Why would I do that if I know from the past experiences with them – that they stole so much money from me!

They sent me a check for $100 to open account with them, I did not fall for it.

Would never do it no matter how much they offer. The stress and pain they cause by taking the money out of your account whenever it suites them is — unexplainable.
It is 5/8/2009 and I am shopping for another checking account with some other non-stealing bank.

Wamu was wonderful. The best bank ever! They took care of me… they were consistent and always looked what is best in my interest.

I had a manager in my location who would alert me by calling me to add the cash BEFORE he would charge me any fee. I don’t remember when did I pay any fees with WAMU.

CHASE was just the opposite…… they did everything to take as much money from you at all times.

I had accounts with other banks and CHASE took over so I —- stupid —- stayed with CHASE believing they will take care of customers.

OMG what kind of things I experienced with them, it is undescribable.
Never ever again I will put myself through that pain, ever again!

So I finally closed all my CHASE accounts 2 years ago and went with WAMU – and will never repeat that horrible experience.

Why would I allow them to use my money to get richer while they slam me with fees and always managed to go around it ( no rules )… so you end up paying and they end up re-inventing another excuse for taking another $30 fee from your hard working money!

Never in my life would I give them a chance to use me that way again!!
People please come to your senses. CHASE is the worst bank you can have business with. Do not help them by staying, I wish WAMU survived and CHASE vanished!!!

WAMU deserved to be of service to us. It was great bank.

Sincerely — you would be insane to go with CHASE. There must be another non-stealing bank to pick from!!!

By not staying with them CHASE will have no choice but to either change their stealing habits or they will vanish.

This is our moral duty… not to help stealing banks to use us to get richer.
But to give a chance to smaller banks like WAMU to survive and carry on the good work and great service.

The analysis kind of breaks down when you start looking at other markets. There were a few Occasio branches in Seattle that I were looking at with close to $100 million in deposits.

And there’s still questions about cost and timing. How much will this end up costing Chase? And is now — after a merger and in the middle of a financial crisis — the right time to make a lot of changes? As folks have pointed out, there were many loyal WaMu customers, and these folks may defect in even greater numbers than anticipated as a result of an aggressive transformation. I wonder if Chase factored a higher-than-average rate of defections into their calculations?

The major Occasio markets (Chicago, Atlanta, etc.) are good starting points.

As far as performance goes, it would be helpful to see numbers. Where is there data that we can review?

The reality is that Occasio branches dramatically underperformed other traditional branches–including WaMu’s!–in markets where they were built with regard to gathering retail deposits. The “innovation” in queue management was also a disaster: if you’ve ever been in a WaMu at lunch hour you’ll know that lines form for the tellers AND the cash machines, with confusion abounding.

Finally, WaMu’s cross-sell rates were among the lowest in the industry; hard to say that constitutes the “favorable opportunity” WaMu espoused…

It was really sad to read of Chase dismantling the Occasio branches – that was another aspect of their organization that really made them stand out.

I think a lot of FI’s underestimate the value of their brand and branch design and the impact it can have on their constituents!

One of the greatest lessons to learn from this decision (IMHO) is to merge with link-minded organizations. I know in WaMu/Chase’s case it was forced, BUT many credit unions “seek merger partners” for the wrong reasons. Just to grow assets.

I think of mergers as blended families. Like the Brady Bunch model. You have to work through your cultural differences – you can’t just plop everyone under the same roof and think they’ll get along.

When a credit union that serves autoworkers (for example) merges in hospital employees and then teachers – the result? Defections. You busted up three clubs to try and make one generic one – and that’s all you can hope to get – Generico FCU. Just because you merged the accounts does not guarantee you’ll KEEP those accounts.

I think it is a huge mistake to bust up the WaMu branch model. Especially in the Pacific Northwest where I think there still is some love for the WaMu brand (read – the great people on the front line).