Why I Fired Washington Mutual (Chase)

I didn't really know I could feel strongly about a bank until Chase acquired Texas Commerce many years ago. I deeply loathe Chase. Everything bad about the banking industry, they do more of it, and they do it more aggressively. Stacking withdrawals on an overdrawn account to maximize fees, pushing expensive products aggressively every time they interact with a customer, horrible and disjointed online experience, dramatic credit card rate increases, etc. I moved from Chase to Frost Bank in Texas many years ago, and never had a single complaint.

When I moved out to the valley in 07, I opened a business and personal account at WaMu...and was very happy with the experience. Now, I can't go into the local branch without seeing at least one person yelling (literally) at the teller, because of unexpected fees, bounced checks, etc. I experienced it myself...I deposited a $9,000 check to the business account via the night depository, as I knew I had some advertising charges coming in a few days. I found out a week later that they'd declined the check, due to a problem with the endorsement (despite the endorsement being exactly the same as I'd always done), and charged us four NSF fees (total: $132). They didn't send me an email or call me on the phone...they mailed the check back, and it took a week to get here, so if I had been making a lot more purchases on that account, it could have spiraled into insanely high fees without me even knowing there was a problem.

Needless to say, I've been shopping for a new bank since then. Everybody left standing in this area seems to suck equally badly (and be owned by a megabank like Chase).