Washington Mutual, Washington Mutual - Lowers Credit Limit without Warning Seattle Washington

We have banked with Washington Mutual for both business and personal for at least 10 years.

We have a business line of credit through them that we had been using to assist in paying bills and paying of equipment while we got our business back on its feet and ready to sell.

We had about $40k of the line of credit available to us. We had written 3 checks on a Wednesday totalling about $20k. On Saturday we received a letter in the mail from Washington Mutual saying that effective immediately our line of credit had been reduced to the amount we had already used. It stated that any checks written off that account would be evaluated and may or may not be covered. Well they did NOT evaluate the checks - they just flat out returned them to our vendors with a NSF stamp on them.

We were not able to purchase the equipment we were buying to help make our business more valuable for selling. And now we can't sell our business, our vendors won't work with us anymore, and our cushion to get us through until our business was pliable is gone.

Another bank did something similar to my brother with his home equity loan. He had about $50k available that he was going to use toward the purchase of a rental, he received a letter stating that the amount he had already spent was the amount he was getting and the $50k was no longer available to him.

Can they really lower your credit amount that significantly without warning? And why didn't they truly evaluate and honor the checks already written?

Min
mukilteo, Washington
U.S.A.