Don't Lose Your WaMu Credit Card When You're Overseas

Marty, who's journeying through Egypt, Greece, and Rome, found this out the hard way when his wallet was stolen in Athens. He called WaMu to report the loss, close the accounts, and move on -- when he ran into trouble:

Anyway, I then spent the better part of the morning trying to confirm that the cards were indeed closed. No one at Washington Mutual (WaMu) would help me. They kept shuffling me from department to department until I was cut off two different times. It was then that I realized that I was running out of minutes on my cell phone (The only way to recharge the minutes is to have a credit card). I tried making the overseas collect call they suggest, but it did not work on a cell phone, pay phone or even the home phone of a kind Greek family that has befriended us.

Marty ended up using Skype to call WaMu, where he discovered that a) it's a bad idea to have your credit cards stolen on a weekend, outside of bankers' hours, and b) people in one WaMu building can't call, leave messages for, or otherwise contact people in another WaMu building. Seriously -- he's got it on MP3.

As he points out: "The real irony is that in between phone transfers they play a WaMu commercial stating that they offer excellent service and a personal relationship. What a joke!"

Apparently US Bank works a lot faster -- they had his whole situation ironed out in 5 minutes.

Hat tip to The Consumerist.

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By James in News on March 9, 2007 1:40 PM

Comments [rss]

URforreal

ok so i dont get what the issue is, the rep did scnfirm that card was closed and even Marty stated that he called the number and it confrimed that card was closed...and any person with half a brain knows that it takes a few days for a credit item to clear so those items where probably done before Marty closed the card...also incase you didnt know Marty the money that was being used wasnt your money it isnt like it came out of a checking account it came off a CREDIT CARD which is borrowed money so you wont take a loss the bank will customers are not held liabale on fraud transactions...Also i feel jason did help Marty he told him what he needed to do Marty was the one that would not accept the answers....and think about it how would you be if you handled customers like Marty all day dont talk shit if you dont know that job....o yea and get a life....

matt

who travels with a credit card as there only source of money.

zorbadgreek

This doesn't surprise me. I had a similarly bad experience trying to get simple information from WaMu over email, only to be convinced that their customer service department is being run by robots.