do not have online statements. Gross! What is wrong with you, WaMu credit cards!? Your banking division has online statements in all kinds of formats and for all eternity – I can pull up my first statement years later – so why can’t your credit cards have this? An email to customer service confirmed that their company is not acquainted with paperless statements.

Next I look at the payments section of the website and discover the weirdest automatic monthly payment service I’ve ever seen. After indicating online that you want to set up recurring automatic monthly payments, instead of seeing the usual “Thanks for enrolling in automatic payments”, you are informed that the company will be mailing you a form within 10 business days. You have to fill out the form, attach a voided check, and mail it back. Wow, this is totally unacceptable. There is no reason why I should have to mail anything. On top of this, to cancel or change your automatic payment requires calling or writing customer service – you cannot change it online. At least they do let me make one-time payments online without any of this crap.

Lastly, the rewards program is misleading. It is point-based (I get 1.5 points for every dollar spent) with the option to redeem points for statement credits (or merchandise or travel or other crap that I don't care about). It sounds like a good deal -- 1.5 points per dollar -- but the points do not convert to statement credits one-for-one. I calculated that I would have to spend $667 to get a $5 statement credit. With my existing Capital One card (1.25% cash back) I would only need to spend $400 to get a $5 statement credit. Additionally, I can get statement credit at any amount from Capital One, but the WaMu card make me redeem in increments of 1000 points. Points also expire after a number of years, whereas my Chase and Capital One rewards never expire.

Overall, I’ve only has the card for a few days and I’m already disappointed with what I’ve seen. This has been quite a different experience and frankly I don’t see why WaMu even offers credit cards. In my eyes, all that’s been accomplished so far by WaMu's credit card division is reflecting poorly on the company.

Washington Mutual will not respond to our inquery regarding their spring '07 promotion for a companion flight airline ticket.

We qualified, completed/mailed the form to TLC marketing/Boston. The form said they would contact us within 14 days.

After 4 months, we contacted TLC who said they had not responded as our flight request was so far out; they said they would contact us *next week*. We waited 3 weeks and called them back. Again, they said they would call us back within a week. That was 12 weeks ago - no word from TLC. We have since bought our airline tickets for our flight from PDX to SanDiego. I feel this is terrible service from TLC and a poor reflection on WAMU. Now WAMU won't respond to us either. This is really bad / poor!!

Both my girlfriend and I have been long time customers of Washington Mutual. Last week at the Riverside Dr adress in Sherman Oaks, one of your bank tellers repeatedly harrassed my girlfriend for her phone number. She declined several times. Today she went in to the same branch to cash her work check and was harassed again by the same employee. She declined to give him her phone number again. Hours later while at work, this same teller came into her work and said he found out where she works from her check and again harassed her for her phone number. She declined a third time. This same teller refused to leave and the manager of her store had to call security. She does not know his name but described him as an Arabian or Indian descent male. This infuriates me that Washington Mutuals Security and personal customer information is being stolen by employees to stalk and harass its customers. I will be filing a Police Report as well and demand that this employee be terminated.

HOW TO CANCLE A CHECK

I opened a savings account with them 2 yrs ago, put a bunch of money in there, and then used that money over a couple months to pay off bills, buy things, etc. The account dwindled to about $40. That $40 sat there for over a year and a half, doing nothing but earning the measly interest they pay. Recently, I was getting ready to go out of town on a 4 day weekend, and decided to balance my checking acct before I left. To my dismay, my balance was scary low, so I had the bright idea of transfering that $40 over to my checking just to give me a titch more padding. I open up my savings account online, only to see that it is now in the negative. What?! I look closer. Since May, they've been charging me a service fee of $10 a month for not maintaining a minimum balance. There was no warning, no email, no letter explaining that this was going to start happening.

I just got a letter from them stating that my account is now in the negative and that they will report me to credit agencies if I don't make a deposit soon.

Unbelievable.

Overall, I have been very happy with WaMu in the two years I have been using their banking services. One thing that I have never gotten over and still disappoints me to this day, however, is the fee they charge me to use another bank's ATM. It doesn't cost you anything for me to withdraw money from another ATM. That's not "free ATM use". If not for this, I would recommend your services to other people.

I keep getting a $20 service fee on my checking account even though I'm a WAMU retiree.

I've called customer support several times, as well as my branch, several visits to my local branch office, Human resources and a number for the head office ombudsman.

I keep hearing that WAMU has free checking for the public, and the employee manual says retirees get free banking...How to I find the right person to stop fees from being charged?