I had an existing 5-year arm mortgage with WAMU and I went to my local branch to inquire about the exact date which it would be maturing, as I know it was about that time. I spoken to Tina, a WAMU mortgage advisor there, whom she looked up my account on her computer. She told me it had been automatically readjusted to a 30-year fixed at 4.25% to each of our surprise. She told me that that was the best rate she had ever seen and told me not to do anything.

It wasn't until two months later that my autopayment did not go through. I went back to talk to Tina about it and she didn't know what the problem was and instructed me to send checks by mail. Another month later I had the checks returned to me by WAMU, which Tina eventually discovered that my mortgage did not readjust, but has actually matured. We started a refinance quickly and Tina was supposed to take care of sorting out the payments while we were going through the refinance procedure.

The refinance procedure had went on for over 7 months, and I learned that Tina didn't do anything to resolve the payment issue, which affected my credit score. I couldn't go to another bank because WAMU had screwed up my credit. I had 47% equity in my home, had a steady income, had significant assets, and an excellent previous credit score, and I can't believe that WAMU couldn't get the refinance through.

Tina eventually went AWOL and never returned my calls, emails and faxes. I eventually had to let everyone in her branch and her regional supervisors know about her lack of service and responsibilities

I thought dealing with the same bank to refinance would be easier and faster, but with WAMU it has been the complete opposite.

Their service is unacceptable, slow, unreliable and incompetitant. They only have one toll free number for all customer service calls, which you have to wait 15-25 minutes until you get an operator who will direct your call. There is no way to speak to a particular person to get to a particular extension, eventhough their mail correspondance they said to call so-and-so or an extension to take care of the issue.

I was shocked to learn that the Better Business Bureau gave WAMU an 'F' rating. That is almost unheard of for a company that large.

I had filed a complaint with the SEC, the BBB, the FDIC and the Colorado Attorney General. I had also filed a complaint to Chase (WAMU's parent company) to their Executive Resolution Department, but they are extremely backloged with other WAMU complaints.
I had eventually learned that Tina was fired from her job, which made me happy, but didn't help my situation at all.

I had talked a lot of my friends out of refinancing with WAMU, and I strongly urge everyone to do the as I don't want anyone else to go through what I did.

Do a search on WAMU sucks and you will find hundreds of websites and blogs by so many disgruntled customers -- I was shocked, but not surprised, to hear other peoples bad experiences