
Wells Fargo Closed Their Accounts, but the Fees Continued to Mount - howard941
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/16/business/wells-fargo-overdraft-fees.html
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reaperducer
_A spokesman for the bank said... the bank reviews accounts to protect
customers and was “committed to doing so in ways that minimize the risk and
impact to our customers.”

“As a company, we are focused on continually improving this process,” said the
spokesman, Jim Seitz._

Sounds like Wells Fargo has the same doublespeak PR department as Facebook.

A bank isn't supposed to "continually improve the process." The whole point of
a bank is that it's supposed to do things right the first time.

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ChuckMcM
Perhaps the "process" they are improving is the number of "perfectly
legal"/"plausibly deniable" ways they can take money from people?

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viburnum
Wells Fargo has been in the news for one fiasco or another for 20 years. How
are they still in business? Their reputation is terrible. I guess people don’t
talk about their banks that much.

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kumarm
Been wellfargo customer for 20+ years. Good Service, Local branches to walk
into. I believe issues like these are exception cases.

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colejohnson66
I’m curious why this is being downvoted? Are people here really downvoting
someone because they haven’t had a bad experience at a certain place you don’t
like?

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detaro
No, because they extrapolate from their experience that all the problems have
to be "exceptional cases", when there's good arguments that a lot of problems
at WF are not that, but systemic problems and outright fraud causing damage to
millions of people.

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reaperducer
_The bank informed Mr. Einaudi that it was closing all 13 of the checking
accounts it provided his roofing company, CRV Construction, for a reason it
called “confidential.”_

Citibank did that to two of my accounts. Good thing they weren't with Wells
Fargo, or I probably would have gotten the same treatment. But I still get
messages from Citibank about the phantom accounts and how I'm not maximizing
their potential. Amazingly, I can still log in to the accounts online and see
that they are closed.

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vageli
> The bank informed Mr. Einaudi that it was closing all 13 of the checking
> accounts it provided his roofing company, CRV Construction, for a reason it
> called “confidential.”

> Citibank did that to two of my accounts. Good thing they weren't with Wells
> Fargo, or I probably would have gotten the same treatment. But I still get
> messages from Citibank about the phantom accounts and how I'm not maximizing
> their potential. Amazingly, I can still log in to the accounts online and
> see that they are closed.

They probably have to retain login to allow export of your statements.

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peter303
Note Wells Fargo bought two banks I had accounts in. That is an unplanned way
I had accounts in their banks.

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sndean
Same here. My first account was at a Wachovia, but they fell apart during the
recession and were acquired by WF. Looking for a convenient time to switch.

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raincom
In 2002, I opened an credit card account with Wells Fargo. I went to the local
wells fargo to pay the monthly due on the due-by date. In the next billing
cycle, I was charged $25 for late payment. That's when I decided to close
accounts with them.

~~~
reaperducer
I had a Wells Fargo account for a number of years. Then one day I deposited
about $250 cash into a Wells Fargo ATM. But it didn't show up in my account.

When I complained, Fargo treated me like I was a criminal. It wouldn't credit
me for the money, even though I had the ATM receipt. The branch manager told
me he wouldn't even review the security video unless I filed a police report
about it.

I drained the account to zero and ignored it. Six months later, I get a letter
from Fargo saying that a guy who worked for a company they outsourced ATM
maintenance to was skimming cash from the machines. Fargo finally credited me
for the missing money, and I closed the account the next week.

~~~
serf
Very similar story here.

Every bank since WF that i've interacted with has been splendid; I think it's
just that WF set such a low floor for expectations that _ANY_ decent bank
seems far ahead.

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gnicholas
I had a brokerage account that I closed out by transferring all of my stock
and cash to another brokerage. Apparently they failed to transfer it all and
left 2¢ in the account. For nearly 10 years I’ve been receiving mailed
statements from the old brokerage with my account details. I wonder how many
other accounts are in this limbo, and how much postage (now over 50¢!) is
being wasted on these mailed statements.

I’m glad my only inconvenience is having to recycle the monthly mailings, and
not mounting fees, like the people at Wells Fargo!

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vidanay
I have an ETrade account like this.

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projektfu
This is disturbing. Previous problems weren’t apparently affecting business
accounts but this one is. Many of us are required to have a primary operating
account with Wells as part of a loan agreement.

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SeeDave
You most likely received a discounted interest rate on your loan in-line with
anti-typing exceptions outlined in 12 CFR 225.7

For reference: [https://www.occ.treas.gov/news-
issuances/bulletins/1995/bull...](https://www.occ.treas.gov/news-
issuances/bulletins/1995/bulletin-1995-20.html)

~~~
projektfu
It says they have an exception when tying traditional bank products together,
like a loan and a deposit account.

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c3534l
This happened to me. It was a nightmare. Glad to know I wasn't the only one.

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6gvONxR4sf7o
What's everyone's preferred bank? I want something with ATMs everywhere, good
international travel support, and a not-horrible website I can move stuff
around in/monitor with. I'm in SF.

Wells Fargo has checked those boxes for me, and never done me wrong, but they
keep screwing over other people. Maybe I should take my money elsewhere.

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twblalock
I'm with Wells Fargo and I'm not planning to leave. I don't think any of the
other banks are morally superior -- Wells Fargo is probably just a bit more
inept at covering things up.

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juped
I think they're comparable to other national retail bank chains, and just a
bit worse at image control. However, others here have suggested credit unions
or brokerages with banking arms, which have different incentives -
anecdotally, people are happier with service from non-bank banks.

~~~
twblalock
The problem with local credit unions is their smartphone apps and online
banking suck.

~~~
jkepler
Agree. I heard that there are four primary vendors for credit union and small
bank web software. I guess they're not typically able or willing to customize
commodity or write custom mobile apps.

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pjlnotsecure
I have seen many articles go to 1,500 or more comments at NY Times. Is it
usual for The NY Times to close their comments section after only 18 or so
hours and just 230~ comments?

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reaperducer
I don't read newspaper article comments, but it's possible that an anti-spam
system kicked in. It's not like newspapers have people watching the comments
on every article.

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tomohawk
Just avoid any large bank. Stick to credit unions and and local banks that you
know something about. I was given this advice a long time ago and it has saved
endless hassle.

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lscotte
Local credit unions are definitely the way to go.

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mark_l_watson
I use Wells Fargo and get very good service at my local bank. That said, we
also use two local credit unions and supporting smaller banks is, I think, a
good thing to do.

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crb002
Bank of the West is 100x better.

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ddingus
Then the accounts were not closed, simple as that.

IMHO, this is criminal.

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repomies691
> IMHO, this is criminal.

Is criminality opinion nowadays? To my understanding if a bank acts like this,
there is very little to do. Maybe a class action lawsuit would work in US?

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automated_toast
So let me tell you how the class action would go down. A law firm would find a
few impacted folks. They would then file for a class action covering, let's
say, 100K people.

WF would then agree to pay like $50M. The lawyers would take at least half of
that or $25M. The 'few impacted folks' the lawyers originally found would get
between 50K and 100K each. The remainder would be disbursed to nonprofits
because it would be too onerous to find all defendants.

WF would get this monkey off its back. And the actual impacted folks would get
zip, zilch, nada.

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howard941
You forgot to mention that the wrongful behavior would cease. That's the point
of a class action: It provides an effective state attorney without tapping the
public treasury.

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brewdad
Not if they made more money ripping people off than it cost them in the
courts. Even if they didn't make a full $50 million in this scam, time value
of money means they get to capture earnings on the scammed money for a decade
before they have to finally pay a penalty.

THEN they get to offset $50 million of current income to reduce their tax
bill. I'm surprised more banks don't do this.

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zaroth
Reputation.

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kaesar14
They don’t give a shit about their reputation.

