[ScottGem]

This isn't a question, just a venting and maybe a warning to others.

We've all seen the Bankers Pen ads from WaMu touting how customer oriented they are. Well from my experience it ain't so. In 2000 I refinanced my mortgage with the bank that originally issued it knowing that they had merged with WaMu. As part of the deal I also got a $100K HELOC which I expected to use for my dtr's education.

As soon as WaMu took over the problems with the HELOC began. The address to send the payments to was changed several times. However, because I use a computer bill payment service from my other bank, I don't always check the address. Over time several payments were misplaced because of this. Even though I could prove that the payment was issued on a timely basis, they always gave me a hard time about this. I would always contact them as soon as I was aware the payment had not been processed. Yet I still received dunning letters. And getting them to waive the late charge was like pulling teeth. This was all compunded by the fact that WaMu did not have an EFT agreement with my bank for their HELOC loans (oddly they did have one for the regular mortgages). So I could not pay electronically and my bank had to issue and mail them a check.

The last straw came recently when I received my July statement. This showed that the payment I had submitted for July had not been posted. I immediately called and informed them that a payment had been sent, which I could prove. In the course of talking with them, I was also checking my bank's merchant listing and found a new entry for WaMu that would appear to work. So I told the rep, that what I was going to do was use this new merchant listing to make a $1 payment. I would follow-up to make sure this payment was applied properly towards my account. If it was I would replace the missing payment. This was on a Thursday. On Monday the $1 payment cleared and I called WaMu's automated line to check that it had been applied. When I confirmed it had, I contacted my Bank to stop the previous payment and issued the full payment through EFT. I then called WaMu and explained to a rep that I had issued the replacement payment as promised. On Tuesday, I received a dunning letter dated AFTER I had initially spoken with them. I again called complaining about this dunning when I had initiated contact immediately. They gave me a line about the letters going out automatically. Now I'm in computers. I know that such system can be programmed to put holds on such type of action so I know it was more a matter of them not wanting to suppress these letters, not an inability to. I also checked to see if the late charge had been waived as promised by the first rep I talked to. I was told it hadn't and that they couldn't. I spoke to a supervisor who also refused to do anything about the late charge. Even after I told him that I was so disgusted I was going to move the account to another bank, the supervisor didn't seem to care. Rather than waive a $30 late charge they were willing to lose an account that was earning them over $500 in iterest monthly.

So, I went to my main bank. Got approved immediately for a new line for $150K at a .5% lower interest rate. And closed on it last week paying off WaMu.

But my point is that the way I was treated was not indicative of an institution that is customer focused and customer service oriented.

[GlindaofOz]

Geez that's awful ScottGem. I will certainly warn anyone I know to not utilize WaMu. That certainly is not indicative of customer service environment.