Recent Stories
7/2/09: Heres WaMu from a realtor's perspective - gumming up the works in a short sale. (link) For the record WaMu/Chase may be the worst as noted by the realtor, but they certainly aren't the only bank holding seconds that are killing short sales with unrealistic expectations.
7/1/09: It sure seems like Chase is fishing around to see what they can get away with. For instance, are they raising minimum payment amounts from 2% to 5% to get people to default so they will have more cause to raise interest rates? (article, article, and article)
7/1/09: An important milestone happened on Monday - the US Supreme court made a rulling that will effect States ability to regulate Federally chartered banks, like Chase. The moral of this story is it may be time to start complaining to your State's Attorey General and Department of Consumer Affairs.
7/1/09: A look at reasons for joining a credit union instead of a bank.
7/1/09: Old WaMu free checking overdraft commercial reminds us of something that never really existed - WaMu waiving an overdraft.
6/30/09: It may not work, but you must admire this blogger for trying to get help against Chase for raising his minimum required payment by contacting his states Attorney General and Senator.
6/30/09: Chase is claiming to have approved 138,000 trial mortgage modifications since April 9th. This sounds like a lot but will someone explain to me what a trial modifications is? (article)
6/26/09: This heartbreaking story seems to confirm WaMu/Chase's ranking as least helpful with loan modifications.
6/20/09: Apparently transitioning account from WaMu to Chase is not going smoothly. (story) Here is some of what is happening:
- Link to savings for overdraft protection disabled
- Bills set to auto-pay not going through
- Debit card stops working before new one arrives
- Deposited funds availability takes longer
6/20/09: More lawsuits have been filed against Chase for suspending HELOC (home equity) accounts. (story) This is good news as it puts pressure on Chase to start behaving reasonably.
6/18/09: Katherine's experience tells us that chaos still reigns at WaMu/Chase. (story)
6/17/09: Chase has apparently transitioned all of its WA, OR, ID, and UT WaMu branches fully over to Chase branches. (article) That's great unless you opened your account in one of those states but now live in another state, in which case a former WaMu branch can't help you nor can a Chase branch. (blog)
6/11/09: An Ohio group claims that every other bank except Chase has been helping borrowers in trouble. (article)
6/11/09: WaMu/Chase refuses to cover fraudulent credit card charges, a story we have heard before. (article)
6/10/09: Did Chase illegally freeze or reduce your home equity line? At least one person has filed a lawsuit against Chase for this.
More stories (amuse yourself for hours!)
Other Information
(New) FindABetterBank.com helps you, welll, find a better bank.
The Federal Reserve regulates Chase Bank which owns WaMu. To file a complaint with the Fed, go here.
Reminder, even though your WaMu branch may look like Chase now, you still have to go to the WaMu website and call the WaMu customer service number. In California at least, the full transition won't be complete until October.
Other resources for WaMu-Chase customers:
www.chase-sucks.com
www.chasebanksucks.com
(New) http://consumerist.com/search/chase/
Thanks to everyone that linked to this site. We are ranked #1 in Google for "washington mutual sucks" and "wamu sucks", and are now on the first page for "wamu"! (more Google tricks here)
6/25/09: Overall site traffic (yellow bars on graph shown below) has been steadily increasing again in the last several months. One interpretation of this is that more people are frustrated with the WaMu/Chase transition and are looking for information.
I created this complaint site because WaMu frustrated me and I wanted to do something about it. I've also created websites to share information on other things that frustrated me:
Direct mail: NoDirectMail.org
Gift cards: Gift Card Advocate
Sleazy official looking notices: Annual Review Board
If you think something is unfair, I urge you to do something about it! If we all did this, people and companies would behave better!
This picture, shown in a Business Week article, is graphiti painted on a WaMu branch.
Why credit cards are a problem at ALL banks (4/23/09)
As evidenced by many recent headlines as well as this Marketplace story, all banks seem to be trying to squeeze as much money from their credit card customers to make up for rising delinquencies. Excuses for raising rates to sky-high levels are getting pretty thin and hard to believe. Getting your rates jacked up to 30% because you were late on one payment even for good reason is commonplace and most credit card companies are guilty of other sleazy practices, such as applying payments to the lowest interest rate debt (even if it is the newest) and applying interest to already paid balances.
President Obama is meeting with credit card executives today to try and convince them to become more reasonable lest they get new regulation shoved down their throats by Congress. The Federal Reserve has already instituted new rules back in December 2008, which covers banks regulsted by them. These rules don't take effect until July 2010. At this point, relief seems certain, but it will take a year or more to take effect.
Even if regulation does fix some of the problems, new rules may not apply to what banks have already done and banks will probably figure out new and creative ways to ding customers. Consumers must learn to be as active as possible in dealing with fee agressive banks.
If you feel that you have been treated unfairly, I urge you to contact your bank and ask them to be more reasonable. If the person you are talking says they can't do anything, ask for a manager. If the manager won't do anything, ask for their manager. If they won't transfer you to a manager, call back and try again. Contact the company's customer satisfaction department. File a complaint with the BBB, your states department of consumer affairs, or the organization that regulates your bank. Write letters in addition to calling them on the phone. Find online venues where you can post your complaints. Set up your own complaint website like I did. Write your congressperson. Read your bill and make sure it is correct. Read the fine print on your credit card agreement and see if you can find where they are breaking it.
The more that people refuse to be taken advantage of the less leeway it gives organizations to take advantage of us.
Chase turns back the clock on WaMu branches (4/7/09)
As reported in the WSJ (WaMu's Branches Lose Their Smiles 4/7/09) Chase is ripping out all of WaMu's "customer friendly" branch designs and replacing them with a traditional teller window (with bullet-proof glass) configuration.
I find it interesting that anything about WaMu would be considered customer friendly, as they have had a reputation for poor customer service (including a BBB 'F' rating), which has only intensified since the crisis began for them in the middle of last year.
I personally bank at First Republic Bank, which has a very non-traditional branch setup; their branches consist entirely of personal bankers sitting at desks. You develop a relationship with a personal banker (although anyone in a branch will help you) rather than the next-in-line mentality. It is also nice to have my bankers email address, so I can deal with some things without going into the branch or phoning and have access to someone who knows me personally. On the rare occasion when I overdraft (before I had an overdraft protection credit line) someone from the bank would call personally to let us know there was a problem.
Other banks seem to go out of their way to NOT use all the contact information they have for you when there is a problem. Countrywide did this when I accidentally missed a mortgage payment when on vacaction (forgot to pay it before we left). They left 9 automated messages on our home number but never once tried to contact me using other information they readily had - my mobile number and email address. Banks like WaMu, Chase, and others have become too dependent on fees and don't seem to want to jeopardize the fee stream by making things easier.
But I digress.
It sounds like WaMu's "radical" branch configurations were mostly cosmetic, not a redesign of how business is done. It seems to be coming more clear that Chase is more interested in moving backwards with WaMu than forwards. Too bad.
WaMu tries to dismiss a class action (2/4/09)
With all the information flowing around about the out and out fraud practiced by WaMu in their culture of deceit trying to sell as many crappy home loans as posible, I find it funny that WaMu claims in response to a class action filed against them that they are not liable just because they "failed to predict the severity of the housing crash and the impact it would have on WaMu." Oh please. That is like saying that builders of houses of cards can't be blamed for failing to predict a slight breeze. The problems with WaMu started at the top and the former executives and directors personal gains from WaMu should be fair game for those who lost money.
Update 4/7/09: The courts today halted a class-action lawsuit started back in 2005 against Washington Mutual on the grounds that claims against the bank are better directed to the FDIC as the receiver of WaMu since it was seized last year. (article) Is the mortgage-fraud related class-action discussed here next to be halted?
WaMu name to be distant memory (1/13/09)
Apparently Chase is starting its rebranding of WaMu branches in California in March 09, spending $300 million on the effort. They will no doubt be spending a bundle more to rebrand the rest of the WaMu branches in the US which they say will be done by 2009.
Did anyone see the Apple commercial that insinuated Microsoft was spending a LOT of money on advertising and a little money on fixing Vista?
Hey Chase, how about spending some of that money on fixing the WaMu customer service?????
This recent story of a WaMu customer trying desperately to work out a deal to be able to pay off their credit card debt despite losing their job and difficult financial times begs a serious question: are the high credit card rates themselves making their customers unable to pay the debt? I recall an interesting article from 2007 about a credit union in Florida that offered the same low mortgage rates to its prime and subprime borrowers and their was virtually no difference in default rates between the two - they were both low. Is it possible that it is the jacking up of interest rates and the unwillingness to make reasonable deals with customers in trouble that is causing customers to default on their debt, not other factors like the losing of jobs? Do credit card issuers really think that jacking someone's rates up to 28.8% is going to allow them to recover more money than giving them a reasonable rate like 10% and allowing them to pay it off?
Perhaps the credit card issuers like WaMu should consider lowering rates to more reasonable levels to stave off the tidal wave of bad debt coming their way. I think they banking industry's theory that higher rates for riskier customers protects them against the higher risk is a flawed one.
Just my opinion.
Editorial (9/26/08)
Washington Mutual, it seems, has done everything wrong. My criticism of them started out a few years ago about their poor customer service. In the last year, as their exposure to the subprime lending debacle has come to light, the bank has suffered considerably in their ability to keep going as an independent bank, and their customer service got progressively worse. Both their customer service problems and their subprime exposure were related to the same core problem - poor leadership. I have always stated that my desire was for Washinton Mutual to take the information I publish on this site and use it to improve their customer service; it appears that this is up to JP Morgan Chase now, which I hope is a much better bank.
To continue to provide a place where people can share their experiences, I have added jpmorganchasesucks.org as an address for this site. Because I don't have any experience with JP Morgan Chase, and to be fair, I have also added the jpmorganchasedoesntsuck.org adress. If people are happy with them, I'll retire the sucks address.
The next few months will be a critical time for all (former) WaMu customers. Please continue to send me your stories so everyone can see how the transition is going. If things get better or worse, people need to know about it.
If you are a JP Morgan Chase customer, all of your WaMu bretheren want to know what kind of a bank they are getting; please send me your stories, both good and bad.
Peter
My Story (First written in 2005)
Hello and welcome to the expressions of my frustration with Washington Mutual Bank. I hope this information helps to direct you away from doing business with them until they improve their operations, policies, and customer service.
The behavior of a business usually reflects the guidance and thinking of the people at the top. Because of this
I fully expect that problems and dissatisfaction in one area is typically reflective of what you will experience in other areas of the business. Because so many people have had problems with Washington Mutual, it is clearly in their corporate culture.
In 2002, I decided to reduce the amount of direct mail I was getting by calling all the companies that were sending the stuff to me and asking them to stop sending it. Simple, right? For those of you that don't know, it is your full and legal right by Federal law to ask someone to stop sending you direct mail, and they must stop! Most of the organizations I contacted were more than happy to take me off of their mailing list. Now, being a homeowner, mortgage refinance solicitations make up about 30% of all junk mail I get. Thirty percent! That is HUGE! Washington Mutual is by far the largest abuser of this form of direct mail!
When I first started contacting WaMu to stop sending me the mortgage refinance junk mail, I actually already had a home loan with WaMu. That I already had a mortgage with WaMu and yet brokers from all over California were sending me refinance offers just baffles me. At that time I was also registered with their privacy department to not receive any offers from them. For those of you that don't remember, earlier this decade, financial institutions lobbied for and got the ability to share your sensitive financial information with outside entities for marketing and promotional purposes. What they had to do to get this was to agree to send opt-out notices to you where you could opt out of all information sharing as well as whether you wanted to receive any solicitations from them.
In the last several years, I have contacted WaMu over 20 times trying to get them to stop sending me refinance offers. At first they seemed helpful. I contacted each broker as I received a flyer and they said the would take me off of their list. But the mail kept coming. So I contacted the corporate offices and after being bumped around a bit I was put in touch with one of thier corporate customer satisfaction officers. She appologized for the inconvenience, told me that in fact brokers should be using the corporate do-not-mail list (which I was on) before sending out direct mail, and that she would take care of the problem.
I received another mortgage refinance offer from them. I contacted the corporate customer satisfaction officer and she again appologized and said she would take care of it. I received a confirmation that I wouldn't be receiving any more mail. But I received several more. This time, the WaMu officer changed her tune and told me that they had every legal right to send me whatever direct mail they wanted. How arrogant is that! I informed her that she was in fact incorrect and sent her all the information on the applicable Federal laws. She responded that their legal department reviewed the information and determined that they still had the right to send me whatever they wanted. Hmm. I guess a Supreme Court ruling wasn't enough to convince them.
I have spent a lot of time filing Better Business Bureau complaints against them, sending more letters to their corporate offices and individual brokers and regional offices, but they just won't stop. Which is why I created this website ... to share my experience with you. Do you want to do business with a company that is so disorganized that it can't get its brokers to use its internal do-not-mail list which is their corporate policy? Do you want to do business with a home lender that is by far the worst offender in the obviously misleading 3% mortgage refinance offer schemes and doesn't care how it treats its current and former customers? (Update 9/8/08: When I wrote this in 2005, the subprime meltdown had not yet happened. We all know the results of those 3% mortgage rates now.)
I don't. And after hearing about Scott Donnelly's experience, I definitely won't be doing business with WaMu again. But, sticking it to WaMu isn't really what I am after. My real desire is to pressure them to be a more responsible organization. If you care about things like this, please email their customer satisfaction department and let them know that you saw this site and are disappointed that they don't handle customer issues better. Your help will be apprecaited.
Update: Reader Kevin V suggests this for getting hold of a live person to complain to: Dial 1-800-788-7000 and then dial 162 when you get connected.
Update: Reader Henry suggests the following:
"If you have a problem with WaMu, don't spend too much time on the phone with them. Instead, file a formal complaint with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency; part of the Treasury Dept. that regulates banks:
State the facts clearly and be certain to state that you are a victim of WaMu's deceptive business practices and lack of adherence to federal banking laws. Send a copy to both of your Senators and your US Representative."
If you have your own WaMu story, please send it to me at 
so I can add it to this site.
As alternatives to Washington Mutual, I suggest First Republic Bank for personal and business banking. They are a truly exceptional bank that really seems to get the essense of customer service. As for an alternative for home loans, I used to recommend Countrywide, but I recently had a nightmare problem with their screwy online statements and got very little satisfaction trying to iron out the problem with their customer service, so I can no longer recommend them.
Sincerely
Peter