frootmall said:...Thanks for bringing this up and giving me an excuse to vent.Wow. That sounds terrible. I've been a customer since 2002 and I've always been treated well. What you should have done is told him right off the bat that you are not interested in anything but the CD and if he can't help you then you'll need to talk to the manager. You need to know the terms before going in and be more assertive.

kaiotes said:They have the kindest employees. I have used them for the past 8 years, they fix problems and their employees are competent!!


cheapbone said:I've had Wamu for awhile and they are horrible and could careless about customers. Check out better business bureau at bbb.org and you'll see they could careless about complaints and could care less about customers. The only reason I use them is that I have a little bit of money in there to have a local bank, since the majority of my money is going to an intrest bearing online checking account.

Even the free one they screwed up. I went in and told them I wanted just a free checking with no fees and gave them 5 dollars. Then a few days later I transfered a few hundred dollars to them, well when the month ended they charged me a few bucks and I called and they told me I signed up for a checking account that wasn't free and I couldn't believe. I told the CSR that I went in and said over and over I wanted the free checking. The person fixed it and refunded my money and changed me to the free checking. Well guess what happened next month? They charged me money for leaving the plan without staying a certain amount of time or something, so I called back and said listen I never wanted anything except the free checking with no minimum. After a few phone calls they did credit me, but why so much hassle.

Personally if there was any other bank that was local and there were many around that had free checking with no minimum I would leave them in a heartbeat. A family member is using them for their mortgage since it was sold to them and I hear about the complaints about Wamu every day.

I'm just trying to warn some people, please check bbb.org and make a decision after reading the complaints and how they don't resolve complaints and look at other competition before going to their savings that pay less than other competitors.

Ditto both statements, minus the fixing problems and competence. They have kind employees, but their kindness doesn't outweigh their lack of competence in respect to my own free business checking with Wamu. They set my account up wrong, and while it was free and I saw no fees, I couldn't get access to my account online because I wasn't listed as the owner of the account. (They had my account set up as a corp., and not as a sole proprietor.) Once I sat in their bank for an hour while they fixed it, I thought it was going to solve my online access problems too. Nope. Their website is so buggy... CNET had a news article on their online banking a couple weeks ago:
http://news.com.com/Glitch+continues+to+plague+Washington+Mutual/2100-1038_3-6099998.html

It still isn't fixed. I opened my account in mid may, AND HAVE NEVER BEEN ABLE TO ACCESS MY ACCOUNT ONLINE WITHOUT BUGS. I waited on hold with them for 22 minutes before a CSR picked up, and they couldn't fix it.

so back on the CR topic.
do they hit you w/ a hard or soft inquiry?
I don't want another wamu account if it's a hard.
thansk

Is there a 300 dollar requirement that needs to be in your savings account to not be charged a service fee? If so, then if you had two savings accounts you would still have to keep 300 in both?

Where is this talk of a $300 minimum balance comming from? The op notes that ther are no fees and interst is earned on $1.

I wonder when they will offer it to current customers?

psychtobe said:it is available to current customers, but you have to go online and open a new (free) check and online savings account. it takes less than 5 minutes.

I have enough accounts. I don't want to open yet another checking just to get the savings deal. I will stay with Citi and others and see what Wamu does.

stephenkyu said:You could have just opened a free checking account or something like that. I rememeber that they told me that I needed to have more "relationships" with them, so I just opened up a checking account and deposited $1...

Most banks are like that now anyway... I called Wells Fargo a few days ago about some account questions and they said would like you like their free bill pay and rewards program. I said no since I don't have any bills that I wanted to pay with my checking account and I don't use their check card, but in the end it was easier just to say yes especially since there were no charges anyway.

Wells Fargo does that... their bill pay ISN'T free (it's a two-month trial), which is plain awful in these days, and their rewards program (which also has an annual fee) is also awful. Wells Fargo, therefore, is awful.

timothy86 said:I love the powerstruggle between banks. It has opened a lot of doors for consumers.

I wish now Commerce would offer more competive CD's and a high interest savings account. Commerce is a great bank but has horrible rates and there is no perks to be there.

I agree... I really want Bank of America to come out with a competing savings account. I know many people hate B of A, but they truly are probably the most convenient bank, especially in California.

Can the WaMU account be linked to free checking for instant transfers?

The best banks to use are the ones with the highest interest rates which have instant linkages to checking accounts I believe.