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Remember the giddy days of the early '90s when WaMu was the consumer-friendly alternative to big mean banks? (Yeah, we're looking at you, SeaFirst.) We knew those days were over, but now they're officially distant memories. CreditCard.org just gave our local banking behemoth a Lemon Award for Bad Banking:
Washington Mutual (NYSE:WM) gets the 2006 CreditCard.org Lemon Award for Bad Banking for taking first time late-payers to an interest rate over 31.9%. According to the terms:Note to self: Switch banks. Which financial institutions do Seattlest readers love -- or at least put up with?Each time you default… we may increase the APRs on your account up to a maximum of the Default APR (31.99%)
Washington Mutual acquired Providian which has a history of class action judgments (one topped $400 million). Annie Chang, Director of Education for CreditCard.org stated, “If big tobacco started a credit card company, they'd call it Providian” (now owned by Washington Mutual (NYSE:WM) ) . “If there's a poster child for CreditCard.org Lemon Award, it'd be Washington Mutual,” said Larry Chiang, founder of CreditCard.org and added, “it's the first bank ever to charge you for a credit line”.
Via Consumerist.
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Arizona Federal Credit Union.
Pretty sure that wouldn't work for you though. Although I've found that I prefer Credit Unions now over big banks any day of the week.
Frontier Bank! With convenient locations next to the library and in like Marysville. I've never had any problems with them, they've never given me any bullshit overdrafts, when I send them a check to deposit it gets deposited, and I just found out I can download all my transactions into an Excel file, where I give each one a frivolity rating and then rank them to see how much money I completely throw away which should probably go to Darfur victims!
Credit Unions for sure.
Seattle Metropolitan and Group health are both good. Any one that is part of the "Co-op Network" will give you flexibility across the country ( including making deposits in ATMs and to real people).
Also, Credit Unions used to be tricky to join, but aren't anymore.
Seattle Metropolitan Credit Union fo sho!
Sure there's only a couple branches in the city, but they're on a network of ATMs (as mentioned above), so you can use any Credit Union ATM (ie. BECU) in the city, free of charge. The service is great, and if you overdraft, the charges are miniscule.
I belong to Verity Credit Union and since they are part of the COOP network, you can use any ATM that says COOP on it free of charge. Every 7-11 in the city is a COOP ATM, so that's pretty convenient, plus you can use all the other credit union ATMs listed in the other comments.
Oh yeah, anyone in Washington State can join Verity and "joining" just means opening up an account. Seriously, most larger Seattle credit unions offer all the products and services that banks do, but with better rates and lower fees. And the customer service rocks compared to banks.
For credit cards, USAA. If you've got the uniformed services hook-up.
BECU. Definitely.
They just started a program where you get 7.5% APR on $500 in your checking, and $500 in your savings.
An added bonus, if you want to use http://wesabe.com to help manage your spending... BECU works perfectly with their system.