First Time Offenders Get Maximum Sentence at WaMu

First Time Offenders Get Maximum Sentence at WaMu.

Washington Mutual (NYSE:WM) gets the 2006 CreditCard.org Lemon Award for Bad Banking for taking first time late-payers to an interest rate over 31.9%. According to the terms:

Each time you default… we may increase the APRs on your account up to a maximum of the Default APR (31.99%)

Washington Mutual acquired Providian which has a history of class action judgments (one topped $400 million). Annie Chang, Director of Education for CreditCard.org stated, “If big tobacco started a credit card company, they'd call it Providian” (now owned by Washington Mutual (NYSE:WM) ) . “If there's a poster child for CreditCard.org Lemon Award, it'd be Washington Mutual,” said Larry Chiang, founder of CreditCard.org and added, “it's the first bank ever to charge you for a credit line”.