On March 05, 2008, I had to wire transfer funds to family outside of the US. It was an emergency and therefore, I spoke to WAMU Customer Service about the doing such a transfer. They assured me that the transfer can be handled through WAMU without any problems and will take only 2 - 3 business days. When asked if we could use Citibank as the intermediary bank, they said yes, no problem. I went to our branch in Rancho Cucamonga with all of the necessary information to wire transfer 2,000.00 to our family and into a Citibank account. I specifically gave the Teller handling the transaction all of the Citibank information along with an Citibank Internal SWIFT Code to ensure delivery. I explained it to her, however, she insisted that HSBC had to be used as the intermediary bank. When she tried to enter the SWIFT Code, it failed, so I again explained to her that it is an Internal SWIFT Code for Citibank. She explained that she would forward the Citibank information to HSBC. Hell, she could not even get the account documentation correct. Long story short, they lost the funds and I ended up having to research everything. They could not give me a straight answer as to the tracking information with HSBC and Citibank said they never saw it come through. When it was reported to WAMU Executive Services, Christian, he promised to locate the problem and contact me back that same day, March 10th. I never received a call back from him. I did however provide him with the information originally given to the teller at the Rancho Cucamonga Branch.
On Friday, March 14th, the funds magically appeared in the Citibank account that they were being sent to. I still had not received a call from Christian regarding the status of the funds. I had made several attempts to contact his manager and to no avail. I also made numerous attempts to contact Mr. Thomas Casey, EVPCFO and Mr. Kerry Killinger, ChairmanCEO. I was blocked from speaking to them by the switchboard. I ended up flying to Seattle and met with investigative reporters there at the SEATAC Airport, then returning on March 12th. I lost 2 days of work behind this incident at a cost of 500.00 per day, on top of the ticket to fly there, for which I was refused a meeting. We had to secure an emergency loan for the family in that country for the amount we sent. We are out well over 1,500.00 in losses total which includes the interest we paid for the short term loan. WAMU has yet to accept responsibility for this incident. I finally received a call from Christian on March 24th at 9:31am, advising me that the funds had made it to the destination.
However, the situation with WAMU became worse on that very same day. I learned of a withdrawal of 1,026.00 that took place on March 20th from our checking account. Before contacting WAMU, I called my wife and asked her about it. She has no clue as to the withdrawal and suggested I call WAMU. I did and was told that we withdrew the funds. Clearly, this wasn't the case so I requested information on this withdrawal. I was transferred to the fraud investigator who informed me that the withdrawal was made in a branch located in Escondido California. She stated the withdrawal was against a check deposit of 2,200.00. Naturally, this deposit does not show up on our online account as all others do the same day we make deposits. I asked her about that and she replied that deposit never show up that same day on the online banking. I know this was false. She contacted the branch the transaction took place in was convinced that the funds were suppose to be for another account. I am convinced otherwise as she said in the beginning that this was likely someone using our account to defraud the bank. How is it that the tellers do not check identification? I have all mine and so does my wife. We also have our cards and PIN's are never written down.
The investigator told me she would get the deposit slip and a copy of the check for me so as to file criminal charges. I was ready to go to Escondido to meet with EPD Fraud Investigators when I was convinced that it would not be necessary.
I again call corporate Executive Services and again, I had to speak with Christian. Gave him the information and was told that this matter would be expedited. I was also assured that there would be no fee's for any transactions coming in.
On March 25th, they charged our account 2 overdraft fee's of 30.00 each (We changed banks and put the money elsewhere because of the problems prior to the March 20th incident and left the 1,026.00 in the account to cover outstanding transactions). I sent the customer service unit an e-mail on each transaction including the theft. They replied that they are fee's owed for the transactions and that WE took the 1,026.00 out of the account in Pullman Washington! Needless to say, this is incorrect and very WRONG.
We are now looking for assistance from the same law firm that recently settled a case against WAMU for their practices. I would suggest that everyone reading this post due the same thing and tell all of your friends and family to change banks if they are with WAMU due to all of the recent posts on this blog.
Damage Resulting We have suffered financially as a result of their inability to do the right thing at every level. I have received different excuses and explanations from customer service, fraud investigator and executive services regarding these various transactions. None have been them same response or answer. We have incurred fee's, interest payments and loss from time a work as well as incurred additional expenses related to both of these incidents that have taken place within weeks of each others and in the same month.
