The Joy of Changing Banks
Back in Atlanta, I used Wachovia. I don’t have a particularly strong opinion of their service–I’m a pretty invisible customer. Most of my money goes in via direct deposit. I use ATMs every now and then, but mostly just get cash back on groceries/whatever. In other words, I don’t ask a whole lot from a bank–other than being available if need-be. Unfortunately for me, there are no Wachovias in the Bay Area. Choosing on advertising alone, I decided to go with Washington Mutual for my new bank.
Here’s where the fun starts. My move-in date for the new apartment is tomorrow. The first month’s rent is required up-front in guaranteed funds, meaning I need a money order. Most of my money is in my Wachovia account, which I have no way of accessing (although theoretically, I guess I could just find an ATM and withdraw the limit three days in a row…). My roommate sent me a check for his share of the rent and the deposit–but again, the lack of Wachovias means I have no way of cashing it. So I go to my new bank… only there’s a hold on all new accounts. For the first 30 days, any checks must be held for 7 business days before the funds clear–meaning cashing them straight-up is also a no-no.
I’m just lucky my girlfriend had that much cash lying around in savings–it’s a heck of a lot easier to just borrow it for a week than to jump through all the hoops that would’ve been required to actually get my money out of my bank (Wachovia). I just went ahead and deposited my roommate’s check as well as my first paycheck (yay!) at WaMu, but they won’t actually let me have access to any of that money until June 9th (almost 2 weeks!).
If I didn’t have friends in the area, I don’t really know what I would’ve done (okay… I do have an idea… that’s just a bunch of effort I didn’t really want to put in). I understand that banks need to protect themselves, but this seems a bit extreme. It’s not like I’m a brand new customer who’s never had a bank account before. You’d think there would be some way for WaMu to just ping Wachovia and ask, “Hey, is this guy legit?” I mean…it’ll almost be time to deposit another paycheck before they even let me have access to the first one.
