I ran out of deposit slips for my Washington Mutual checking account. Since I was able to deposit a check into an ATM without one, and this deposit cleared, I did not really need to use deposit slips, but wanted to get more as a courtesy to the bank personnel. The customer service person I reached by telephone was either very new on the job, incompetent, or distracted. The call took a very long time, as I was repeatedly told
that "the computer" was processing something or other.
At no time was I informed that there would be charge for deposit slips. I certainly never would have paid for these items for which I personally get no benefit.
I was shocked to see a charge for $6.75 appear on my account statement for 100 deposit slips. I called customer service again and was on hold for fifteen minutes. Even though I explained that I had never given
permission to have my account charged, nor was this possibility ever even suggested to me, the representative would do nothing.
The response was basically, "That's the way it is.".
No, it is not. A consumer is never responsible for paying any charge for any item or service when the charge is applied after the fact. Washington Mutual is totally responsible for denying me an opportunity to
decide whether or not to pay for deposit slips.
I next tried to send a message to customer service via the Washington Mutual web site. The messaging system itself is horrible. I managed to send a badly truncated message, but the response was more of the same.
Washington Mutual has yet to reverse this totally unjustified charge.
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