shame on you, wamu

a washington mutual saga:

• bought a glut of computer parts at the end of september. shipment was delayed due to mismatched address. huh.. i switched my address over in may 2006 with no problems. whatever. resubmitted the orders.



• tried to buy a separate LCD monitor. same problem: address didn't match. i couldn't seem to buy anything else online, either.. my card wasn't being accepted.



• visited wamu directly. they told me my problems stemmed from my debit card expiring in november, and that they sent out a new card oct. 1.



• waited three weeks. worried about chicago's craptastic mail system misdelivering my card, or perhaps losing it entirely.



• visited wamu again. this time they told me two things:
  1. somehow the active period on my card for my old address had been changed from 2004-2006 to 2004-2056, trumping my current address; and
  2. they never sent the new card.
  got them to fix the address mess and get the new card sent.



• tried to get money yesterday from two different machines. both told me 'unauthorized access.' had to put off buying new gaming headphones, not to mention getting cash (without huge fees), paying for things, etc. until my new card arrives.

thankfully, the new card was in my mailbox when i got home. but what if it hadn't been? my CTA card's almost empty, my wallet's packing nothing but flies, and i sure as hell ain't carrying around checks with me. and if my card had been put into the wrong hands, say so long to my bank account. fucking anyone could have activated it. they don't ask for anything person-specific, just for you to call from your home number (which i didn't - i used my cell, which still worked). besides, the old card shouldn't have been deactivated until the new one was active anyway. thanks, wamu, you should know better than this.