The Mysterious Disappearance of $4,500 From Account

Anyone would be disturbed by the mysterious disappearance of $4,500 from their bank account, and so, naturally, was Teri Foster, a Ventura County resident and customer of the Port Hueneme branch of Washington Mutual, when it happened to her.

The loss caused Foster 19 days of anguish and frustration. She made four visits to her branch, and placed calls to Washington Mutual’s headquarters in Seattle and even to the police, before the company finally acknowledged its errors and restored the money to her account.

Now, a senior vice president of the huge thrift, with 347 branches and 1.8 million household customers in Southern California alone, acknowledges that the whole thing was mishandled.

As the bank’s Mike Amato explains it, this was a case of one grievous error piled on another, and then a response to Foster at the Port Hueneme branch that should have been different.

In fact, Amato says this case will now be part of Washington Mutual’s training program.

Foster deposited $4,500 in her account from her late father’s estate, and was told the funds would be available in five days. But after that, when she wrote a check, she got notice Aug. 26 that it had bounced because of insufficient funds.

“I went directly to my branch,” she recalls. “The assistant manager, Theresa Trias, said that a ‘customer withdrawal’ of the $4,500 had occurred at the 9th and Hill [streets] branch in Los Angeles on Aug. 19.”

When Foster told Trias she had withdrawn nothing, Trias said she would request a copy of the withdrawal slip, and it would be available in two days. She promised to keep in touch.

But when Foster heard nothing, she made another visit to the Port Hueneme branch four days later, on Aug. 30, and a third visit, two days after that, on Sept. 1.

On each occasion, she was told no withdrawal slip had yet been retrieved.

“On Sept. 3, 1999, still having heard nothing from my branch, I took off a day from work to go [to the branch a fourth time] and get this situation resolved,” Foster said. “Ms. Trias curtly told me that there was still no slip and that nothing could be done. . . .

“I asked to speak to the manager [Sandra Boroff], who, without even listening to the situation, said that she could do nothing. After I waited there over an hour, she said she could offer me a credit of $200, far less than the amount taken from my account and not nearly what I needed to pay my bills.”

It was after this experience that Foster contacted Washington Mutual headquarters, the U.S. Office of Thrift Supervision, the Los Angeles Police Department and me.

Finally, on Sept. 14, Washington Mutual restored the $4,500 to her account. Only this past Monday did she receive a copy of the withdrawal slip, signed by a man whose name is very similar to hers.

What is the explanation for what happened here? I called Boroff, but she said, “I’m not allowed to comment. The branch must refer all inquiries to corporate.”

It was Amato who did respond, declaring:

“What apparently happened was another customer with a name very similar to Ms. Foster’s came into a different branch from Ms. Foster’s branch (60 miles away in downtown Los Angeles) and presented identification to the teller at that branch requesting withdrawal for, coincidentally, $4,500. . . .

“The customer making the withdrawal didn’t have his account number with him and asked that the teller look up the name. The teller looked at the signature, read the first name of the man wrong [it was only a single letter different from Foster’s]. . . .

The teller “should have matched the first name on the identification, not what he misread as the first name signed on the withdrawal slip. . . . [But, he] thought they had the identical person, and executed the withdrawal from Ms. Foster’s account.”

Hallelujah! But it gets worse.

Amato said the teller in question, whom he did not identify, mixed up his daily report to the administrative center, with the report of another teller, and when the Port Hueneme branch tried to find the withdrawal slip, it wasn’t available.

“This caused Sandra [Boroff] to be stymied in her efforts . . . to resolve the situation,” he said. “This took a number of days and I agree with the concerns that Ms. Foster expresses. Our branch staff should have worked more proactively with the back office and more proactively with Ms. Foster. One of the concerns we have is that . . . Ms. Foster had to come in time and again. I feel we let Ms. Foster down by requiring her to come in each time.”

Also, Amato said, “I truly wish the manager of the Port Hueneme branch had taken this up with her supervisor to discuss whether the woman’s account should have been credited while the matter was being explored.

“I think if we had worked in that way, we could have looked at her [Foster’s] excellent standing with our company. She’s had an account with us for a long time. We could have and would have made the judgment that we could have issued provisional credit.”

Amato said he was embarrassed that he had to say in such “an open fashion I wish they would have handled this differently.”

“Our branch manager makes lots and lots of right decisions,” he said. “Unfortunately, only this one will appear in the L.A. Times, and she and I wish she had had the ability to deal with this situation in a more timely fashion.”

Foster, for her part, remains unhappiest that the money was taken out of her account at all.

“When you go into a bank, they are usually so meticulous,” she said, “and when someone goes in without an account number and no signature on file downtown from Port Hueneme, I’m just flabbergasted they could let that gentleman walk out with that much money.”

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Ken Reich can be contacted with your accounts of true consumer adventures at (213) 237-7060 or by e-mail at ken.reich@latimes.com