I grew up in Seattle, and WaMu came to my school and helped us kiddies open accounts when I was ten. I've had the account ever since. When I moved to Nevada for a brief stint, I opened a Wells Fargo account because there are no WaMus within an hour of driving. As I prepare to move back to Seattle, I have been trying to decide which account to keep... and though I am sentimental about by account like Eli Sanders, I think this article has helped me realize that it's time to make like Dan Savage.

Trust is something all of us could do more with in the current state of finances as written about here in this article.

I worked for years in the system designed and managed by the banking industries,and paid into taxes and the security of morgatges and rent and travel and auto and consumer insurance.

Today I'm wondering like so many of the testimonies given, if the banking industry will honor what ever is left of my social security settlement and put that insurance back into an account that I can access it and then immediately put it back into the economy.

The old standbye, " brother can you spare a dime ? ", reminds me of thoughts that once rang hollow.

The "wild eyed" look the bank manager gave you is likely the provider of a family with kids who knows that every dollar you pull out of troubled WaMu is bringing him one moment closer to losing his job. The exasperation in his tone is the disbelief that anyone can be so moronic as to not fully understand that everyone's's deposits are FULLY GUARANTEED up to $100,000.00. And he is likely speechless that a prominent editor of a local paper, who benefited from the notorious type of loan causing this mess, is moving his money to an out of state bank that likely denied his original application because he wasn't financially qualified! WaMu stock holders and rank and file employees are getting screwed from both ends, from the incredibly incompetent senior managers that gambled our money and lost, and now by ignorant customers. Especially some of those ignorant customers that wrote this article, for they truly revealed the lack of insight they have about these challenging times. I'm sure the 5000 local WaMu employees who may lose their jobs because of you say take your shallowly held progressive ideas and shove it!

Imbecilic.
A good word for bad journalism.
Or was this just a series of opinions about a subject that most admitted ignorance of how banks work?
Still imbecilic.

That glum branch worker was glum because now she has to worry about her job because some people write opinion pieces suggesting a bank panic.

Everyone loves a bit of Schadenfreude and The Stranger has been no pinnacle of journalistic ethics but I find this piece depressing and irresponsible.

Maybe The Stranger should take a long, hard look at the root causes of this financial mess. The Federal Reserve, fractional banking and debt economy.

And no, I am not a right wing bible thumper nor a WaMu bank employee. I just find malicious writing that its further speeding the future unemployment of our neighbors and friends to be shameful.

I know this is really just nit-picky, but there are virtually no WaMu offices in Washington Mutual Tower. Have you been in there? It's mostly law offices. Walk to SAM and look up. That is where their corporate headquarters are located.

It's a wonderful time to be childless, asset-less and broke!

Those of you who are contemplating moving your money to Bank of America should review that bank's fiscal health even more rigorously than you have reviewed Washington Mutual's. First buying Countrywide and now getting in far too deep with Lehman Bros., B of A is not in a better position financially than any other bank that finds itself on the short end of the no-documents-mortgage stick. B of A is just noisier and more ruthless in its quest for deposits. I should add that this current B of A has swallowed numerous California banks over the years, including Bank of America itself (having started out as some other bank, the name of which escapes me at the moment) and has never improved either service or stockholders' returns. This current B of A bears about as much resemblance to the real B of A, which began in San Francisco as the Bank of Italy over a hundred years ago and was justly famed for its integrity and its personalized service, as a Cost Plus "Oriental" rug bears to a genuine Ottoman silk Sarouk prayer rug.

The .com bust?

Gawd, it's just a bank.

If I were a millionaire (or merely had over $100,000 to throw away), then yeah, I'd be worried and be pulling my accounts from WaMu. Otherwise, I dunno. It's not like all the banks are really all that safe either. Not in these times.

I've had a WAMU checking account for about ten years, and for now, I am staying put. I have a line of credit linked to my checking account that has a chunk of a balance. It would be a hassle to move to another bank because I'm not in any position to pay off my LoC. So, in a way, I'm contributing to WAMU's cause as they leech money off of me monthly in the form of interest.
However, if/when WAMU is bought out, should I start getting nickeled and dimed by any more fees than they already have, I am GONE.

gold buried in your back yard is looking better & better all the time.

These bailouts are nothing more than addressing the crisis by devaluing the dollar. Lets see how you people with no assets to lose fare when the dollar is worth 20 cents, but your pay has not risen to compensate. Think $4/ gallon gas is bad, try $20. think $2 bus fare is steep, try $10. $5 for a bag of rice, try $25.

Google the current crisis in Zimbabwe to see your possible future. I wonder if the Canadians will be as hesitent to build a fence as we are.

I am a bit worried,not because I have over 100,000 in the bank but because if it dose, go under, there is a pd, a long pd, mind you before you can get your say 2000 or whatever, and do you think your landlord, carloan, bill's and what not will be like, oh well your money stuck, we understand we will wait? No not likly. So yes I love my washington mutual, but I do have qustion about there banking ways now. It has me a bit worried but I will not be running to pull my money out yet.. How ever if it looks like the damn ship's going under I am not letting my money go done and waite for the diving team to go down and pull it out. I will close it, grab the money and run, if they dare ask why I will tell them really? think on it.. So to all those running around thinking what to do what to do? Keep watching and be ready.. it could get bumpy.... aka.. read the end of the bible you might see this coming!!!!! (:

Eli Sanders you just warmed my heart. I opened my first Wamu account with my mother when i was four. I am now 21 and sitting and sitting in my bed away at school in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere michigan. The alledged heartland sucks; there are no scensters, the coffee sucks, and the people are as fat as their SUV's. Worst yet, there are no WaMu's. Nine more months and i will have my two degrees and take my skinny ass back to the native land where (hopefully) WaMu's roam.

I've been banking with Bank of America ever since it bought up my pre-teen banking account with Seafirst. Seafirst I actually liked. BoA I've been too lazy to leave. With direct deposits and auto-payments, my money moves for me.

Bank of America is a horrible institution though, and if I had any real conviction, I'd move my money like my partner did to some small credit union like Seattle Met or BECU.

In the long run though, the bank you leave your money with isn't going to affect the number of dollars you are able to withdraw. What's scarier - the 100,000 dollars could easily be worth absolutely nothing.

Our economy is what's scary. Invest in the Euro. Or better yet, move to Europe.

So Washington Mutual was offering zero-interest loans? No wonder they're in trouble! How did I miss this? I'm a mortgage broker who placed a number of loans with WaMu; they had some pretty exotic loans available, but how did I miss out on the zero-interest loan? My clients would have loved it!

i'm just sad that there will be no big bank left that gives a crap. wells fargo is mean and weird and wants seven bucks a month for online bill pay. bank of america? uh still bitter it's not seafirst anymore. bad relationships with us brown people. key bank? ahahahaha they barely can find seattle on a map. us bank is probably going to end up with my business as the least of some pretty hinky evils.

meh. my very first account was a washington mutual account, too. i feel like it's yet another bit of seattle getting ripped out along with archie mcphee and the sit-n-spin.

I have many Bank accounts, most with WaMU, and no intention of moving any. My paychecks auto-deposit to WaMU, and my interest-only loan gets paid.
I've not been inside a bank since BoA change my'88 Versateller acct in '07. Why spend my time banking? Why cancel accounts that I need and use to go and duplicate them and auto-features? If you don't have anything better with your time, go enjoy life:
I work to live, I don't live to work.
An old account has more credit score
value (I'm ~820 range). I prefer to buy a battery-operated car with bank money, and pay for it with my gas budget (ergo-I'll need a loan)? Whatever you call these institutions, SeaFirst or BoA,
WaMu or JPMorgan or Chase (chaste?)
as long as my banking needs get met
and don't take more of my life-time. We have many choices, choose wisely.

I find it interesting that while all the insanity was going on - it was the success of conservative policy- growing the economy instead of paying for government with appropriate taxation. Personally I have the deepest dislike for banks and their rapacious ways, but at the same time there has always been a me first consistency to their actions. To see them conned so completely is even more shocking than their deserved demise. You know their daddies and mommies warned them about this stuff.

>>What's stopping huge numbers of people from asking for their money back? We're insured as depositors, up to $100,000 per account, by the FDIC.

Thankfully it doesn't matter now, but it's "per depositor", not "per account"

The first thing I did when I moved to Seattle over nine years ago was open a savings, checking and investment account with Washington Mutual.

They've been very good to me and I've always been proud--call me sentimental-- that my bank was named after my beloved, adopted home of Washington. I'm not going anywhere.

I belong to a credit union. They have good rates and don't trick me into decisions that will cripple me financially. I do everything online so they are just as convenient as any big bank. I have loans I can afford, bank with people I trust and my money is insured. Because they are regulated differently than banks and don't make decisions based on profit, they aren't in the same mess that a lot of other financial institutions are.

Calvin, your a moron...still think it is just a bank?

I liked Washington Mutual when my teller knew me and the manager was kind and listened to my troubles but when it became WAMU with thousands of branches, my friendly teller became a machine and the manager a fear-mongering Bush-A-Like as in "I don't care about you or your family". I figured it was just a question of time when it collapsed.