Washington Mutual, WAMU Deposit Holds to Generate Overdraft Charges Los Angeles California

Problem: Washington Mutual routinely holds online direct transfers to generate overdraft charges.

This time, my deposit has not credited for 7 days and counting. This deposit was "paid and received" per another bank on 12/23, and was initiated on 12/21. I do these transfers regularly and they have NEVER taken longer than 2-3 days this month. I am now several hundred dollars overdrawn due to non-stop $30 charges on all automatic deposits. My money has not been accessible in either account for over a week.

TIP - make a deposit, print your account, and buy something. Print your account several times a day, and pay attention to the posting order. This doesn't make them return your money, but it makes them stop holding deposits for a couple of months. Then it starts again.

This happened two weeks ago when a deposit was listed as "pending" for 2 days - until the overdraft charges ate $300 down to about $50.

I have also had payroll direct deposits held for up to 7 days, so I now use another bank which credits the night before. What a difference!

WAMU operators are hostile, rude, and have told me it's "your responsibility to keep enough money in your account" before hanging up on me. Wish I wrote down the name.

I am going to close my account today since I finally got my new bank's checks. Expecting a fight since it's technically overdrawn because they've "never received" the deposit that has cause me to top $1,000 in charges for 2007.

BTW - I reported this to a federal banking oversight web site about 6-8 months ago with no response.

Jennie
Los Angeles, California
U.S.A.