Complaint Review: Washington Mutual - San Marcos California

I was reading this with interest, as I also bank with wamu. I can certainly understand money being tight, and needing all of those funds in the account. However, I think something is strange here. Money is tight, but you are used to making in excess of $20,000 a MONTH?????? Good Lord, I am lucky to make that in a year! I am a person who is TRULY on a tight budget. I can't help but think that someone who brings in that much money PER MONTH should have enough in SAVINGS to cover the Wamu mishap. That is a red flag for me there. Now, I'm not saying wamu is right. But here are a couple of things to note: When I opened my acct, they specifically said I would not be able to withdraw more than $100 in the first 30 days of a new acct., that the funds WOULD BE HELD. Secondly, if you look online, there is an acct balance and an AVAILABLE balance. This shows the difference between the balance and what checks/atms have not been posted to the acct yet. Thirdly, I have often gone to the bank to make a deposit and had the teller say "looks like they want to place a hold on this check." Well I, A TRUE PERSON ON A TIGHT BUDGET, have asked them, well I really need the money, what can we do? Because I have never been fortunate enough to make a $7000 deposit, usually for me it's like $400, but that's how it is here in the land of the working poor (you know, those of us who can't afford to buy those houses you sell). BUT in those cases the teller has always called a manager who was able to override the hold. How do you like that? Ask and you shall receive. I have not once in 5 years had a deposit HELD (other than those first 30 days) all because I simply ASKED. Oh, and returned checks, overdrafts, fees, well I don't see how you could NOT have known about these, since they do appear online, and they mail you a fancy little piece of paper telling you about it. Oh yeah, and I don't even OWN a car that can be repossessed. That is all a part of my tight budget. And I haven't had a vacation in years. Must be tough to be you. Yeah, maybe the bank was part of the problem, but I think the real problem is that you are just too used to having so much money that you don't have to worry about keeping track of it. If only my children and I should be so lucky. I have to worry if I have enough money to pay my rent!

I don't appreciate your remarks about someone being STUPID and whatever other else. You must be a very small man to need to use such small words to insult a woman... lack of vocabulary, I am sure. Assumptions get you nowhere. I put $7,000 in my Washington Mutual Account. Then, a week later, before going on vacation, we mailed out the checks. The checks hit 10 days after. We were told by our CPA to open the business account and pay certain expenses through that account, one of which was the house and the truck. I also had $47,000 in my other account, for the brain surgeon who said something about me being stupid for going on vacation. I made $60,000 in 2 months and so I went on vacation for the first time in 3 years. Note * I am an entreprenuer and a working professional. I do not appreciate your demeaning comments. We did go to the bank and talk to them about what happened and they told us that all they would do is refund one charge of $23. I admit, I did assume that like my other banks, the hold would be no longer than 3 business days max. By the way, it has been longer than 4 months, it was 4 months before we found out about the delinquent payments caused by the NSF fees. We opened the account with WAMU in February. We normally make in excess of $20,000 per month, so we did not immediatley realize there was a problem; our online account with WAMU doesn't show bounced checks. It is true that what has happened has caused many issues with our finances and cost us thousands of dollars. I called WAMU this morning and spoke to a manager. I had her explain in depth why the holds on our account and why they didn't notify us of the holds. Before when we would call the bank, they would never be able to help us, they would just recite the same policy and procedures, without EXPLAINING how these things work. Most customers do not know how the bank works after a check is deposited or even how the money gets to the bank from other banks. We have had the same account with ECCU for 4 years and never had these kind of issues. WAMU just doen't seem to care about their customers- that's my opinion. Today I finally talked to someone who could explain what was happening to my account; why there were so many overdraft fees, etc. I can see that one problem we have had with them was the lack of good customer service; agents that know how to effectively communicate to the customer how the bank policies work, not in banking jargon or by stating rote bank policies over and over but by actually LISTENING to the questions being asked and thinking about the best answer before speaking. Basically, WAMU has a $1000 Overdraft Protection on every account and they honor everything; debits, card swipes, credit authorizations, etc. with that $1000 protection. That is the nice thing. the bad thing is that they wil honor little $2 Circle K charges, then charge you $23 for each one. Now, I know that people should know their balence, blah blah blah. But I would rathe rbe declind than pay $25 for that water bottle at Circle K. I assumed that WAMU clears checks as they actually receive finds, which I have since learned to be wrong. They are holding every check for 7 business days, no matter what. I have decided that I simply won't bank with them. I know that they have to make their money, too, but their lack of care or concern for their customers when it comes to special circumstances is abhorrent. I am a business and I do not turn a cold cheek to my customers and leave them "out in the cold" to save my silly policies. Had it simply been explained to us that they would be honoring every little debit charge that comes through and charging me $23 each time, I would have said I don't want that! However, there is no option. Either you get overdraft protection to cover you for the time when you are just $1 off of a $6000 check (or the check will otherwise bounce), or you pay $23 for every time you or your spouse runs your check card through without realizing there is no money left in the account. Even using a check register, there are going to be mistakes and WAMU will be there to exploit that mistake and make a cool $23 for every mistake. So I will say this: WAMU's telephone bankers have BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE SKILLS. Surely, not all of them, just the ones I talk to! I never hang up with them feeling like I got my question answered or my problem solved. I always feel liek I wasted my time even calling to ask questions. In fact, the first person I talked to started to get impatient with me and told me she couldn't "deal with me"... all I was doing was asking questions! She even accuse me of yelling at her! I neve raise dmy voice at her one time. she kept interrupting me and trying to over talk me. Her name is Connie and she was extremely impatient becasue she could not answer simple questions for me; she woudl just keep repeating the same bank policy, which was not even what I was asking her! By the way, we are not in foreclosure, we are in review for foreclosure and we are curing the default. i still believe that WAMU's business practices are unfair and predatory. We are closing the account and never banking with them again.

You said that you put 7K in the bank, and then 1 WEEK LATER you left for vacation. Now, you have to be a special kind of STUPID to not check your bank account during that week, especially when you admit that the teller said the FUNDS WOULD BE HELD. I understand that a cashier's check drawn on a national bank should not be held for that long, BUT YOUR JOB IS TO MAKE SURE that you have the money in your account within a few days. You're not going to win any lawsuit, you screwed up.

Then, you say your budget is tight and 4 months later, you lost a vehicle to the repo-man and are in foreclosure. It took you 4 months to figure out you had no money? You went on vacation when you couldn't pay your bills? You're a winner. I give this a 2. The beat is lacking, and the lyrics are pointless.

At any given time, a bank will have tens of thousands (or in this case hundreds) of checks in the process of clearing. There is no way for a bank to know when one particular check has cleared the system, since that check is no longer in this bank. So, the solution is to assign a 'float' to items at time of deposit. The amount of the check is subject to that amount of float. When the float time expires, the funds are released. Float times are set higher to new depositors. When you check your funds online, they are very likely giving you the account balance, (so you can verify your checkbook register) but not the AVAILABLE balance. If you call and speak to a live person, you can request your available balance amount, but I wouldn't count on it being the online or ATM balance. If you take a deep breath, relax, and go into your branch, and calmly explain to them how you got burned, not by overdrafts, but by uncollected funds, and, that you were not made aware of the length of time that your funds would be unavailable, they may relent and rebate you some of the fees. Good luck.