how nice...

nice... i had wamu and never again... citibank for me from now on... never any issues and other such things...

I asked George Bailey, and this is what he told me:

Come on. At least they didn't try to make him put it on a Sears gift card.

Yes I'll take a check but only if I can turn around and cash it....

You went into a BANK looking for money? What do you think they are -- a ba-- oh wait.

Depending on the size of that branch, that's a lot of money to withdraw. The branch may be open for 10 more minutes, but the amount of cash they have on hand tomorrow is based on what they have now plus whatever capital is delivered at night. Asking for that much may have still left the branch underfunded for the next day even if nobody else had asked for cash over the next ten minutes.

And it's not a day's notice. The capital for the next day is already on the way, more probably cannot be ordered for "tomorrow" at the point in the OP. He'd have to order for the following day.

I work at a very, very small locally owned bank, and we cash checks bigger than this several times a day. Sounds like that had locked up most of the drawers and vault in preparation of closing and didn't want to be bothered.

That's...kind of stupid. Unless there's some kind of restriction on your account, you should be able to pull out your own money. $4200 isn't an incredibly high amount of money.

When confronted with this, I would have proceeded to get as much as possible from the teller and then go to the ATM outside and do separate transactions of $200 (unless WaMu lets you pull out more at once) until I ended up with the amount of money I wanted. (USAA lets me do this, I don't know if there's some restriction for WaMu...I would've at least tried).

Beats me. I had to take $8,700 in cash out of a Chase one time and I was out of there in 10 minutes. I guess I would have been a little scared if it had sent them into a tailspin.

i had the same problem at a WaMu branch in Burbank California (magnolia street)

Went to withdraw $5500

The teller told me i could only get $500 that they did not have enough cash. I explained that the money belongs to me and i would like it right now. they would not budge. She told to me to drive to the branch i originally opened my wamu account with years ago 25 miles away.

i started to make a scene and raise my voice and let people in the line know they were out of cash. 2 minutes later the $5500 appeared.

I am at a total loss as to why they act this way?

Who spells, "Woo" "Whoo"?

I wonder if this was one of those tiny bank branches that's located inside of a grocery store, or a Super Wal-Mart, or the like. I could totally see them having that sort of problem.

Thaddius..hehe..

Wamu branches have these machines that dispense money like vending machines. They probably didn't have much in them at the end of the day and didn't want to have to reload them. Laziness all around.

What is a non-traditional Wa-Mu Branch? If this isn't inside a Safeway or something, I can see the problem.

The logic escapes me. You can't get your money because 'somebody else may need it.'

By that logic, they would never give anybody money.

Wait one darn second! I think I figured out the scam!

Small branch or no, announcing to everyone how much cash your customer is asking for is unacceptable. There may be a reason why they can't give him that much cash at that branch but doesn't excuse them making him a target like that.

Having worked at a credit union with several branch offices, I think it is highly unlikely that the bank did not have enough cash on hand to do a $4,200 withdrawal ($42k, that's a different story). The truth probably is that they were slow in the afternoon and had already balanced most of the drawers and vault and didn't want to do it again because they had somewhere to be. That or WAMU works on such thin margins of cash on hand that I wouldn't want to bank with them either.

@sowellfan: Thats what I'm thinking. Especially when the manager refered to a "traditional" branch.

@backbroken:
I think the logic is more along the lines of "If we give you this large sum of cash, we may not have enough for normal operations"

Since the manager mentioned a "traditional" bank branch, I'm inclined to think this branch is set up for few cash transactions, thus several thousand dollars would be a lot of cash to give to a single person.

Couldn't they just print some more?

Wow, high roller eh?

I'm sure the ATMs in vegas will be happy to allow the man to withdraw that much.

I tried to pull out $6000 for a trip and got a similar response. This was a smaller regional bank. First they told me it would raise some sort of flag with the govt. if I pulled that much out at once. Then they told me they didn't think they had enough in the safe. This wasn't one of those grocery store branches either. I asked if going to the main bank downtown would solve this. Then they suddenly had enough in the safe.

If I were this guy, I'd have asked what the maximum ammount I'd be able to withdraw would be, and do so. Then, in the morning, take out the remainder.

"...the bank is open for 10 more minutes."

There's the problem. Not that it isn't poor customer service, but much like going into a store 5 minutes before they close when the shelves are being dusted, floors vacuumed, registers closed, etc. and looking to make a large purchase, don't be surprised if you get denied.

Besides that, larger amounts of cash were always locked up about an hour before closing at the banks I worked at since the opening and closing hours were the times when banks were most susceptible to robbery. The majority of the cash was put in the vault and "locked" so if a robbery happened, we couldn't give them all the cash because it was "in the safe" and "only" the (fictitious) "branch manager" could get into it.

Not that it would have made him any happier, but it sounds to me like they buried him under mounds of excuses and explanations with logic gaps so big you could drive a truck through them when it would have been better (if not easier or more satisfying) to explain why trying to withdraw that much that close to closing presents difficulty to everyone.

As a WaMu customer, I'm tempted to call their customer service number all concerned that since I read a story about a customer who was not allowed to withdraw a relatively small amount of money ($4200), I am concerned they are failing and I need to yank my money from them. I'm curious to see what their response would be.

I was having my pipes done and wanted $2000 cash from my credit union. The most I could get was $1700 and then the other $300 from the ATM. Even calling 3 days before I wanted the money they couldn't get me $100 bills, I ended up with a envelope full of $20s.

While I'm not too thrilled with my credit union I'm not willing to close my account over it. WaMu being a BIG bank should have that much cash on hand.

What I think (may sound a bit paranoid) is that business/government would like all transactions to be electronic. This way they can track every penny you earn/get and where you spend it.

I work in retail banking. $4,200 isn't a lot. The only reason I can guess is that at 10 minutes to close, they had already done most of their end-of-day work. This withdrawal would probably have meant re-opening the a "head teller" to obtain the cash, which would require re-balancing, etc. It appears to me that one word applies here--LAZY!

Hope this is something that people who have accounts with them take note and get out!

$4.2k is pocket change to ANY bank and should be looked at by the corporate management!

Can say that if I went into a bank wanting my money and they said no I would probably be going jail because everyone on the planet would hear my displeasure and would not leave until they handed me MY money!

As far as announcing the amount someone is withdrawing from the bank is totally inexcusable and the manager and teller should lose their jobs!

I could care less if it was 2 minutes before they closed, they were OPEN for business! Do you think if you went in there with that amount to deposit they would say sorry, have already balanced my draw and cannot accept your money.

It could be possible they already placed their money order for the next day and that 4200 bucks would eat up their cash on hand.

If you want lots of cash out go to a regular branch.

I wonder if they would have given him his cash if he had said he wanted to close the account that day. Can they not give you your cash? Every time I've ever closed a bank account they've given me cash for what was in the account.

I know he couldn't close the account due to outstanding checks, but it still makes me wonder what they would have done.

@thrlsekr: Depends. A $4,200 check? No. $4,200 in cash? Possibly.

@samurailynn: Probably just cut him a cashier's/bank check. That's what we always did. Most people don't like carrying that kind of cash around if they're just closing their account and banks definitely don't like giving that kind of cash out.

To the best of my knowledge they can only refuse you cash or limit it if its listed in the banking agreement...normally in "mice type".

I would call( or better yet go in person!) at a full service branch and firmly but politely insist on speaking with an officer of the bank.

When asked why,," sure I tried to withdraw cash and was told they had no cash"...a nice loud voice would do nicely.

But they are required to show you the fine print if it exists, showing u the limits on branches etc pertaining to your account.

Otherwise you may be able file a grievance with your state banking commission. But I have a feeling there is "mice type" somewhere that gives them the "out"

Back in collage I got a loan from a family member for school expenses. I took the check to Bank of America (the bank who issued the check) to cash it so I could deposit the cash in my bank account and have immediate availability. Turns out BOA doesn't honor checks they issue and would only give me 1k and a cashiers check for the rest...

I worked in an "in-store" branch for a little over a year, and we frequently faced this problem. Unfortunately for us, we only received cash shipments once a week. The final day before the new money would arrived, we sometimes had to deny requests over $1000 and recommend the traditional branch down the street unless the customer was willing to receive their funds in an unusual denomiation (i.e. 10s/20s/50s vs. 100s). Add to the fact that Thaddius showed up 10 minutes before close, I can understand the denied request for $4200. This being said, it's completely inappropriate for the employees to discuss the transaction taking place by yelling across the lobby. Of course...how can a dress-code that allows for jeans and sneakers really encourage professionalism anyway?

I saw a guy take out $75000 once, they gave it to him in 3 large, opaque green zippered envelopes in about 5 minutes.

I banked at Cal Fed, a fairly small bank (I think) before it was eaten by Citibank. I walked in a small branch and said I wanted $6700 in cash, with no notice. They had no problem with it. I never thought that someone would need to call 3 days ahead to get THEIR money, but now I'll keep that in mind in the future.

it just amazes me that we've come to the day and age where you can go to a BANK try and take out YOUR money and they feel perfectly secure telling you "no thanks."

@B:

Instant win.

You can bag on Bank of America all you want, but I needed to withdrawal about $10,000 from my account, and I only had a small local branch. They didn't even bat an eye at me. Sent me over to the merchant teller so they could count it a couple times (which I was more than willing to wait for considering the amount). I had my money in no time.

I recently had to withdraw over $8000 from a Bank of America account to transfer to an account in another bank. They had it, barely. They too yelled around about my $8600 cash withdrawl, but in my case the bank was full of people at lunchtime. The teller actually stacked it on the top counter for all to see as she counted it. I was not happy.

SAme thing happened to me with Bank of America - banks are evil.

How anyone can bank with someone who calls themselves "WaMu" is beyond me.

I think maybe banks just don't do that much business in cash anymore. I once went to a TCF Bank branch to withdraw $2000 in cash to buy a car. They told me they didn't have any $100 bills! They had to give me the whole amount in $50s.

It was about 10 minutes to close...

Man, it's just common courtesy to not be one of those guys who's cynically literal about a place's hours as you burst in at 5:50 - closing's at 6:00 - and expect full service because the clock hasn't rolled over yet.

I seem to remember reading in my Wells Fargo agreement that for withdrawals over $3k a one-day notice may be necessary. FWIW

I'm willing to bet that they had just already balanced the valut and their individual cash drawers and were being lazy. $4200 is not a lot of money and my tellers cash dozens of checks that size and larger on a daily basis. I guess thats just the kind of treatment this guy should expect when he does business with the Wal-Mart of banks.

don't fret y'all. banks don't always keep a lot of money, after all, that's how banks work. You put in money, they lend most of it out as loans to make profit as interest. you in the meantime get services (free @ wamu). It's called a trade-off.

also, this is usually specific to a bank. It could have been that a person before you made a large withdrawl. How do I know these things? I was a teller for 5 years.

It's surprising how little people know about banking.