No, they will not die because of lack of liquidity, they have a much bigger problem at their hands. This may end up being the most controversial blog post I have ever written but I like it that way. I think Washington Mutual deserves it after all the trouble I went through today with them resolving banking issues and still wasn’t able to do so.
So the long story short, I went to the WaMu branch today to open the 5% CD they are marketing and while in the branch found out my free checking account is closed and I have service charges on my (also presumably free) savings account. On top of that there is an overdraft warning in the account.
The branch officer was incapable to do anything to clarify why this happened (reasoning that the account was opened online) and for some reason gave me a Forgery and Bill Pay number, which ended up being a wrong number to call, and I was eventually redirected to the customer support.
What turned out is that my checking account was closed due to inactivity and after that happened they started to charge a service fee for the savings account since it didn’t meet the minimum balance requirement (waved with checking). Since there was very little money in the savings account, it went negative and now I have an overdraft warning.
So what went wrong?
The problem is that they never notified me that my account was closed, nor can I see it when I go online. The account is in the list and looks just as usual. In fact I can still see online statements for it (including one for the last month) and nowhere on the statement it says it is closed. The only way to find it out is if you attempt to transfer funds to/from it or if you go to a special link called ‘About this account’ where you will find that the Account Status field is set to ‘CLOSED’.
The situation didn’t improve after more than an hour on the phone today. They cannot reopen my checking nor will they reverse the service fees. My only option to avoid future fees is to fund the savings account over the minimum balance requirement, or open new checking account and somehow bind it with the existing savings.
I have been so much frustrated over this mess that I feel like abandoning WaMu altogether. During my customer service calls I have encountered on several occasions that the automated system is not able to access my account information, at which point I am thrown back to the main menu to type my a/n and pin over again. Also the inability of the branch manager to clarify (or solve) this mess is very puzzling to me. I would so much rather talk to a branch representative when dealing with complicated issues like this.
Conclusion
If anything, I have given up on the 5% CD deal because I strongly believe a company with the customer service record like this will not last long, and even if it does - I don’t want to have business with it.
Do you have an account at Washington Mutual? What is your experience with them? Are you a happy / frustrated customer? Pour it out in the comments!
How far will you go for your safety when choosing your new car? Just several years ago I would not have given it much thought. 
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