[ooobit2]

I stuck with Wells Fargo after their fraudulent account debacle, and I can attest first-hand that this will happen again, affect more people, and be only relatively as frustrating compared to the last big issue. It's when I look back on before that time that I decided to break with business after changes to Wells Fargo ACH policy in 2018.

In 2018, I was laid off, lost almost everything over five months. I had one bill on autopay that I eventually ran out of funds to pay. IIRC in June 2018, WF stopped denying repeat ACH attempts if, on the first two attempts, the funds were not available and/or WF would not choose to pay it and simply overdraw the account. Every single attempt would now process. On December 3, my account was at $490 when the $600 payment attempted, then again, and again, over and over, for 9 business days. My account was closed with a -$1,800+ balance. I lost count of the number of NSF fees by day four or five. And Wells Fargo decided to pay that payment upon closure of my account. So, I went from $490 on December 3, 2018, to owing almost $2,000 in fees to Wells Fargo two weeks later.

I'll pay it off when I can, as you know, it's still my debt, but while other banks were cutting fees, WF was changing its policies to ramp them up. I ended up in an unfortunate waltz of financial doom with them. And I had a low statistical risk of running into a problem with them because I used so few of their services. Don't leave it up to luck. When you see risky behavior, grab your money and go. They're willing to keep doing crap like this because they know most people think it would never happen to their personal accounts.

[jermaustin1]

A similar thing happened to my wife, from the age of like 12 she had a wells fargo savings account, her mother would deposit $50 each time her father paid child support. It was supposed to be an account that when she graduated highschool and went off to college she would have some money for random things. She and I met during Junior year of high school, and moved in to a shitty apartment near her college at 18, thinking that she had some money to help with the deposit. I paid everything first, then she was going to pay me back.

Turns out her mother had been depositing the $50 each week automatically until she was about 17, but was also randomly over the years withdrawing nearly all of it. And at the time she went in, she was -$240 on the account, and they wouldn't allow her to close it until that was paid off, and they were going to continue feeing her $20 each month for having less than the required amount. By the time we finally had the income available to close the account it had accrued around $1000 in fees.

And yet, for some stupid reason, I am still with Wells Fargo today, 15 years on...

[impendia]

> And yet, for some stupid reason, I am still with Wells Fargo today, 15 years on...

Why?

I hate to rub salt in your wounds, but they have demonstrated that they are unworthy of your business. Acting on this would play a small part in forcing them to either change, or else go out of business.

[jasonwatkinspdx]

When I was younger I worked for a wells fargo joint venture that did credit investigations related to mortgages. To this day I'm convinced that the way they set up their QA policy was deliberately designed to enable fraud. I most definitely would not do business with them.

[PascLeRasc]

Can we help you get out? I've personally opened accounts with all the popular online banks like Ally, SoFi, Simple, Schwab, Marcus, etc. If you have any questions I'd be very happy to help you leave WF. At the very least you'll have no account fees, way better customer service, and a decent interest rate.

[jermaustin1]

I have bank accounts at almost every major bank in the US, including online banks, but WF is still my primary account. There are just so many services that do a direct debit that make it hard to switch off of. I use privacy for a lot of things now, but the handful of things that need direct debit I just use my wells fargo account.

[impendia]

I'm curious, is this legal on their part? I am very much not an expert, but I almost have to wonder if this is worth consulting a lawyer.

If it were me in your shoes, the amount of raw spite I would feel for Wells Fargo would be difficult to exaggerate.

[DamnYuppie]

I am sorry this happened to you, it seems when things get rough crap just all decides to pile on.

Long ago I stopped all auto payments from my checking account. I do the old fashion thing of paying each bill every month on a schedule. I don't really send checks, it is all via bill pay and I can schedule them out in advance so I only really do this twice a month.