I recently signed up for an Online Savings account with WAMU, and I'm trying to weight the benefits of 3.75% APY against any of their potentially nasty practices. So far I've noticed:

-Long delay on ACH (incoming and outgoing)
-Tough to reach a live person over the phone (though pressing 1 then 6 then 2 seems to do it, even if there are no directions)

How much of a hassle has the ACH delay been for you? Is there anything else for which I should be prepared? If you've joined, stuck with, or left WAMU, why?

Thanks!

I'm wondering i have the majority of my assets in HSBC which hasnt been fairing too well lately either witht he whole outage debacle... WAMU's 3.75 is marginally better v 3.50 dont know if its worht the transfer with all the bank defaults who knows they could be next.

i've used WAMU for 9 years. never had a problem with them. but i do have local branches so that's useful.

I don't ACH out much since I use MBNA to pay all my bills.

I've used them for quite a while and in general they have been very good. My 2 problems so far have been:
- they aren't clear how many transfers you can do online between your savings and checking. It's not many, and then they start charging you at $10 a pop and they don't notify you, ever! If you need to do it much, it's unlimited from the ATM.
- I had an online bill payment that was too big for my checking balance (my fault), but they didn't send an email. Now I see they have alerts that you can set up, which I didn't know they had. Seems like the default would be to send an email when something is screwed up, but it's not.

Anyway, I think they are worth it...

handymanbob: I believe the number of transfers is limited by a federal law, and I think it is 5 transactions. That could be any transactions - not just transfers between checking and savings. So if you transfer once, then withdraw 4 times using ATM, and then do another transfer, you will be charged $10 for that 6th transfer. If you keep doing that month after month, eventually they may close your account for too many violations.

On OPs topic: I have been banking with them and have been very happy. I have a B&M bank right opposite my apartment, but rarely visit them. ACH transfers are slow, but just about every bank I know is slow (I have accounts with HSBC, ING, EmigrantDirect, GMAC, BofA, WAMU, PNC).

Fed Link

This link seems to conflit the other one I just posted.

Soccer08 said:I recently signed up for an Online Savings account with WAMU, and I'm trying to weight the benefits of 3.75% APY against any of their potentially nasty practices. So far I've noticed:

-Long delay on ACH (incoming and outgoing)
-Tough to reach a live person over the phone (though pressing 1 then 6 then 2 seems to do it, even if there are no directions)

How much of a hassle has the ACH delay been for you? Is there anything else for which I should be prepared? If you've joined, stuck with, or left WAMU, why?

Thanks!

-- I always initiate ACH transactions from my Citibank account, which seems plenty fast. Initiating a pull from the WAMU side works but it is slow. If I need money out in a real hurry, I can take advantage of the *free* wire transfer.
-- I've never tried reaching them by phone. Not sure why I would need to. If I want to talk to a human there are two WAMU branches within blocks of where I live, and some more near where I work. Never been in one, though (never found a need to talk to a human WaMooian).
-- Yes, I think it's worth it for the 3.75 rate.

Thanks for the comments. It looks like I'll be okay if I use WAMU for my main savings account. I've got Schwab for my 2% checking and bill pay, BofA for backup savings, and now WAMU for most of my remaining income each month.

If you want local branches and 3.75%, then WAMU is hard to beat, despite its slow ACH and buggy internal transfers. If you just want 3.75%, Provident is much better. Personally, I have stopped using WAMU because they pissed me off over some NSF fees.

I tried to open this online account but I was informed that my accounts were closed without my knowledge. Don't see why they rejected my application because I do have perfect credit. Does anyone know if WAMU do a credit pull for the online savings?