Jeff Yiw
map-marker Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Washington Mutual APR complaint

I have 2 credit cards with WaMu. I was offered a promotional 5.99% APR on all purchase on my credit card. I was unaware of this promotion, though I do not doubt they sent me appropriate notification. I made a $2,900 purchase on my card; the card's credit limit is $3000. I was shocked to receive this month's statement with my purchase being charged 31.74%. When calling the customer service rep this evening, he indicated that my promotional 5.99% APR had expired by the time I had made my purchase. To further my disgust, I was informed that my May 16th purchase missed the promotional APR by merely 1 day. He informed me that the promotional rate was available only from March 5th to May 15th, 2008. I was certain that with a good diplomatic demeanor, I would be able to resolve the situation with the customer rep. Lo and behold, after about 1 hour of moving up the food chain to speak with the supervising rep. I was told there was nothing that could be done. Words could not express my frustration. Furthermore, I notified them that I had a conversation with a rep at the beginning of May explaining that I was about to make a large purchase and wanted to make sure the rate still applied. In this initial conversation, I was never notified that the rate had a set expiration date. I have been a customer with WaMu for nearly 3 years and I have 2 credit cards with them. Their inability to be flexible has resulted in me cancelling both credit cards this evening. I am only left with this entry and perhaps a letter of correspondence to ease the frustration. Furthermore, I had paid off the balance in April to make room for this purchase. At this point I was paying an APR of 14.74% on a vast majority of the balance. Had I not even bothered to pay off the balance to make room for this May 16th purchase, I would have still had the original balance at a much lower rate than the 31.74% I am now stuck with. I will never use Washington Mutual again in my life and would encourage all others to join me. I cannot recommend any other credit card companies with perhaps the exception being Capital One. Given their marketing campaigns and my experience with them, I would have to portray them in a positive light. Although, given their competition, that is not saying much.
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5 comments
Guest

:( :( :eek :upset , these people are a total rip off, and should be checked out by the feds.

Guest

I've had a similar experience as stated above with WAMU. One day they raised my interest rate to 32.99%, which the customer service supervisor was *** enough to tell me, is the maximum allowed by law.

I asked him what the basis of this was and he said they periodically review credit scores and make these decisions. I told him that it didn't make sense that this decision was made based on my credit score because its done nothing but go up drastically in the time I've held their card and it was a little under 700 to begin with. All he kept doing was repeating to me that what I think is a "good" credit score may not be considered "good" to the underwriters who are making the decisions. I explained to him about 5 times, that even if that is the case, my credit score has done nothing but improve so if my previous score earned me the APR I had, why would an even higher score earn me the maximum APR allowed by law.

He just kept repeating the same thing over and over again about a "good" credit score to me might not necessarily be a "good" credit score to the decision makers. One more thing to add to this...I had just paid in full a 5K balance and they dropped the APR almost immediately. As soon as I made a few charges on the card, they jacked it up to 32.99%. This company is out of control and I've never seen such a blatant display of it from any other credit card company I've ever dealt with.

And obviously canceling the card would lower my credit score at least temporarily so that's not really an option. This company is garbage.

I would strongly suggest that anyone considering doing business with WAMU take their business elsewhere. Capital One has never given me any problems.

Guest

wamu raised my apr from 16%24%.When I called they said it was because my credit score had dropped. I checked my credit score, it was 753.

I have two cards with them. The other card they reduced my credit limit to the balance owed. I always pay more than the minimum and never had a late payment. I went to the bank to close my checking account and remove my $50,000.

The manager did not want me to do so and said she would call the credit card on my behalf. When she called they were very rude to her and said they could not do anything about it and closed my account for complaining. The manager called back and after talking to several rude people reactivated my account. I was pissed so I removed my $50000.

I started to pay large payments to pay off my balance, so they rewarded me by lowering my credit limit with each payment.This is lowering my credit score. So now I pay only the minimum because paying more lowers my credit score more than having high balances.

Thanks alot wamu you suck! I was a good loyal wamu customer for over 5 years.

Guest

do not use this airport transportation co.they ripped me off for one hundred dollars and the bbb did nothing about it.the bbb is a total waste of time.90608

Guest

i have been a WaMu customer for about 2 years, since they purchased my Providian card. now i would say that i have seen a number of improvements in their customer service over the last two years and i have had a couple of times where they bent over backwards to help me especially on a few recent balance transfers (2008) where the other bank was holding the payment for 24 days (no doubt so they could charge me interest on it) and would not release the funds.

HOWEVER their are some "guidelines" they cannot alter or budge in any way. this is true of most credit card companies - none of them are really too customer friendly.

the 31% apr seems excessive, and surprises me, since i have had mostly good experiences with them. i have had many companies that have arbitrarily reviewed my account and jacked up my rates for no reason, and these guys have never done this to me, soรขโ‚ฌยฆ

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chuckie Kmq
map-marker Stone Mountain, Georgia

Washington Mutual Stole $9,000 from me

My on-line account was recently hacked. They said that everything was OK but locked everyone out from on-line access, myself included. The assurances that they had caught the problem in time, no damage done, came one after another. I had no clue that any money was missing until I happened to see a computer screen at the branch this afternoon. They then said that they will refund my money AFTER an investigation has been completed. They basically stole from me and kept the information from me as well, and it appears that I can do nothing but sue.
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Loss:
$9
kcmacleod
map-marker Walnut Creek, Ohio

Paid off account and they never posted it too my account

On July 12th 2008 I mailed a check to pay off my account to Washington Mutual, I recived a bill from Washington Mutual on July 25th showing I still had a balance, I called Washington Mutual and they said they never recieved payment. I kept checking account to see if check cleared On July 15th the check was cashed by Washington Mutual, I called Washington Mutual and told them, that my bank is showing they cashed the check, Washington Mutual had NO record of my check being cashed, so after recieving harassing phone calls from them, I canceled the check and issued a new check ,along with a copy showing that they cashed the first check and now they want to charge me a late fee on my account and uped my monthly finance charge from 14% to 31% because I'm a credit risk!!!!!!!!!!!!! I canceled my account. My advice when searching for a credit card STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY
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Loss:
$60
Anonymous
map-marker Tacoma, Washington

Wamu has a temp hold on funds that cleared over a week ago.

Wamu is a terrible bank. Put through an online transfer and it went through LAST week. Now WAMU has a temp hold on my funds. Need to pay bills! Called the Silverdale Washington Branch and inquired about the hold. Was told that they couldn't do anything. I asked to be put with someone who could, was put on hold and then transfered to a call center in INDIA! WTF! Mercy! Hold on American's this is going to get rough! The average person that puts money in the bank intends on using it at some point. Without cause they are holding my money. Are they holding yours too? P-O'd in Bremerton!
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Loss:
$1000
Tanish Ogn
map-marker Battle Ground, Washington

WAMU, another bank out for fees.

One Thursday night or early Friday morning, I decided to hop online to check my pending balance. A problem had happened with another "bank" whereby they had taken funds for a loan payment that I was told wouldn't be deducted until after my payday of the 31st. Mistakes had been made and I had to suffer the $35 NSF from Wamu. Feeling no fault of Wamu I felt it ok to leave the funds as they were because payday was coming in less than 5 hours (12:00am Friday morning) and there was about 6 times the overdraft amount coming in funds for my paycheck. Now, 11:45pm and I log into Wamu's website waiting for the funds to come in within 15 minutes. 12:00am finally comes, I check my ledger balance which reflects $0.00 and, obviously, the available balance reflects the same thing. So I kept waiting for about 20 minutes or so and then suddenly strike up the idea, "Hey, why don't I take a look at what's in my account". I click on the account and sure enough my paycheck is sitting there. So, I'm home free!! Wait, not so fast, the bank is holding the funds to reflect a "negative" balance showing my paycheck is not available. Remember that there is 6 times the amount of cash on hand to cover the fees. It's at this time I just decided to move the funds over from savings into checking which again, there was more than enough in savings to cover the overdrafts and negative balance. The very instant that I brought the negative balance to $0.00, my paycheck was released!!! Just like that, once the bank realized they weren't in-line to stick me with more fees because of my positive balance, they relinquished the witheld funds instantaneously. Right then it dawned on me that it was time to withdraw every cent I had in Wamu. After doing this, I marched right into a local credit union 1 block from my apartment, opened up a $1,000 money market account, packed a savings account, and happily took posession of 2 checking accounts. For once, I'm happy to be back into banking and have a lot of prospects for investments. In closing I have to say that Wamu was the first bank account I opened up and I've been a customer of their's for 8 years or so. I've had one other instance of an NSF that I asked to have waived as a "courtesy". The response I was responded with was being treated like I had asked a police officer for their gun! I firmly believe that Wamu would rather lose a customer than waive a small fee of even $5.00. In my opinon, this is truly a pathetic business practice and, it's a testiment to just how stingey banks can be. I'm overly satisfied with knowing I'm now at an institution that appreciates my business and isn't out to satisfy private investors.
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1 comment
Guest

Don't forget these banks are not non-profit. Just make sure you manage your account and not have it manage you.

We all have our ups and downs...if you don't like them try opening an account with another bank.

Just don't get yourself on Chexsystems. Good luck.

imoreno
map-marker Dallas, Texas

Wamu doesn't honor credit card offers

I transferred a credit card bal from another bank to WAMU; and the offer was a specific fixed % until the balance pay off. After 3 years, they decided to raised the APR on the account and didn't honor the initial balance transfer offer which atracted me as a customer in the first place. I closed the account; but they didn't want to honor the aggreement and left me with a 20+% on the account! Don't accept offers from WAMU; they will increase your APR whenever they feel like it without honoring the agreement.... They don't care about loyal customers which always pay ahead of time, more than the minimum required amount and so on; they seems to abuse the excellent customer with unfair and illegal cahrges and APR increases and don't care about your satisfaction as a customer. It's time to put a stop to the nonsense for which customers are always paying more than what agreed!!
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helweh
map-marker Tamarac, Florida

Wamu is a Scam...

Washington Mutal is a scam. I put a stop payment for all checks to my account because a company had got my checking account information. They processed the check anyways and gave me 5 overdraft fee's and refused to refund them even though it was the telephone banker who processed the stop payment's fault for putting the information in incorrectly. They refuse to give me the information for the manager they just keep on saying that they will get call me. They have absolutely no customer service skills. They don't even try to solve the problem at all.
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Loss:
$300
1 comment
Guest

The same situation just happened to me, only I received TEN overdraft fees. Josh at the call center in New York can go to ***.

This decaying establishment has zero customer service skills. They will be gone in a year anyway.

Anonymous
map-marker West Point, Georgia

They made my made my payments impossible to pay back

I have a high balance on my wamu credit card and I am trying to pay it off by myself. I called and tried to make arrangements to pay them, but they want me to pay an amount that I just don't have. I tell them what I can pay and they boost it higher than I have money for. This leaves me no choice but to file so I can get them settled. I did't want to do this this way but I have no way to resolve the debt other than filing soon as I can.
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Loss:
$6000
1 comment
Guest

I'm sorry, exactly how is it WaMu's fault that you ran up your bills and now cannot pay?

Anonymous
map-marker Arnhem, Gelderland

WAMU cannot seem to help their customers!

They've turned into the worst bank!! They used to be amazing, helpful, knowledgeable, and quick before. I was locked out of my online account for no reason (that they could find) for months without any resolution. No one calls back, no one follows up or will assume any responsibility to own the matter until resolved. Now, my wire transfer didn't go through because the incoming bank refused it!! They didn't even know there was an incoming transfer. I can't wait to get back to the states and close this pathetic account. Very true - their reps' english has gotten so bad that you cannot understand them. I've called and hung up many times in a row just so I can speak to someone in english. Sorry I don't mean to be rude - I'm an immigrant as well, but there are other positions that may be better suited for heavily accented folk instead of a call center rep. It sucks for all involved. WAMU...RIP, you blew it with so many customers.
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1 comment
Guest

you *** *** ***!

learn how to write usernames and passwords down!!!! :grin

ihateyou Tnx
map-marker Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania

Washington Mutual is stealing!!!!

I have more then just one complaint for this company. So let's start on day one... I opened my checking and savings account with about $3000 in cash. So all the girl needed to do was DEPOSIT. But instead the bank teller decided to TRANSFER an extra $1000 from someone else's account into mine at the same time. So as the days went on I paid bills and went shopping and and kept tracking the numbers in my little check book. Also, the savings account was pulling money out of the checking every month just like it was supposed to. All of a sudden two months later washington mutual withdrawls $1000 from my savings account which was supposed to only have about $150 in it. The only thing the transaction history said was " amount owed to WaMu." huh? so I called and told them what happened. the man said he would look into it and call me back. (i never heard from him again) BUT they made sure to pull the $1000 from the correct account...my checking. so i was exactly -$850 in my savings and -$500 in my checking. i called and they told me that even though it was a bank error i did spend the money and had to pay it back. they closed both my accounts and i had to pay $850 then they returned the extra $1000 that they took from my checking. THEY NEVER RETURNED THE OVERDRAFT CHARGES! and now I just learned they sent my "claim" to a business who puts your name on a list that pretty much lets every bank know you can't open an account...for 10 years! Luckily I already had another account opened. It was a washington mutual account but it was the only one i could use. recently some of their policies have changed. My hair dresser of three years accidently charged my card twice. so instead of $250 being taken out she charged $500 and overdrew my account. i called her to let her know and she said she would put it back no problem. then i called wamu to tell them that she would fix it and they could reverse the overdraft charges. they informed me, once more, that it was not a bank error and that they would not reverse the overdraft charge. I'm sorry but that means i have to pay for something that is definately not my fault. they told me to call the merchant and have them pay the fee. so now i have to call my sweet hairdresser who made an honest mistake and tell her to, practically, give me back the tip I gave her that day. unbelievable! thank god my hairdresser uses a credit card company and it was their fault so they are going to pay for it. but still. Washington mutual just got $30 for free...something is wrong here. If the mistake had not happened they would never have taken out that $30. and it didn't mess up there funds...it was mine so I should get the extra $30 if anyone. the point is washington mutual will find any way to STEAL money from you! DO NOT BANK WITH THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Anonymous
map-marker Reston, Virginia

WAMU raised interest/min.pymnt 4 no reason

We recently noticed that our 20.99% apr with wamu had risen to 33%! This came about the same time we saw an increase in our minimum payment as well. We called wamu for am explanation and were told that "the gov't" authorized the min. pymnt increases to help customers pay off credit card debt faster. When asked why the apr was increased, the representative to this thieving company said she couldn't release that info over the phone, we'd have to request it in writing. My question to anyone who has a clue is... how can you be expected to pay off a credit card if they are allowed to increase your payment minimum-but also increase your apr??? all this does is make you pay more for something you didn't buy! Can this actually be legal??? I think everyone should refuse to pay anything if this happens to them, times are hard enough without the gov't allowing companies to rip off excellent costomers!!!
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1 comment
Guest

We did a re-fi with wamu, a "1month MTA option arm." The contract says, in effect, that our monthly payment can never go up more than $90. per year.

It also says that, although the final balance may be higher than the original one, it will never be more than 110% of the original balance. We had read that as being in our favor. Last week, they wrote, saying that because our balance is now at more than 110%, our monthly payment will go up $1,000. Isn't this contrary to the promise not to raise it more than $90.

per year? They never answer the phone and never answer letters -any ideas on what to do?

bankdoctor
map-marker Paterson, New Jersey

Washington Mutual - Harder than ever to speak to them !!

As the mortgage industry crumbles, large companies like Wamu continue to tear apart the fabric of their service models. This month, Washington Mutual implemented their worst policy EVER. In order to get a warm body on the phone, you now must have your account number and a special PIN number handy. No more zeroing out...no more press "4" if you want to talk to someone. It's east, just remember a 9 or 14 digit account number and a 5 digit pin, and you can go on hold. Just another great example of corporate america alienating their customers! With an 85% drop in share price over the last 12 months, if I worked there, I would get out !!!
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2 comments
Guest

WAMU has ONE toll free number to handle all of their customers. The average wait time is 10-15 minutes until you speak to someone who will direct your calls.

It is unacceptable that they do not have multiple numbers or a direct line so that you can speak to someone that could properly serve you.

Stay away from WAMU/Chase!!!

Guest

It's a large bank what do you expect? They deal with hundreds of thousands of clients each day...expect long waits or straight transfers to a machine. Look, if you want convenience (more branches, cutting edge online banking etc.) then you stay with the big banks, but if you want real service (live person) then open an account with a smaller bank in your area.

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Anonymous
map-marker Chicago, Illinois

Raised my interest rate from 12.99 to 28.99%

Washington Mutual changed my credit card interest rate for NO REASON AT ALL. When I requested an explanation, the written response said I was now considered a credit risk. I informed them that absolutely nothing had changed. I had never been late and always paid a lot more than minimum payment. Usually 5 times as much as the minimum. My balance was $1500 on a $4,000 limit. So I paid if off and told them the rest of the population should do the same. The simple explanation should be, the bank is in trouble and needs money!! Well I am sorry, but not from me. This is simply gouging the public. It backfired as far as I am concerned. I wish everyone else could do the same thing, then see what they do.
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1 comment
Guest

I have a similar complaint. Only they not only raised my rate they dropped my limit.

I had never been late and even paid way more to keep my balance low. I only had a $1,000 limit on this card because it was my first. They dropped my limit to $400 which was the balance and started charging me overage charges and raised my rate. I haven't used the card since they did this back in February and I now owe them $500 on the card.

I know it's not a lot but right now things have been tight on my family like most and I haven't been able to pay it off. The charges keep on coming and my limit is staying the same. It has destroyed my credit and I am needing help in the worst way.

If anyone knows what I can do please email me at closer33@***.com. Thanks Ryan!

Anonymous
map-marker Redmond, Washington

wamu did not have '' separate property'' form

wamu should have a form or box to check on their present account forms indicating ''separate property.'' this is a must for people depositing inheritance money. This keeps it from co-mingling with other accounts. it would really ease peoples minds and make wamu more prfitable as customers and baby boomers look for places to save their money. They have good rates at times but I hesitate because of this overlooked detail. I look forward to banking with wamu and will check to see if this direction is included on the account forms. this includeds cd's and hopefully I can make the correction on my account.
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Rylei Fyb
map-marker San Francisco, California

Washington Mutual Telephone access to a teller/actual person

I just recently opened an account with Washington Mutual and have been thus far been very please with their in person customer service, however when trying to accesses someone via telephone I found it to be very frustrating, and nearly impossible...That is until I voiced my opinion very strongly to the individual that I had finally reached... Anyway, this individual gave me a code to push when calling, instead of listening to all of the automated ***, fumbling around with pushing different numbers and so on.... Just push 162 and you will be immediately connected to a telephone teller...
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1 comment
Guest

yes, its option 1 option 6 and option 2. to speak to a live banker right away.

I am pleased though that i can access my account over the phone. my other banks doesnt have that feature