Washington Mutual
Using Holds to claim overdrafts on items already paid Ripoff

I've been flabbergasted as I have found a lot of people blasting WaMu and their account practices. I wish I would have searched for this stuff before I started doing business with them. Here's my story:

I've been a wamu customer for about 3 years now, and while I don't pay close attention to my checking account, I always verify funds before writing checks, charging, etc... I've recently gone over my checking account statements, and have discovered several errors on their part, claiming I was in an overdraft situation when I was not.

Most recently, they denied a $111 payment, when I had over $800 in my account. Their explanation was that there was a hold on my account for $936.23 and that in reality my account was overdrawn by $136. Xx. I checked my records and found out that I was indeed not. When I complained about this, they then explained to me that an on-line payment I had made to my second mortgage holder was the culprit. I asked them to explain how, and they told me that Western Union placed a hold on my account for the amount of the payment, and with that hold, my account was overdrafted by $111. Well, looking at my statement, I did indeed agree with the Western Union payment, but they cleared the payment that morning, showing being deducted from my checking account on my statement, and after the deduction of $936.23, my bank balance was around $800. Now they then told me that Western Union was the culprit because they did not release the hold after being paid.

Now wait a minute - this means that WaMu intentionally misrepresented my account to claim fees. So I looked back in my checking account history and found some similar instances, and really got angry.

Several times, WaMu has claimed that an on-line, or EFT submitted payment had a hold that carried over even after WaMu themselves deducted the amount from my account, and then continued on to also deduct the amount of the hold. So, this means that any on-line payment I've made, WaMu will claim double it's value against my account, and therefore easily find my account overdrafted and start charging their fees.

I wish I had watched my account more closely, but now they have single handedly destroyed my credit rating. My mortgage lenders will not longer accept payment from my accept either directly through western union, or through a money order. Several utilities have had payment returned to them, and as a result will no longer take checks from me. All of this is now on my credit, which was perfect before getting involved with these crooks.

Now, my auto-insurance rates have gone up due to bad credit, I'm unable to re-finanace my mortgage as originally planned, and now looking at a $700 increase in my mortgage payments, and not to mention the fees that I didn't know were being deducted from my account, which all added up come of $100's or 1,000's. All in all, because of their fradulent activities, my free-checking has turned into something that's lining their pockets nicely, and I computed thanks to my bad credit from them, I'll have to pay over $300,000 extra on loans and other services (Yes, that's $15,000) a year. Sure wish I got a raise like that, but now me and my family of four will most likely lose our home, my credit is so poor thanks to them, I can't even qualify to get an apartment, and I make over $80,000 a year. Me and my significant other are most likely going to separate since that's the only way she can get state assistance for housing and other items that thanks to these bastards, we cannot afford.

WaMu has completely destroyed my life, the lives of my family, and when I attempted to contact them about these issues, their response was to simply take my business elsewhere - but of course, with my bad credit I can't even do that.

Thanks again WaMu, thanks for destroying the lives of my 4 children, the lives of me and my spouse, and of course, making a bunch of extra money because you saw me coming.

I saw some folks interested in filing a class-action lawsuit against them for these type of practices, and I'm more than interested in doing this and joining up.

I saw some rebuttals of folks stating that these are not WaMu's fault, but just people who cannot manage their money - well, I for one say BS! To that. Then, go search for Washington Mutual fraud cases - 1000's of us can't be wrong... These guys are criminals, crooks, and will do anything to line their pockets with overdraft fees, which end up compounding since they know that other items will bounce.

Eirik
Portland, Oregon
U.S.A.

Company: Washington Mutual
Country: USA
State: Washington
City: Seattle
Address: 1201 3rd Ave
Phone: 8007887000

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