I had quite the experience with this customer service oriented bank. I imagine there have been people who have had worse problems with other banks, but this is the worst that has ever happened to me.
Last Wednesday, I deposited a check in the ATM at my local WaMu during business hours. The check was written out by me, to me, on a different bank account. I deposited the check into my savings account. As usual, I did not endorse the back of the check (they never have pens at the ATM).
On Friday, I checked my statement online and was able to determine that the check had posted and that my available and ledger balances were as I would have expected. I then transferred a large sum from savings to my checking account and setup bill payments to be completed that night. The last time I checked my statement was at 4pm, when I remembered that the address for my mortgage servicer had changed. Everything looked normal.
On Saturday, I checked my statement to make sure that all my payments went out. At that point in time, I had a large negative balance in my savings account (and I had no idea why). This wasn’t cool because I needed to give someone a check on Sunday and I was woried about my account being screwed up.
On Sunday, I went to write my check and looked online and saw that both of my accounts now had a positive balance. The savings account had a larger balance than I expected, but I didn’t worry about that. I figured they must have messed up when fixing my account and that I’d just have to deal with it on Tuesday when I had a spare moment.
On Monday, at 4:20pm I discovered that my checking account now had a large negative balance ($1000 more than the negative balance my savings account had on Saturday). As you can guess, I was absolutely furious. I talked to my brother, who works at WaMu, and he told me that they have been unusually anal about people not signing the back of a check.
So, even though I had dinner plans and was very short on time, I knew that I had at least one check that would bounce if I didn’t resolve the issue. I also knew that my insurance company would be debiting the funds for my auto and life insurance this week.
I talked to the teller and told her about the whole situation and she was the most unhelpful person I have ever encountered. First of all, she said it was my own fault for not signing the back of the check. I told her that it could not possibly be my fault because as a WaMu customer for 4 years, I have never EVER signed the back of a check, even when I went inside and deposited it with a teller.
That argument got nowhere fast. She still insisted it was my fault and that the bank couldn’t do anything about that because the branch did not notice that it wasnt endorsed before they sent it off to the clearing house. So, I changed tact and ask why the bank could not notify me via automated phone call or automated email. Her response was “We’re just too busy to notify the customer of something like that.”
Now, I’m sure that is not WaMu’s official policy. But who tells a loyal customer (who has an employee account mind you) that they are just too busy for them? I could probably write a plugin for their software that provided automatic email notification of a bank issued debit (bounced check, service fees, whatever) in two or three hours.
But don’t worry, the teller happily informed me that I likely would have gotten something in the mail from them on Wednesday (tomorrow). Of course, my mail person almost always delivers the mail after 7pm. That means that, since I am traveling on Friday, I would have had one business day to resolve all of my bank issues. But, what if I had been on vacation all week? I would have been left without any money, without access to an ATM, or to use my debit card for payment.
Why? Because WaMu wouldn’t cash a check that I wrote to myself and didn’t sign the back of. I can concede to the fact that they can refuse to honor the check. However, A) the money should have never been posted to my account, B) the bank should have notified me immediately C) I have had an employee account for 4 years and have direct deposit, the bank could have easily given me the money and then asked me to fix the issue as soon as possible.
I believe that what they did is illegal also. Not that they debited my savings acount for the amount of the check. But, they also reversed an unrelated transaction (the transfer) in order to make my savings account positive again. This then caused my checking account to go negative. I believe they could have cleaned out my checking account to try and balance the savings account but reversing a transfer seems to be a bit much to me.
In either event, they would have saved themselves a loyal and content customer had they handled this in a more reasonable manner. I have referred many of my friends to Wamu over the years. I’m afraid I can no longer offer that referal. If I have referred you, I suggest you consider careful whether WaMu is really as grand as they say they are.
My brother still works there, so I have a hard time speaking negatively of the employer that puts food on his table. But, if they don’t change their behavior with loyal customers, they won’t be able to afford to pay him anyway.