like most people in the publishing industry, i hustle a bit, to try to make ends meet - often writing freelance articles for various publications. for one magazine, a local magazine in queens, i write bar and club reviews. and with what i make, the magazine winds up paying for my nights out. in a lot of places, if they take debit or credit cards, i use my debit card so that i have a reciept and i could at least try to write it off on my taxes.

i went to this one bar in astoria with the hopes of reviewing it and charged for a couple of drinks, wrote some notes and left a short time later. when i had paid, i had noticed that the bartender was having some issue with the debit/credit machine but it wasn't like something that could normally happen. i hadn't gone back there since april. and lo and behold, i check my bank accounts and notice an unauthorized charge on my account. i call up washington mutual and inform them of it. they tell me, well because of bank policy we have to cancel your card and send you a new one. i ask if there was anything else i could do, anything else that would avoid me cancelling my atm/debit card. i had asked for an explanation of this policy, knowing that other banks and credit card companies will usually dispute one charge and keep the card open. the customer service representative isn't giving me much of a satisfactory answer so i ask to speak to her manager. when i ask the manager the same question, each time asking for a better explanation, the manager yells at me and threatens to hang up the phone on me. and this had struck me as being extremely unusual because i was polite the entire time. so they put the dispute into their computers and don't give me a definitive answer as to when i should expect a new card.

i go to my branch down the street from my job. the manager who was at least polite to me, calls up customer service, tries to see if there was anything he could do. and after a few minutes, he says well customer service is telling me that they can't expedite a card to you because your card was stolen.

my response was "my card wasn't stolen. i have it on me. my number was used." in any case i thank him for his time and inform him that this has been a very frustrating experience.

i call up customer service some time later and complain to them about how rude and unhelpful everyone has been. one of their reps tries to direct me to their credit/debit fraud department. i get cut off the first time. i have to call again to get transferred. the person i spoke to at the credit fraud division tells me "that everyone i spoke to at customer service didn't know what they were talking about, and in fact that they could have just disputed one charge without a problem." he gives me the number to mastercard's emergency card number.

i call mastercard and they're fairly helpful but they say look pal, you gotta talk to your bank again. i speak to this person at my bank who then tells me that the credit/debit fraud division person i spoke to, didn't know what they were talking about. and that their policy involves cancelling any card when there's a disputed charge to protect themselves and their customers. (read: it protects them!) after fighting with this woman they finally say to me, we'll expedite a ne atm/debit card to me. this is after 2 hours of calls, complaining, running back and forth between my bank, getting yelled at by a customer service manager when i should have been working!

and guess what i found out: that the day i got my atm/debit cancelled, washington mutual and mastercard let another unauthorized charge go through. how does that happen?

now here's the worst thing, instead of immediately crediting me back and saying "oh sir, we're sorry that happened." i have to fill out a claim form and wait like 5 days before they begin to consider giving me back money that's rightfully mine. they owe me 130 bucks!

so there's a lesson in this: don't use washington mutual for your banking needs. they don't give a shit about you or your money. not only will you be treated rudely, and like you don't matter, they don't even care much about losing customers! they'll tell you contradictory and nonsenscial answers and they're almost always resistant to help you in any way. fuck you, washington mutual! fuck you and the high horse you fucking rode on, you goddamn thieves!