This news is a bit crusty, but we just now noticed it, and it affects us directly, so suck it up. Washington Mutual, who not two years ago pushed a massive ‘The Buck-Fifty Stops Here’ campaign in New York to promote their no-cost ATMs, has—wait for it—started charging ATM fees for non-customers. We certainly don’t recall a huge ad campaign telling everyone the fees were being reinstated after five years.

But on the upside for those who bank with WaMu, the lines should be far shorter, since the fees will only be levied on non-customers. Huddling into a Manhattan bank lobby with twenty people to play ‘Which ATM Isn’t Broken’ wasn’t exactly a good time.

On the whole, we’ve been pleased with the level of evil at WaMu, as they’ve been generally quick to fix errors and to provide friendly, easily-accessible customer service. But their online banking, while decent, does not sync natively with Quickbooks like our Fidelity account, so we are entertaining a move to a new bank. Can anyone recommmend a New York-area bank that works well with Quickbooks and has cheap or free checking and savings accounts? And while we’re at it, anyone know banks that don’t charge ATM fees at all? (Thanks, Royce!)

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