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Letters to The Man

Dear Washington Mutual

I received a $4 check from Washington Mutual, which upon deposit would enroll me in some crazy program with undisclosed fees. I crossed out all the stuff on the back of the check about “By endorsing and depositing this check with Washington Mutual …”

I am depositing this check at my friendly local Washington Mutual ATM, with the following letter. We’ll see what happens.

Dear Washington Mutual,

As a consumer, I have a lot of choices as to where I do my personal
banking. I chose to do my banking with Washington Mutual because you
don’t charge other folks to use your ATMs. I think that is a righteous
policy, and all banks should operate this way.

I recently received the enclosed check for $4.00, which would enroll me
in some program I know nothing about. The check arrived from your
company with no descriptions of the fees you wish to charge me as a
consequence of depositing this check. This is misleading,
bait-and-switch trickery based on some misguided theory that as your
customer, I just might be dumb enough to fall for it.

You insult my intelligence, and my sense of doing the right thing, when
these are the very things that brought me in as a customer in the first
place. This is chutzpah. I return your chutzpah in kind. If this
check is credited to my account without preconditions, I will forgive
your breach of etiquette. If you prefer not to do this, I will keep my
eye out for other banking opportunities.

Thank you for your time and banking services. Thank you for the $4.
Thank you for firing the person who persuaded you to enact this scam.

Sincerely,
-danny

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Responses

July 16th, 2004

Danny Howard

Deposited July 15, 2004.

August 9th, 2004

Danny Howard

Today I received a package welcoming me to the Plus Package. Oh, poop! So, I called Washington Mutual to explain that I didn’t want no Plus Package. The lady checked, but found no Plus Package on my account. So … ?

No $4 debit on my account. I’m guessing they might have cashed the check, intitiating Plus Package, and then cancelling it right away. Not bad, not bad.

August 9th, 2004

Jess Olson

You can’t cross out conditions of a contract that someone write on a check and have the check be a new contract. I remember this case from Biz Law 1 … that I had in 2000 in Okinawa so I can’t cite the exact case.

But after 10 minutes on google I have the law, but not the case that started it:
http://www.professionalroofing.net/article.aspx?A_ID=437
Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) Section 3-311

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