What is Digg?446 Comments
- inactive, on 04/18/2008, -2/+178"Yes, I'll take a check."
...
"Ok, I'd like to cash this check, now." - KingGorilla, on 04/18/2008, -3/+140Bart in Voice#1: "What do you mean the bank is out of money!?"
Bart In Voice#2: "We only have enough money for the next 3 people"
-Crowd starts going crazy-
Bank Guy: "We don't have your money! It's at....Bill's House...And...Fred's House!
Moe:What the hell are you doing with my money Fred? - americangoy, on 04/18/2008, -9/+142"Is WaMu really that short on capital reserves?"
Yes.
And it is not just WaMu. - plizard, on 04/18/2008, -3/+116uhh wtf
4200 is chicken ***** on a macro economic scale
i pulled 6000 out of chase once day at drive-up, no advanced warnings and no problems.
and i thought by law, banks were required to hold a certain percentage of their company's assets in cash throughout branches. - shark72, on 04/18/2008, -5/+96The branch he describes is in San Francisco and apparently it's one of their "mini" branches -- not a full-service branch. My guess is that it's in a sufficiently high-crime neighborhood for WaMu to deem it risky for the branch to hold lots of cash, for fear of a bank robbery.
I'm not commenting on the wisdom of this decision (clearly diggers would operate a bank differently, if they operated a bank) but I can see why WaMu might have made this choice. Bank robberies are to be avoided. - inactive, on 04/18/2008, -5/+73Non-borrowed reserves are now negative across the board. I'll submit a link to the Fed site that shows a chart; however, I've had next to no luck when linking to these stats, as of late. If it doesn't work, you can find the information by searching, "Non-Borrowed Reserves of Depository Institutions".
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/BOGNON ... - siszam, on 04/18/2008, -7/+69I bank with Wamu. They recently started putting a hold on cash deposits over a hundred dollars. They've never done that. It smacks of desperation to hold a cash deposit. I can understand checks but cash?! We've pulled all but basic operating expenses out until we see how things go.
- cathpah, on 04/18/2008, -2/+62that's ***** crazy. Cash deposits?
I'd switch banks THAT DAY. - StingingNettle, on 04/18/2008, -4/+53Yes, they really are that short on capital reserves. That's why they are promoting their CD's like crazy.
- blackinthmiddle, on 04/18/2008, -3/+50Sounds like b.s. to me. I worked as a teller at emigrint savings while working my way through college. It's a fairly small bank and we'd have no problem cashing checks this large. Sometimes, if the person was old and fragile, we might point out that for their safety they may want to take a check. However, if they insisted on cash, we'd give it to them.
Sounds like they assumed no one else was coming in during that last ten minutes and had already counted out the money and just didn't want to be bothered. I could be wrong, but that's my first thought. - AlbinoRaven, on 04/18/2008, -9/+54Holy crap,
So even if there was a bank run it wouldn't matter to anybody that has cash in that bank.
The bank literally can tell it's customers to F$%k off? Aren't banks in the US supposed to have insurance against each account to avoid problems like this? - treehugger87, on 04/18/2008, -15/+55Holy crap. If I were a customer of theirs I would get my money out of there NOW.
- mikerbob, on 04/18/2008, -2/+42Was a bank teller back in the day and was required to have $20k in my drawer at the beginning of a normal day, and much, much more than that on 'special' days like pay days (1st, 15th, Friday, etc.) and on weekends when they did not have the vault open. Some times I had $50k in cash in my drawer -- and mine was not the only teller drawer available. Can't handle out $4,200 of your money!? Get a new bank.
- RomeyRome, on 04/18/2008, -0/+38So what you're saying is that it's a bad time to rob a bank?
- yodaj007, on 04/18/2008, -1/+32The FDIC doesn't step in until the bank has gone insolvent. Until then, problems can abound.
- YodaJones, on 04/18/2008, -1/+31WOW, the teller yelling across the room an amount is pretty unethical if you ask me.
- wasabimonster, on 04/18/2008, -0/+29Sounds like a scene from Idiocracy.
- alphaskeptical, on 04/18/2008, -3/+32That's nonsense. I'm a teller at WaMu and theres not even a function in the system to put cash on hold. Cash can never go on hold in any bank, unless for some special reason the teller credits the account later. and DEFINITELY NOT A HUNDRED BUCKS. There probably was some misinformation.
- yunus, on 04/18/2008, -1/+29The First National Bank of Digg would operate over the web. When you tried to withdraw your money you would get a message stating that the withdraw system is broke, please refresh the page and try again.
- munkyxtc, on 04/18/2008, -1/+28His link just got truncated; he stated how to find it...here is a working link:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/BOGNON ...
Sidenote: 2bsbc; if you edit your comment that contains a link within the edit window your links are cut off; you'll need to put the entire path back into the comment to avoid this. - BadseedJR, on 04/18/2008, -1/+28We have what's called a "credit union alliance" here, which means you can bank at any credit union in the area, not just your own (with some restrictions). That being said, I went to a credit union that was not my own and across the state line. I asked if there was a limit on withdrawals, they asked how much, I said 2400 bucks, they said "that's fine" and handed it over. This wasn't even my bank and I got it in a second. Leave WaMu.
- chuckDontSurf, on 04/18/2008, -1/+27Awesome.
- csm888, on 04/18/2008, -3/+281) Go Short
2) Create Rumours
3) Profit. - totorototoro, on 04/18/2008, -1/+23What good is the FDIC for the guy who just wanted $4,200 cash from his acount?
I'm with treehugger87, why would you want to be a WaMu customer if they can't even cover that with 24 hour notice? - TonyLocNE, on 04/18/2008, -2/+23http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Er69b4HMl8
Its a Wonderful Life. - inactive, on 04/18/2008, -0/+21Ya, bad time to rob a bank. Great time for a bank to rob you.
- inactive, on 04/18/2008, -4/+25You realize the FDIC exists solely to prevent chicken little moves like that, right?
- blackinthmiddle, on 04/18/2008, -1/+21All I know is that when I was a teller, we had hundred's of thousands of dollars on hand. The concept of not giving someone cash because it would leave us short never even entered the conversation.
- Aleman360, on 04/18/2008, -7/+27I thought banks were required by law since the depression to have enough cash on hand to cover like half of what everyone had deposited?
- sporg, on 04/18/2008, -10/+29 Banks have your money and they will decide how much access you have to it and when you can have access to it. As an added bonus any large sums you withdraw are reported to the DHS and various agencies for review. You will also be automatically added to the no fly list to ensure that you are not attempting to leave the country. Remember this is for your own protection.
- antipoet, on 04/18/2008, -0/+19I thought so too. Seriously, the average ATM in Vegas probably has more on hand than that. In twenties.
- aspec, on 04/18/2008, -0/+18Don't worry, it's not coming back with him.
- familynight, on 04/18/2008, -3/+20i have trouble believing that this story has anything to do with larger issues in the economy or even wamu. this is probably just a case of a poorly managed branch or something was left out of this story.
- yunus, on 04/18/2008, -0/+17It's because WaMu has branches that really are nothing more than an ATM machine with human service. You don't get money from the person you get it from the machine. No matter how many tellers there are, everyone uses the same machine. Its a stupid system and examples like this show why its stupid.
If anyone is concerned about their money they should electronically transfer it to a bank that they trust. - inactive, on 04/18/2008, -0/+16Agreed. Nobody wants to hear "I can't pay you because my funds are tied up".
- ferrariman60, on 04/18/2008, -1/+16This is it:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/BOGNON ...
And good call. This is still pretty absurd, I was behind a guy at a Seattle Bank of America and he withdrew ~$5500 without issue. - JJCDAD, on 04/18/2008, -3/+18I wish I had a $4200 nut to take to Vegas. What economy did this story come from?
- DFENS, on 04/18/2008, -0/+14There are two kinds of WaMu's - the ones that are full branch offices that handle Loans, CD's, Safe Deposit Boxes, etc - at these you can withdraw quite a bit, a nd 4200 would have been within it. The other kind are satellite offices. They have limits, because they are essentially staffed ATM's. Unlike other banks which receive deposits all day and utilize that for their withdrawals, these satellite offices can't.
that's all. Really, it's all in the forms you used to sign up for your account. - antipoet, on 04/18/2008, -4/+18It's not going to do any good to try and scare everyone about this. Comments like this only add to the problem.
- dubprocess, on 04/18/2008, -1/+15funny because i had the same experience at a Wamu. My wife had trouble cashing a $5000 check and we had to drive around to three branches until finally (after insisting continuously) that they finally cashed it! I am not saying every bank is perfect, but I have had Wells Fargo for 15 years, and never had a problem with cashing a check. I am sure this has happened at a Wells Fargo before, but its seems that Wamu goes above and beyond making it difficult for you to pull out money....Just walking into a Wamu down the street from my house requires some wierd high security doors and if you open them wrong the security officer yells at you.....I will never bank at Wamu...of course they could care less, but i still say no thanks
- chuckDontSurf, on 04/18/2008, -2/+15Why stop at 10? As long as you're running around as if the sky is falling, why not speculate that it's going to be 10,000 times worse?
- inactive, on 04/18/2008, -1/+14Aw *****, I was going to switch to WaMu from BOA - ***** BOA bastards
- RomeyRome, on 04/18/2008, -3/+15May I recommend The National Bank of Dubai?
- Rendonsmug, on 04/18/2008, -1/+13If they needed it they could take out an overnight loan from another bank at the fed funds rate.
- mlschop, on 04/18/2008, -6/+17I love all the uneducated comments in the article. It's not like banks keep everyone's money directly on hand; there's no "Joey Smith" box with all your deposits. Where do you think they get the money to offer mortgages and equity loans?
$4,200 is not a lot of money for a regular bank, but this obviously wasn't - or they wouldn't have referred him to a "regular branch." He gave 10 minutes notice prior to closing. Employees may have been lazy, but he still approached the whole situation without understanding how banking works.
That being said, I've withdrawn $3,000 from a tiny hick bank without notice and had no problem. Would I have been shocked if they couldn't do it 10 minutes before closing? Probably not. - Soave, on 04/18/2008, -0/+11And MrBabyMan would get all the monies :(
- ardagarda, on 04/18/2008, -3/+14I totally agree - I've worked in various bank branches and I can tell you, near closing time the tellers are selling their cash off to the vault (because they can get written up for having too much cash in the cash box overnight). Closing time is no time to be making any cash withdrawals over say, $2k, unless you want to completely screw up the tellers' routine. What's totally annoying about this story is the way it is being used to create hysteria and is being poised as some sort of evidence that banks are short on cash. There's no way that WaMu is instituting any sort of "don't give people cash" policy.
- mendax, on 04/18/2008, -2/+13If I understand it correctly, banks are required to have on deposit with a Federal Reserve bank a certain small percentage of their overall deposits. This percentage is set by the Federal Reserve and it varies from time to time. This percentage is no where near 50%. It's probably more like 5%. You must keep in mind that banks are in the business of lending the money you've deposited out to others. They don't make make money on your deposits if they have to keep it sitting around not working for them. They are banking (if you excuse the pun) on the fact that most of their depositors are not going to want their money all at the same time.
- HanSolo69, on 04/18/2008, -3/+13Where's the part where he gave 24 hour notice?
- noahhoward, on 04/18/2008, -0/+10Oh please, go and talk to someone who lived through the great depression and see what they thin about our economic 'crisis'. We're still living in oversized houses buying over-priced cars going to fast food chains and paying commodity prices for food. We could actually put a 'depression' to pretty damn good use right now.
We're a model of excess our 'depression' would be an economic boom for many nations around the world. -
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