Banks !!!!

[Scott Donley]

I don't rant often but I need to right now. I use Quicken to pay my bills so I just went to pay one, my account updated and I had to look twice. Shows a check, in order number wise for 22,286.34. It was written by some company in Denver to another company in Denver, my name or account number are no where to be found.
Spent almost an hour on the phone, 3 different people and they all agreed it was a mistake but must open fraud claim and could take up to 10 days to give me my money back. I am so angry right now I can't see straight . Sorry for the rant :(:( By the way, the bank is Wells Fargo. I will say this is the first problem I have had and I have been with them since 1983.

[Jim Koepke]

When a computer makes an error it is usually a doozy.

Wells Fargo used to be one of the banks that had my respect though none of my accounts have been with them. In the past few years it seems they have lost focus on their mission.

Did the amount on the errant check cause an overdraft?

One time my bank was asked to stop payment on a single check. Somehow it canceled every outstanding transaction that hadn't cleared. It caused a bit of a problem taking about two weeks to get it straight.

jtk

[Ken Fitzgerald]

We used a regional bank for over 20 years for our personal banking needs . I was the treasurer for a national organization's local fundraiser for 6 years using the same regional bank for the our local chapter's needs. Then Wells Fargo bought that regional bank out. Shortly after the buy out, long time employees of the former regional bank began voluntarily retiring or were let go. When we no longer recognized any one working there, they started not recognizing us, and after the 2nd problem with our accounts, we changed to another regional bank. 15 years later we are still with the 2nd regional bank. Wells Fargo has had too many issues in the national news over the last few years for me to be comfortable using them.

[Bruce Wrenn]

Years ago, son did monthly online bill pay with another bank. Money came out of his account, but none of it reached his creditors, including mortgage company. Bank never could explain it, and after about two months credited him his money back, plus sent letters to all his creditors explaining what happened. Remember they couldn't explain what happened. About three years later, he goes to buy another house. The mortgage process was a nightmare,even though there were letters explaining that what happened wasn't his fault Once my bank made a small error in my account. Because I'm self employed, each month before paying bills, do the telephone thing to check balance. When I hung up phone, wife wanted to know what was wrong. Simple, I'm over $5000 overdrawn. I had made two deposits in the previous couple days, which totaled more than $5000. They were made on different days, and at different branches, but both had been applied to my account as debits instead of credits. After calling branch, in less than an hour my funds were replaced.

[Kev Williams]

Wells Fargo has saved my butt from ID thieves 3 times, caught and shut down the nonsense before I even knew it was happening. Kudo's...

Then last October-ish, I had 2 Amex withdrawls, and 3 E-pay charges against my account to/by 'some guy' totalling over $17,000 that they totally missed-? Usually there's the 'test' draw of a buck or so, but the first Amex charge was over $15,000, I thought there was some sort of 'flag' with transactions over $10k, but I guess not! We got it all back except $600-something, still not sure why but since I could earn much more than that in the same amount of time I'd spend fighting it, I didn't fight it. I wrote it off...

As to Wells Fargo's nonsense with opening fake accounts, our branch was guilty of pushing new accounts, but as far as I know they didn't do it fraudulently; I was a 'victim', but all it did was help me: when I was needing money to buy a machine, they opened a new Visa account, 0% for 18 months... when I needed another machine and a new driveway poured, I was happy to put it on the same card, but they opened another account, same terms.. Hey, if you guys insist on borrowing me money for free, who am I to argue? Haven't seen a fee for either account- yet... ;)

[Jim Becker]

I had a banking relationship with Wells Fargo for may years dating all the way back several generations of mergers and acquisitions. While we still have a HELOC and a CC with them (inconvenient to move the former and the latter is kept merely for true emergencies and only used once a year to keep it active) they lost our regular banking relationship when they decided to start charging a fee for things like accessing the account directly from Quicken. We moved to TD Bank and never looked back...

That said, unfortunately, banks have some wiggle room relative to time to restore funds after fraudulent activity with debit cards and checking transactions. Some do it reasonably quickly, but some do not. This is one reason I pretty much never use a debit card for any kind of purchasing...it only gets used in the ATM for the every three months or so $100 with-drawl of cash I make to restock my emergency fund for my wallet's hidden compartment. (I don't generally use cash for transactions, either) Credit cards have been exemplary for dealing with fraud, particularly AMEX, which is what I use for "cash" transactions.

[Bob Glenn]

Don't know anything about Wellsfargo, however, when organizations become large, decisions can be made that no longer serve the customer, but serve the organization in the name of profit. Best to stay away from any large organization. Try a local credit union.

[Roger Feeley]

amen to the big bank problem. I call it "Institutional Indifference". We banked with a place back in Kansas City that got big. They decided to increase the interest rate on our credit card. We saw no reason for it and I went to the bank and pointed out that the rate was unreasonable given our FICO score of 813. They said there was nothing they could do. So I pulled our accounts (over $100K) and went to another bank and got 8% less on the credit card (introductory) and then 6% less permanently which was 2% better than before they jumped the rates. In truth, we didn't keep much of a balance so the interest rate didn't hurt us. We just didn't watch for competitive interest rates and we don't jump around much. It was more the principal of the thing.

I went back to the original bank branch and thanked the manager for giving us a reason to look around. He was 'aghast' that our rate had increased, exclaimed that it was a mistake and begged me to return. I declined, pointing out that I had spoken to someone at that same branch and had received the cold shoulder. I further explained that I had gone above and beyond to rectify what I, also, thought must have been some sort of mistake and that they had squandered the opportunity.

[Scott Donley]

Money is back!
I will say my original bank (First interstate) was bought out by WF and that is how I ended up with them in the first place. I do most of my banking, savings, IRA, CD's at USAA. The nice thing about WF is they are local (3 blocks) charge me no fees, and allow bill pay using Quicken.

[Kev Williams]

As to bank fees, banks are no different than satellite TV or cellphone companies; threaten to take your biz elsewhere to save money and they'll likely negotiate to keep your business...

[Jim Becker]

As to bank fees, banks are no different than satellite TV or cellphone companies; threaten to take your biz elsewhere to save money and they'll likely negotiate to keep your business...
I tried that with Wells Fargo when they suddenly decided to charge the fee for Quicken access a number of years ago, and they more or less said no-dice. So we moved multiple accounts as stated with the exception of the HELOC with unbelievable good terms and a CC as I mentioned above. The large banks are not prone to negotiation...

[Jim Koepke]

[edited]
The large banks are not prone to negotiation...

They are subject to contracts. One of the better things done in my life is open accounts with a bank that had free checking and no fee accounts for life.

We were banking with a savings and loan. Over the years they were acquired by another bank which was acquired by another bank. This bank decided we all needed to pay for them to handle our money

Many of us moved our accounts to a bank offering free checking for life. A few folks opened minimal accounts there just incase they needed it if their bank wanted to start imposing fees. This bank became a bit over extended in the housing market and is now owned by one of the major national banks. Due to the original contracts they do not get to charge fees on the accounts of people who are still banking with them. (my recollection is there was a court case on this)

jtk

[Jim Becker]

Yes, an acquiring bank needs to honor a contract that is written in a way that it can't be discarded. But what I was referring to was "negotiation"...not likely going to happen successfully for the consumer.

[Scott Donley]

I tried that with Wells Fargo when they suddenly decided to charge the fee for Quicken access a number of years ago, and they more or less said no-dice. So we moved multiple accounts as stated with the exception of the HELOC with unbelievable good terms and a CC as I mentioned above. The large banks are not prone to negotiation... Yes WF also tried to start charging me for Quicken, called them up and they agreed to not charging. I won ! It was all funny because when they first started online banking you could use Microsoft Money or Quicken, They even gave you a copy of Money if you wanted it. At the time I had already been a many year user of Quicken having used it to print all my checks ( dot matrix ). I am glad I did as MS Money is no more.

[Rick Potter]

As mentioned before, Credit Unions are a lot more consumer friendly. We have been with ours since 1966, and any glitches have been dealt with promptly.

When my Aunt died, we had to take over her Wells Fargo account in Phoenix. They were super friendly, and introduced us to our own 'personal banker'. It reminded me of a timeshare presentation. A month or so later he was no longer there.

[Jim Koepke]

Yes, an acquiring bank needs to honor a contract that is written in a way that it can't be discarded. But what I was referring to was "negotiation"...not likely going to happen successfully for the consumer.

One of my credit cards with a major bank had an interest rate on the high end. A call to them about all the offers arriving in the mail offering a better rate for transferred accounts got them to lower my rate. The lower rate was only good for six months. So every six months another call to them got me back to the lower rate. After about two years of this the representative said the rate could not be lowered again. The next day my account was changed to a bank offering a low rate. This bank has not tried to raise my rate. We currently still have that credit card and the balance owed is at zero.

Though there always seems to be a problem with banks. The bank for our credit card transposed the oe to eo in our last name on my wife's card. We never noticed this. One day a very sharp eyed cashier did. We have "please ask for ID" written on the back of our cards. This is one of the few cashiers that actually payed attention to what is written on the back of the card. It took over a year and about five attempts to get this corrected. The crazy part was on the day it finally took place was when a new computer system was being purchased. While sitting on a bench outside of the store as they were putting my purchase together, my wife called and told me the bank decided the way to correct the problem was to close the account and transfer the balance to a new account. She was on another line with the bank and told them of my charge at the computer store. Everything was in order so we closed the account and were going to receive our new cards in a few days. After hanging up, the sales person came out of the store to tell me they made a mistake on the invoice and would need to run it through again. After telling them of my credit card woes and that if they wanted to make the sale they would have to make the original invoice work. It was amazing how quickly my new system came out of the store on a hand truck and was loaded into my car within about twenty minutes.

jtk

[Mike Henderson]

I remember the way Wells Fargo treated their employees who wouldn't cheat and open fake accounts - they fired them for missing their goals. I still think of the employee who had to go home and tell his wife or husband, "Honey, they fired me because I wouldn't open those fake accounts. What are we going to do now?"

And when it was all over, the executive who ordered those "goals" retired with a big bonus.

Mike

[Doug Garson]

I've been with the same bank since the 1970's, about a year ago I got an email from them apologizing that they had overlooked giving me the senior's discount on our monthly account fee and advising that starting next month I would be charged to reduced fee and advising that they had deposited a year's worth of the discount to my account.

[Jim Becker]

Yes WF also tried to start charging me for Quicken, called them up and they agreed to not charging. I won ! It was all funny because when they first started online banking you could use Microsoft Money or Quicken, They even gave you a copy of Money if you wanted it. At the time I had already been a many year user of Quicken having used it to print all my checks ( dot matrix ). I am glad I did as MS Money is no more.

Yea, I tried to get them to waive the fee, but despite the number of accounts including the nice HELOC, they pretty much told me to pound sand. Within a few days, we were banking at TD Bank, which to date now has about 8 accounts across all family members plus my business plus my business VISA. Meanwhile, WF is earning about 4% on the HELOC at current rates. :)

[Doug Dawson]

By the way, the bank is Wells Fargo. I will say this is the first problem I have had and I have been with them since 1983.

I'm reminded of the famous cartoon, depicting two executives from WF, 100 feet tall, striding down the street with hundreds of normal-sized people running screaming from their strides. One exec says to the other, "Careful, you don't want to get any on your shoes."

[Pat Barry]

Money is back!
I will say my original bank (First interstate) was bought out by WF and that is how I ended up with them in the first place. I do most of my banking, savings, IRA, CD's at USAA. The nice thing about WF is they are local (3 blocks) charge me no fees, and allow bill pay using Quicken.

Cool.

So Wells Fargo made it right, and in a timely manner. Sounds fair to me. I've had checking, savings, credit cards, mortgages with them for over 30 years without anything negative to report. In fact they have actively prevented fraudulent transactions against my account several times, so count me as a Happy Wells Fargo customer.

[Jim Koepke]

One of my credit cards with a major bank had an interest rate on the high end. A call to them about all the offers arriving in the mail offering a better rate for transferred accounts got them to lower my rate. The lower rate was only good for six months. So every six months another call to them got me back to the lower rate. After about two years of this the representative said the rate could not be lowered again. The next day my account was changed to a bank offering a low rate. This bank has not tried to raise my rate. We currently still have that credit card and the balance owed is at zero.

Though there always seems to be a problem with banks. The bank for our credit card transposed the oe to eo in our last name on my wife's card. We never noticed this. One day a very sharp eyed cashier did. We have "please ask for ID" written on the back of our cards. This is one of the few cashiers that actually payed attention to what is written on the back of the card. It took over a year and about five attempts to get this corrected. The crazy part was on the day it finally took place was when a new computer system was being purchased. While sitting on a bench outside of the store as they were putting my purchase together, my wife called and told me the bank decided the way to correct the problem was to close the account and transfer the balance to a new account. She was on another line with the bank and told them of my charge at the computer store. Everything was in order so we closed the account and were going to receive our new cards in a few days. After hanging up, the sales person came out of the store to tell me they made a mistake on the invoice and would need to run it through again. After telling them of my credit card woes and that if they wanted to make the sale they would have to make the original invoice work. It was amazing how quickly my new system came out of the store on a hand truck and was loaded into my car within about twenty minutes.

jtk

Yesterday brought an update to this card. We haven't used it in a couple of years. Recently we decided to rebuild the two decks that serve as our porches. This card was used to charge materials. My wife was paying the bills. She didn't recall the password for this account and asked me to login and change the password to something that would work better for her system of making up passwords. The site wouldn't let me login with the old password. The forgotten password system didn't work. It wanted my name, SS# and date of birth to get started. Working with the online chat service it turns out they had my date of birth wrong. After a couple of phone calls to customer service while staying online with the chat service we finally changed their record instead of me having to adopt a new date of birth. All this just to make a payment.

If you are in a slow moving line at Home Depot, it may be because they have recently been asking customers to sign up for their credit card. On my purchase of building materials they knocked ~$100 off the purchase and it didn't even require me to use their card.

A few days later when my grandson was with me to buy a new cordless drill, so we could both be driving screws on the new deck, the cashier said she could give me $50 off by me applying for a HD credit card. After telling her of my earlier discount for signing up, she said that didn't matter that many people have multiple HD credit cards. So signing up for another one gave me the drill at half price.

Of course the cashiers get a bit of a spiff for signing up customers. The interest rate for someone with a good credit score is 21.99%. This one will be paid off at the customer service counter next time there is a need to go into the HD store.

jtk

[Kev Williams]

If you are in a slow moving line at Home Depot, it may be because they have recently been asking customers to sign up for their credit card. On my purchase of building materials they knocked ~$100 off the purchase and it didn't even require me to use their card.
"Recently"? I can't remember the last time I didn't get asked to sign up!

Lowes does exactly the same thing. Sometimes I think Lowes & HD are just the same company with different names...

[Jim Koepke]

This one will be paid off at the customer service counter next time there is a need to go into the HD store.

A couple days ago while purchasing a few items at the HD, the cashier told me the card could be paid off at check out. Now my balance at HD is zero.

jtk