Washington Mutual, You Suck

A couple years back I had had it with Washington Mutual (a.k.a. Wamu) and switched to USAA Federal Savings Bank. This came about because I was sick and tired of Wamu’s lack of overdraft protection on the Free Checking account. Back then I did cut it close far too often and my biggest complaint was that their website was never up to date with account information.

For example, items posting to my account for one day, would not appear until the next day, even though they were dated for the previous day. So looking online never really told me what was posting on any given day. This trapped me more than once and I got stung with NSF fees! I take responsibility for that. However, I was always frustrated because I couldn’t get overdraft protection, and when I would ask for a refund, my 8+ years of patronage wasn’t worth a dime, let alone $27.00!

I switched banks, but kept the Wamu account open with a few bucks in it. I would use it occasionally and replenish the money as needed. My goal was to make sure they kept sending me statements in the mail. I figured I would get my money in the form of wasting theirs.

Recently I decided to use Wamu as a “check”-ing account, merely putting in money to write checks. I figure checks are more work for them to process and thus, waste more of their resources. On March 8th I transferred money to Wamu from USAA. However, Wamu didn’t “receive” the money until the 9th. Guess what? I got burned. So I wrote them about it:

This charge comes as a result of Washington Mutual receiving an electronic transfer one day after it was completed. The bank from which the transfer originated from shows the transfer being complete on 3/8/07. It is for this exact reason that I chose to start banking elsewhere, because of WM’s very unpredictable and unreliable servers. Please remove this $27.00 charge. Thank you.

They responded:

Dear Mitchell Milliron:

Thanks for contacting Washington Mutual!

Washington Mutual takes responsibility for bank errors and will work with customers to resolve issues arising from those errors. Your concern has been researched, and as no bank error was found, the fee cannot be refunded.

I regret any inconvenience this may cause you.

For additional assistance, send us a message…

I replied:

Dearest Washington Mutual,

I don’t really care if the error was a “bank” error or not. Washington Mutual continues to stand behind there shoddy computer network which has never provided real time information to its customers. That’s not an error, that’s just a crappy IT department.

My other bank account, which is with USAA Federal Savings bank, has up to the second account information. I’ve used USAA for years, and indeed, the accuracy of their online information is astounding. Especially when compared to WM, which often times doesn’t show transactions until days after they’ve posted.

I keep a register of my accounts, and when I transferred money on the 8th, my register and USAA both reflected the same thing. Not so for WM! So, if WM processed it on the 9th, that’s fine. I don’t care. My request still stands: credit my account $27.00.

If you can’t find it in your big corporate heart to do that, please let me know. Then I can put some more money into the account and continue to “recoup” the fee by using up Washington Mutual’s money; in the form of paper, envelopes, and postage. I’ll just continue to make the account changes that require physical mail be sent to me. I racked up some 12 letters in the past 2 weeks, all saying the exact same thing. Man do I rock!

So credit the account or give me a heads up so I can waste my time and your money

Good day.

So there you have it. I’m just going to do what I have to do. If that means changing my email address every other day to get that notification mailed to me, so be it. If it means writing 100 checks to myself for 10 cents each and cashing them at a branch, so be it. If it includes getting $100 worth of pennies at another bank to go deposit at Wamu, so be it. I can waste plenty of their resources for an account that has averaged a balance of $0.04 for the last 12 months!! Bring it on, baby.