Except if you were trying to build your credit and had a secured credit card from wamu. In which case chase is still holding your money for ransom and will mail you a check after they get enough interested off you.

I see this as the most logical step. It would not be advantageous for the company to slash your operating credit and it's not like you are gaining anything in particular as you already had this previous credit limit. It was just over two cards, but they have now merged... Is this not common practice?

what if i have a maxed out $10,000 wamu card & a maxed out $15,000 chase card?

not that i do (i don't have a chase or a wamu card), but if i did?

What happens if you have two cards and are carrying a balance on both? Do they combine the cards, or give you two separate ones?

I hate my Chase cards. Really I do.

Yay? I only have two credit cards out, a Chase card and a WaMu card. Oddly Chase gave me $500 of credit and WaMu gave me $2500. Does this mean my history will be screwed up?

Interesting.

I thought they canceled all the wamu cards with zero balance....including mine

@idip:

Indeed.

I just got my notice for my WaMu credit card. I noticed that my new agreement with chase included a section that binds me to MANDATORY ARBITRATION. I'm going to call up Chase and either have them remove the clause or I'm going to transfer my WaMu balance to another card.

My WAMU teller told me that in May WAMU will start putting holds on deposited checks. (I'm assuming only on larger checks as I always deposit my paycheck)

Time to find a new bank.

That's all well and good until thousands of people lose their accounts during the switch.

When has something like this ever happened without many terrible errors not in favor of the customer?

I had a Wamu card with a zero balance and no activity for a year. They sent me a letter letting me know that they canceled me after Chase took over!

yay! I was wanting to do it myself but didn't want to "hurt my credit score"!

What about debit cards? Are those in the pipeline to be rebranded?

@Sucko-T: This has been standard practice for WaMu.

There are numerous factors that determine if your check has a hold placed on it.

Most of it is to protect you and the bank from fraud.

What happens if my WaMu card is newer, has a higher limit, but my Chase card has been around longer? Will I get the history but with a higher limit? Will they combine both to my lower limit card and make me go over my credit limit?

I've got an old Providian card that rolled over to WaMu when they merged... It was always treated like a separate entity (couldn't access the account through regular WaMu CS numbers or website). Gotta check out what happens to it now...

I have a ProvidianWamuChase card and just got an email about the changes to come. And while the merger doesn't bother me so much, losing the free FICO every month does. They also only provide 3 months worth of transaction history online, which is just great since I opted to stop receiving paper statements last month. I just hope my cash back rebates don't stop.

@SulakshanaZinnikas:

Be careful. If they closed the account, they may have denoted it on your credit file as "CLOSED BY CREDIT GRANTOR." which really doesn't look too good. Might want to check on that...

My BankOne, FirstUSA, Citicard(Quicken) have all been rolled up into Chase without incident. All are separate cards re-branded Chase with the credit limits intact.

Of course, with Wamu, all my accounts are now with one gigantic bank so why would I say anything bad.

I wonder which interest rate you'll get. methinks the higher one...

Already closed my WaMu accounts. There's a reason I banked with WaMu and not Chase.

one other thing to note for current wamu customers. I got a notice in the mail about some of the changes being made and if you have an automatic payment plan set up for a certain amount (i assume to help pay down your debt), chase is changing that automatic payment to the MINIMUM payment each month.

Jeez, I have a Providian card, a WaMu card, AND a Chase card... I guess I'm really screwed now.

@idip:

They've never ever put a hold on any of my checks. I don't think not letting me access MY money is protecting me from anything.

@Cat_In_A_Hat: I have a ProvidianWamu card too which I assume will shortly be replaced by a Chase card. A couple of months ago, I got a notice that the cash back program will be discontinued sometime in early 2009; all earned rebates will be paid out and no more accruals. I plan to stop using the card after the rebates stop. Or maybe use it a couple times a year just to drag them along, but keep it open. The thing is, the Providian card is by far my oldest credit card and losing that will seriously ding my credit score.

@sinfuly Delicious: I thought Chase discontinued to the secured card program?

[www.creditmattersblog.com]

If they discontinue the card, don't they have to return the deposit?

@technotica: i as well...even thou I OPTED OUT of the arbitration when I got the card from WAMU.

@palookapalooza: Keep us posted, I'm in the same situation.

@junkmail: Yes, you are. As if the old Providian didn't screw us enough!

Hrm. The notice I received from Chase said nothing about combining my card to my Chase card (I have 4 actually - Starbucks, Amazon, Borders and Chase).

@mac-phisto: The blog doesn't directly address that, it only says you can combine cards only if one of the cards has a zero balance. I would assume that if you have balances, you would just convert (or they will convert) your WaMu card to a Chase card. (And they don't actually say what happens if you don't convert your card either...)

@Cat_In_A_Hat: I compared my Transunion from WaMu/Providian/Chase to my CreditKarma score and the difference was minimal. Considering the lookup on WaMu was limited to 1x per month and CreditKarma is more fluid, it could account for that.

@palookapalooza: Me too. And the Providian now WAMU soon to be Chase card is among my oldest. Drat. I will hate losing the monthly FICO score too. That was a feature I actually checked religiously every month.

@humphrmi: consider the source, i guess. chances are, if you're reading creditmatters, you aren't carrying balances regularly (they can get a little stuffy over there), but i was curious nonetheless.

i can see this as sucking pretty hard for some folks if their plan is to combine your balances but not combine limits.

@Matt: Not really.

You'll now have two Chase accounts (one of them being the original Chase tradeline and the other being the former Washington Mutual tradeline), each retaining the respective date on which it was originally opened.

Combining limits is not automatic. You have to request them to do so.

@inkypinky: Combination of credit limits is not automatic. You have to manually call Chase and request that they do so.

If you don't do anything, you just have two Chase tradelines (one being the original Chase credit line and the other being the former Washington Mutual credit line), each of with its respective limit and each with its respective opening date.

@humphrmi: From what I read on Chase's website, if we have a WaMu credit card with some kind of cashback program in place, our cards will be automatically converted to a Chase Flexible Rewards card (I believe that the Flexible Rewards program offers cashback rewards too, if we opt to redeem it in that form).

Of course, once your WaMu card is finally converted to a Chase card, you can always convert it to another Chase credit card (e.g.: Chase Freedom, etc.)

@chiieddy: It's an unadvertised "privilege" (if you can call it that) of being a Chase cardmember.

For as long as I can remember, if you had a Chase card and remained in good standing, you could always convert it to another Chase credit card or combine limits.

@paxetaurora: Yeah, I wouldn't be too comfortable having all my credit card accounts with one financial institution.

@boomersix: They canceled mine because I hadn't used it in 2 years, and it probably didn't help that I hadn't paid a dime in interest over the life of the card.

My letter to Chase:

I'm a WAMU Credit Card holder and I wish to express my dissatisfaction with the discontinuation of WAMU's free FICO score access.

Although I have had nothing but praise for my experience with Chase to date I have no choice but to consider closing my Chase credit card accounts as well as my WAMU Checking and Savings accounts which I have had for over five years.

I strongly hope Chase reconsiders the elimination of FICO credit card access as I believe this feature differentiated the WAMU credit card product from every other card currently available.

If WAMU was able to justify a business case for free FICO score access in order to differentiate their credit card product surely Chase can also.

Richard Reyes

@azntg: Don't worry, it's a TEMPORARY situation. I don't care too much about the slight ding in my credit rating, it's worth it to get out from under this nightmare-waiting-to-happen.

@boomersix: I have a WaMu card with a zero balance that I haven't used in about 2 years... it hasn't been closed since the takeover.

I'm in the same boat as you guys. I have had my Providian card forever, and truly loved having access to my credit score. I am beyond angry that Chase is taking that away...

@sinfuly Delicious:
It took WaMu over a year to upgrade me to an official card. As of a year and a half, I have not had my limit raised, I am still at a $300 limit even though I was able to get an $8000 loan on my own.

@azntg: I've moved limits around. When my husband left Borders, I moved my limit to the Amazon card, etc. Yes, my credit card reflects the retail establishment my husband works at. I just don't cancel the old ones.

@Richard Reyes: I sent the same message.

@technotica: They gave you the option to opt out, as opposed to "Sign this or you're dead to me?"