The Office of Thrift Supervision has issued a Cease and Desist order to WaMu because they’re extremely crappy at stopping money laundering. According to the order, they must get their act together and file a new plan that insures they will be in compliance with the Bank Secrecy Act by March 31, 2008.
Bad WaMu. You let the criminals win.
Cease And Desist (PDF) [OTS] (Thanks, David!)
(Photo:Getty)
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Those guys in the ‘Bankers Pen’ will be excited at this news.
You’re all kinds of welcome
How about fixing service to paying customers while you’re at it?
I used to work there, on contract, in their IT dept. several years ago. Glad I left as it was one crazy assed place to work. And, I’m not terribly surprised at the C&D letter – they didn’t seem to have many controls on things.
I’m surprised they haven’t pulled out the terrorist card on this one.
Wow, yet another reason to be happy to be closing my account as soon as my direct deposits move over to my new place (yes, its a credit union, but not just because I hate the banking system…the CU just happened to be convenient)
I was with WaMu until I realized they had no idea what was going on in modern banking. It was as if all the money you deposited just sat in a safe for eternity. They wouldn’t even let me close my account!
I’m not surprised at all that Wamu’s having that problem. While I personally was not doing it for money laundering purposes, I would routinely request to change low denomination bills into $100′s at different branches in NYC, whichever’s closest to me at the time. None of the branches have never asked me to swipe in or otherwise show ID (even for amounts as high as $2000).
Almost immediately after the Consumerist reported that WaMu has lost a lot of profits from the subprime meltdown, it seemed that they clamped down hard. Can’t seem to do anything “outside” my account anymore and I don’t like some portions of the Cardmembers Agreement changes either. Oh well, once I’m officially not a college student, maybe I’d better go elsewhere.
@IRSistherootofallevil: saying a bank isn’t complying with BSA is pretty much pulling the terrorist card.
it would help if the government was a little more consistent with their regulations. in banking, what regulators expect in BSA tracking policies is just one of those things that changes with the wind.
How can that be? They have such humorous ads.