John’s Musings

Several months ago I was watching prime-time television. While flipping through channels I saw a commercial for a bank called Washington Mutual, or otherwise known as WaMu. This bank advertised itself as being better, non-typical, and unlike any other bank that’s out there.

Being the easily influenced individual that I am, I signed up with WaMu. I should have first noticed that WaMu doesn’t have much of a presence east of the Mississippi. Essentially, I would only have online access to my accounts, with no bank that I could make a deposit or withdrawal at. However, the promise of a 5% savings account and unlimited checks (which I had no need for) lured me in.

At first, WaMu seemed like a great bank. They had good customer service and had a few tools, although their selection was rather limited, as they don’t support BillPay and other amenities that most banks offer.

However, after a short period of time, I started to realize that WaMu was indeed a bank.

And banks tend to rape me.

First it was the “Excess Activity Fee” that was appended to my savings account if I made more than four withdrawals per month from it. Each time I made a withdrawal I got charged $3.

Then it was the “Non-Sufficient Funds” fee that was charged when the bank denied a transfer request because of NSF. Now, WaMu didn’t actually let the transfer go through, pay for the transfer, let my account obtain a negative balance, and then charge a fee. No, WaMu denied the transfer and then charged me $32.

Then it was the bogus debit transaction that was posted to my account. It was very similar in description to the purchases I had made at Kroger, with the word “Florida” placed right before the regular debit description. This charge was reversed a week later.

However, the last straw occurred yesterday. I was going to buy some food at Kroger last night and thought to check my checking account balance before I would make my purchase. I performed a balance inquiry at the ATM at work. I got a balance and made my purchase accordingly.

However, upon viewing my account history this morning, I saw this:

*ATM BALANCE INQUIRY FEE - DOMESTIC
$7.00

I’m already in the process of transferring my direct deposit to my account at Wells Fargo. Once I get that set up and once I get my tax refund transferred out of WaMu, I will close the account.

Don’t bank with WaMu. They find numerous ways to screw you out of your money, usually by way of one hideously over-priced fee at a time.

Today was unbelievably and unspeakably bad. I went to work at 3 PM, and was immediately inundated with tasks, as I had the 3:00 to 11:30 accounting shift. I counted in, then proceeded to perform pickups, run customer service, ensure that all cashiers had enough change, and even bag groceries.

At 6:30, something happened that shouldn’t have. A man bought about $1,100.00 of MasterCard gift cards on Uscan. Things were hectic, as I was running back and forth doing various tasks. The Uscan cashier then proceeded to allow the man to pay for the order…with a credit card.
I went over to Uscan within a few minutes.

“Hey, how did that customer pay for those gift cards?”
“With a credit card.”
“What?? Did you get his driver’s license number down?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you make sure his name matched with the one on the credit card?”
“No.”
“Can I see the credit slip that he signed?”
“Sure…it’s right here…um…where is it…uh oh.”

Basically, we sold a man $1,100.00 in gift cards. He paid with a credit card that could very well have been stolen. We have no signature, as numbnuts let him grab the credit card slip.

I immediately called the manager on duty. She was beside herself, and understandably so. If we got ripped off $1,100.00, quite a few people, herself included, would look bad.

I pulled up a copy of the receipt from the server and printed it out for reference, as we had no receipt whatsoever. The manager then proceeded to let me know that she was extremely disappointed in me. I told her that I assumed that the Uscan cashier would have known better. Selling someone $1,100.00 in gift cards and accepting anything but cash or debit is something that you just don’t do! I told the manager that I dropped the ball in assuming that he was bright enough (not my exact words) not to do that. However, I wanted to clarify that it’s impossible for me to babysit everyone, and that this could not be entirely my fault, as I did not ring up the transaction, nor did I accept payment. The Uscan cashier did not ask for my help at any point.

She’ll talk to the head manager today. If they guy was legit, all is well. If not, the owner of the credit card will call their card-issuer and raise a huge ruckus. The charge will be reversed, but the gift cards will have been used, essentially making Kroger have to absorb the loss. That would be a bad thing.

Later on I closed the safe door too hard, causing it to hit and shut an inner door that has a time-activated lock. I couldn’t get it open for the life of me, and had to call someone to advise me. At the end of the day, I got out at 1:30 AM, when I finally accepted the fact that I was indeed $250 short and that there was nothing I could do. The morning guy will figure it out, hopefully.
I’m unnerved, irked, and angered right now. I’m going to hear about quite a bit tomorrow. I’m going to hear about the gift card issue,. I’m going to hear about how I was at Kroger for 10.5 hours with only a 15 minute break (I won’t hear about it because they care about my well-being. No, they’ll chew me out because of the overtime). If we end up being $250 short, I can assure you that I’ll hear about that too.

You know what? The stress and the responsibility that this job contains is not worth the paltry $6.90 an hour that I get paid. I am starting to hate Kroger more and more with greater and greater burning passion as each day goes on.

I refuse to deal with accounting anymore. I’ll tell my boss that I will take no more accounting shifts.

I also refuse to subject myself to the stress, lame pay, despicable policies, and horrible work environment that Kroger has to offer. I plan to leave as soon as I possibly can.