Have you bought coconut water, pinot noir, a Samsung TV, or an iPhone 4? If you purchased any of these products, plus a whole bunch more, you may be eligible to file a claim in one of these recently settled class action lawsuits. Proof of purchase isn't always required, but lying is bad consumer karma. More »
We've written some incredibly sad stories about homeowners trapped in the mortgage meltdown maze, and this one certainly ranks up there among the most depressing. Not just because a man is dead, but because it could have all been prevented more than three years ago. More »
A woman in Milwaukee is paying for a crime she committed 40 years ago by losing her job. Wells Fargo found out during a background check that she had shoplifted in 1972, and subsequently fired her. She thinks she's already paid her time for that crime, but Wells Fargo's policies disagree. More »
Keeping your belongings safely tucked away in a safe deposit box is a great idea. But when your only photo identification is a passport that happens to be inside that box, it might prove troublesome. A man trying to fly to India to visit his ailing mother was prevented from going anywhere when Wells Fargo put up a fight over his safe deposit box. More »
A woman who suffers from cerebral palsy and uses a motorized wheel chair was arrested after protesting the foreclosure of her home outside the house of Wells Fargo Bank Chief Financial Officer Tim Sloan. She claims she's being punished for a stay in the hospital. More »
Consumerist reader Andrea has had checking and credit card accounts at Wells Fargo for several years, but she recently noticed that somewhere along the line the bank had enrolled her in something called "Credit Defense," which has been quietly siphoning off a small percentage-based fee every month. And even though Wells could offer no proof that Andrea had ever opted into the program, the bank would not refund her money. More »
While mortgage servicers are getting their hats handed to them on a collective basis, a federal judge is taking issue with Wells Fargo over their dealings with a single homeowner, to the tune of $3.1 million in punitive damages. The bankruptcy judge called Wells Fargo's behavior "highly reprehensible" in the recent decision. More »
Five years after a NJ man thought he'd closed his former business's two lines of at Wachovia, he was hit with one heck of a surprise by the bank's new owner Wells Fargo: He had somehow racked up more than $1,500 on one of those accounts, without ever having received a statement. More »
It's just like reality TV, but not at all — America, here are your top five big greedy banks, and here is the $25 billion mortgage settlement they're all going home with, now that a federal judge has approved it. That's their load to carry, after allegations of foreclosure abuses and misconduct in servicing home loans. More »
As we sifted through the mountain of nominations for this year's Worst Company In America tournament, we noticed a trend of readers who cited companies' mandatory binding arbitration clauses as a reason for nominating. And while it's businesses like AT&T and Sony that have made all the headlines for effectively banning class action lawsuits, there are a lot of other WCIA contenders who are forcing customers into signing away their rights. More »
Welcome to Day 2 of corporate carnage in the Worst Company In America Octagonal Steel Cage! Starting things off for today is another pair of bloodthirsty bankers out to prove they are just as astoundingly inept as any other business in the bracket. More »
Welcome to Consumerist's 7th Annual Worst Company In America tournament, where the businesses you nominated face off for a title that none of them will publicly admit to wanting — but which all of them try their hardest to earn. So it's time to fill in the brackets and start another office pool. That is, unless you work at one of the 32 companies competing in the tournament. More »
Wells Fargo continues to phase out its free checking offerings, tacking on a $7 monthly fee in six states. Even existing customers whose free checking had been grandfathered in will have to start paying up. Oddly, the bank declined to name the six states affected. More »
The last few years have seen numerous settlements between the nation's biggest mortgage lenders and various federal and state authorities. And while we hear numbers like "a total of $25 billion," exactly which banks are responsible for the biggest chunks of these settlements? More »
Seven months after launching its credit card complaint portal, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has started taking complaints from checking and savings account customers — and actually expects banks to respond. More »
The Securities and Exchange Commission isn't done sorting through the mortgage mess, and has launched inquiries with Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs over mortgage-backed securities they peddled to investors. More »
Whenever someone has a dispute with a merchant over a credit card charge, we always suggest they attempt to issue a chargeback through their credit provider. But not all card issuers and credit card networks handle chargebacks in the exact same way. More »
Nick was giving a presentation at a conference in Albuquerque, and needed to print out a revised version of his notes. He didn't count on the printers in the business center of his hotel being out of order, and the downtown devoid of life, retail, and even Kinko's outlets. Lacking transportation away from the hotel, he tried to think of alternate ways to meet his printing needs. That was when he saw the shimmering green Wells Fargo office tower... and formulated a wacky plan to put his bank to work for him. More »
There are a lot of good things about today's $25 billion settlement between the five largest mortgage servicers, the Dept. of Justice and the attorneys general of 49 states. But in spite of the huge price tag on the deal — which could grow even larger if other lenders sign on — it's only the beginning of cleaning up the aftermath of housing market collapse. More »
More than a year after several of the nation's largest mortgage lenders temporarily suspended foreclosures after it was revealed that they had been using untrained, unqualified "robosigners" to process foreclosure documents, the U.S. Justice Dept. and the attorneys general of 49 states have announced a $25 billion settlement that will result in mortgage reductions to some homeowners. More »
Craig's Wells Fargo debit card was flagged for fraud because he was trying to buy a speaker at a high-traffic Apple Store. A merchant he made a recent purchase from has been hacked, and he will receive a new debit card soon. He's finally receiving an "upgraded" Wells Fargo card for his former Wachovia account, even though the account changed over more than a year ago.
Each of these stories has been told to Craig on separate interactions with Wells Fargo. The problem is, he doesn't know which one is true. And neither does anyone at Wells Fargo, apparently. More »
An elderly Oregon woman has filed a lawsuit against Wells Fargo, alleging that a bank employee harassed her by telling the police she was threatening suicide — and running up a $1,055 hospital bill in the process. More »
Last night was the deadline for the attorneys general of each state to sign onto a massive settlement with the nation's five largest mortgage lenders, and more than 40 of the states opted to join in the pot-sharing. More »
It's not just individuals and small businesses that are peeved about the way big banks have mishandled the massive amount of foreclosures during the last half-decade. The city government of Berkeley, CA, is looking to pull several hundred million dollars out of its Wells Fargo accounts and plunk the pile down at a more consumer-friendly financial institution. More »
When you think of the fastest, most-efficient way for a business to contact a customer about a problem, you obviously think of an antiquated, bloated, nearly insolvent government-operated organization that is synonymous with sloth. Oh wait — you don't? Well, Wells Fargo apparently does. More »
Nearly a half-decade after the U.S. housing market collapsed like something that collapses really badly, the country's five biggest mortgage providers — Bank of America, Chase, Wells Fargo, Citi and Ally — are oh-so-close to reaching a settlement with the states that could include overhauls to how they operate when it comes to the whole lending/servicing/foreclosing process. More »
Who doesn't like stuffed animals? Free stuffed animals, even! E. isn't happy, though. At storytime at her local public library, people representing Wells Fargo brought stuffed ponies with the Wells Fargo logo to distribute to the children, and donated a large pony to decorate the children's section. More »
Shannon made an error when transferring money out of her PayPal account, giving them an incorrect Wells Fargo account number that belonged to an actual person. PayPal assures her that the money will come back to her if she's patient, but $400 is a lot of money to her, and she's losing patience. She's caught in a loop between PayPal and Wells Fargo, and neither company knows how to get her money back. More »
Jason is a good consumer, and so he made sure to read through a notice from his bank, Wells Fargo, about changes to his consumer agreement. And it's a good thing he did read it, because in it, they informed him he'll no longer be able to take them to court. More »
A few months before her wedding, Megan bought her bridesmaids' dresses at J. Crew, and opened a store credit card account to get 20% off. She scheduled a payment through her bank, Wells Fargo, to pay off the balance, then panicked weeks later when she saw a large chunk of money leaving her bank account that she didn't remember authorizing. She called to cancel, remembered what the payment was for, then canceled the cancellation. This led Wells Fargo's fraud-flagging systems to believe that the next time Megan opened a store credit card and paid the bill, they should just go ahead and cancel the payment. More »
Earlier this year, Ken's father passed away. He had been investing in certificates of deposit for decades, and had set up each CD with one of his sons as beneficiary, so that accessing or re-investing the money would be simple...or as simple as any transaction with a megabank ever is. Out of all of the CDs, the only problem was one at Wells Fargo. Since the beneficiary information was missing from their computer systems, they needed the original receipt from when the account was opened. Ken's dad was originally issued the wrong type of receipt for the state he lived in, so there was no proof that Ken was the beneficiary for the account. Now he needs a court order to get to the account. More »
If you happen to be one of the 10,000 households in the country with $50 million or more to play around with, Wells Fargo would like to talk to you. Well, not Wells Fargo per se, but its new brand, Abbot Downing. Named after a 19th century stagecoach builder, Abbot Downing is launching next year with a staff of 300 managing $27.5 billion of assets from customers. More »
Matthew has spent 23 years as a customer of a bank that was eventually gobbled up by Wells Fargo. Finally tired of the bank's shenanigans, he moved his personal checking account to a local credit union. What he didn't count on was that Wells Fargo didn't want to let him go, and would stop at nothing to get his attention. Even overdrafting his account instead of declining transactions. More »
Need another reason to make the move to paperless bank statements? How about the fact that one of the nation's biggest banks managed to send thousands of its customers' statements to the wrong people? More »
Keith just found out the hard way that if you try to pay off your late fee with Wells Fargo, you can't just add it on to the regular payment. You have to call them up and tell them where to apply it. More »
Have you ever glared angrily at the ATM, knowing that you're going to be saddled with fees and wishing you could sue everyone involved? Well, it looks like more than one person has followed through on this idea. More »
We've covered a number of stories of homeowners who weren't behind on their mortgage payments but found themselves the subject of foreclosure because someone at the bank transposed a number or didn't pay attention to the documents they were robo-signing. But here's one about a Houston couple who find themselves facing foreclosure from Wells Fargo, all because someone never transferred the title. More »
As banks look for new and exciting sources of revenue, free checking is slowly fading away at the nation's large financial institutions. This week, we heard from several Wells Fargo customers who are annoyed that they'll have to pay $15 per month to keep their current account type if they don't have an average of $7,500 in the bank, across all of their accounts. Is this impossible? No, but it's a drastic change from the old requirements. More »
It's a pretty simple error; easy enough to make. When Todd asked for a $100 Visa gift card at Wells Fargo, the teller misheard "for a hundred" as "four hundred." $400 was promptly taken out of his bank account and placed on the card, and Todd was never asked to authorize the amount in writing. It was only when he checked the receipt after leaving the bank that he found the error. He set off to get his money put back into his account, but it wasn't so simple even just minutes after the transaction. Adding a credit card company into the mix adds a new and exciting level of bureaucracy when dealing with a large bank. More »
It's been a quiet 2011 on the foreclosure front in New Jersey, as several banks froze seizure proceedings late last year following the revelation that foreclosure documents were being rubber-stamped by untrained "robo signers." But a judge in the Garden State has given the go-ahead for Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo to resume uncontested foreclosures. More »
Nearly three years later, Wells Fargo is still feeling the stomach ache from its decision to gobble up the expired scraps of Wachovia. It was revealed today that the Fargo folks have agreed to shell out $590 million to settle the class-action lawsuit over Wachovia's "Pick-a-Pay" loans. More »
When Wells Fargo and Wachovia got married, it was bad news for this divorced couple. Merging the two bank's databases resulted in the husband getting bills and statements for his ex-wife. After trying to fix it and deal with some Wells Fargo customer service reps who clearly needed counseling, the man is ready to break it off with his bank too. More »
A group of homeowners in San Jose, CA, are so fed-up with the messy conditions at a bank-owned, abandoned home that they picked up the garbage themselves — and took it straight to Wells Fargo in protest. Unfortunately, it looks like they dumped their troubles in the wrong lobby. More »
Last year, Wells Fargo foreclosed on and auctioned off a modest townhouse on Cape Canaveral in Florida. The owner hadn't made any mortgage payments or used any electricity in over a year, and neighbors didn't recall seeing her. Her possessions and car were still in the house. Did she walk away from her mortgage and leave town entirely? Not quite. The house's new owner found something Wells Fargo's inspectors and property managers had missed when they inventoried the contents of the house and garage: the homeowner's mummified remains in the front passenger seat of her car. Her cause of death remains unknown. More »
The U.S. Department of Justice is said to be investigating allegations that Wells Fargo discriminated against black borrowers, offering high-interest, subprime mortgages that seemed geared to lead to default. More »
After years of anything goes loans-writing, the pendulum has swung far, far, in the other direction. Patrick tells the story of how his loan with Wells Fargo was denied, 1 day before he was set to close on a new condo. Even though he has an 800 credit score and was putting 20% down, this hiccup was enough to make Wells Fargo back up. And because of it, he and his five-month pregnant wife now have one week to find a new place to live. More »
Punishing Wells Fargo for alleged mortgage funny business, the Federal Reserve has fined the bank $85 million. Accusations include falsifying mortgage applications to let unqualified borrowers receive mortgages and directing those with good credit into costly subprime mortgages. More »
Wells Fargo is the next bank to announce that they are pulling out of the market of selling reverse-mortgages, a loan typically sold to to seniors that converts their home equity into a stream of monthly payments. The lender gets paid when the home is sold at the borrower's death or when they move. Without reliably rising home values, it's not a very profitable proposition for lenders. More »
The banks of America are breaking new ground every day in the science of nickel-and-diming consumers with fees that start from the second you open an account to the moment you angrily close your account... only to move it to another bank with a different set of fees. But since there are so many ways in which financial institutions can bleed your account dry, the folks at CNN Money have come up with their list of the most annoying fees. More »
Yesterday, the Treasury Department released a scorecard of just how well (and poorly) the largest mortgage servicers are doing at meeting certain benchmarks of its Making Home Affordable program. Not surprisingly, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase — the three largest servicers — were called out for needing "substantial improvement," meaning that the banks will not receive millions of dollars in federal incentives until they get their acts together. More »
Three of the nation's biggest banks have teamed up to offer a new payment service that lets you transfer money from your bank account using only a cell phone number or email address. It's called clearXchange and it's being offered to Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo customers. An inkling of how it will work is revealed on the initiative's placeholder web page. More »
People trying to get ahead on their car and house payments are sometimes shocked to discover the default way that banks handle their extra payments. Instead of paying down the existing principal, they apply it to the future interest. Not only that, but you can't just call them up one time and ask for them to change how they handle your payments. You need to call them every month you make a payment. Here's a tale from reader Katherine: More »
In February, law school grad and Consumerist reader Stephanie applied for a $5,000 loan to cover the cost of her bar exam and related review course. Should have been no big thing, considering that she's been an account-holder at Wachovia, which Wells Fargo scooped up after it failed a few years back. Alas, it turned into a nightmare. But after several weeks of dead ends, one well-composed Executive E-mail Carpet Bomb to Wells Fargo got the mess cleared up. More »
Tom is angry at Wells Fargo, because they're borrowing $377.09 from him without his permission. When Wells Fargo purchased Wachovia a few years ago, Tom's car loan came along with it. Every month, the bank would draft a payment of $384.43 from Tom's account. His last payment was due in March, and it was only $6.34, but Wells Fargo just went ahead and took the entire $384.43 out of habit. More »
Leigh thought that she had laid her Wells Fargo checking account to rest. It was closed, gone, out of her life forever. When some forgotten auto-payments hit the account, though, instead of rejecting the payments, the bank zombified the account, brought it back to life, and charged Leigh and her husband a $35 overdraft fee for each item that hit their account. Wells Fargo put them on a payment plan to repay their balance, then turned around and sent the account to collections less than a month into the agreed-upon payment plan. Now they've been flagged as overdrafters in the Chexsystems database, and are still watching the account to make sure that no erroneous auto-payments hit it and trigger more overdrafts. More »
Last week, we wrote about JPMorgan Chase's decision to get rid of rewards programs for debit card users in response to a new law that will slash the amount of money banks receive per debit card transaction. Now comes news that at least two other banks — Wells Fargo and SunTrust — have followed suit. More »
For the sixth year in a row, we asked Consumerist readers to send us their nominations for our Worst Company In America tournament. And this year's response was the greatest by far. More »
Nestor and his wife have been working for months to buy a house listed as being a short sale. They even bought new furniture and kitchen appliances for it in expectation, stowing the items in their garage. They had finally gotten approved and were making moving plans. Then at the last moment, Wells Fargo decided they'd rather not take Nestor's money and would prefer to foreclose instead. More »
As Consumerist was the first to report last Friday, the Philadelphia homeowner who made national news by not only winning a judgment against Wells Fargo, but also scheduling a sheriff's sale of the bank's property, was meeting face-to-face with the bank he'd embarrassed so thoroughly. Now he's confirmed that the two parties had reached an agreement. More »
Wells Fargo had a nice phone call this afternoon with the Goth homeowner who "foreclosed" on one of their local branches. "The sheriff's sale will not be happening," the Wells Fargo spokesperson told me with a laugh. "We are working with him towards a resolution that works for everyone." She acknowledged that it should have never gotten to this point. "We should have called him before this." UPDATE: Here's what homeowner Patrick said of the conversation: More »
Wells Fargo is meeting today at noon with the Philadelphia homeowner who "foreclosed" on them, The Consumerist has exclusively learned. Patrick says he "received a call from upon high" late yesterday and that he now has an appointment, "with a very senior Wells Fargo person." It will be interesting to see how this plays out. But how did Patrick go from embattled and ignored homeowner to seated across the negotiating table with leverage? I spoke with him to find out more about both how and why he did what he did. His story is an inspiration to anyone who's dreamed of going toe-to-toe with the big banks and winning. Turns out that armed with persistence, and a little legal know-how, Davids can take down Goliaths. More »
Frustrated with Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, a Philadelphia homeowner took the bank to court under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act and won a $1,000 default judgment because it wouldn't answer his formal questions about a dispute. The bank blew him off, so the man got the sheriff to schedule a sale of contents of a Wells Fargo Home Mortgage location to pay for the judgment and $200 in court and sheriff's fees. More »
Many young adults complain that they will be trapped in student loan debt for the rest of their lives. It could be worse: yes, really, worse. A young woman in Kansas died of cancer shortly after graduating from college, and the lenders of her $45,000 in student loans decided to come after the balance from her estate: in her case, her parents. Because every grieving family needs to fight banks. More »
The first reaction to your bank instituting new fees on your "free checking" account in 2011 might be sheer, overwhelming panic, or maybe rage, indignation, or some combination thereof. But don't be afraid, fee-haters, there are ways around extra charges to your account. More »
Starting Feb. 8 2011, former WaMu account holders gobbled up by Chase will become the latest batch of customers to lose their free checking privileges. They will still get "free checks for life", but their "free" checking is about to become "fee" checking. More »
It seems Wells Fargo has an employee whose actual name is "Dispute Representative." Or at least so it would appear by the letter he received in his response to his request to have an erroneous item removed from his credit report. Guess the guy found his perfect job.
Looks like banks are really bad at more than just home foreclosures. A woman in Tacoma, WA, was left car-less after Wells Fargo had her vehicle repossessed, even though she owned her car outright. More »
Christina is broke as a joke. Wells Fargo doesn't think this is funny and decides to shut down her account for having no money in it and no activity on it. No big whoop, she'll just open another account. She does this twice. Then, whups! Those accounts were never closed! And we're charging you fees because they were actually fee-based savings accounts! And you're in collections! Good times, let them roll: More »
Wells Fargo has reached a nearly $800 million settlement with Attorneys General in eight states where the company — more precisely, Wachovia, which was acquired by Wells Fargo after it failed — was under investigation for allegedly deceiving some borrowers into taking out loans they could never pay back. More »
Sean's Wells Fargo checking account dipped into the negatives on charges he disputed. He says Wells Fargo said he'd have nearly a month to sort out the issue, but it turned out that by "30 days" the bank meant "48 hours," because two days later the account was as incapacitated as the 49ers' offense. More »
RJ has confirmed that Wells Fargo won't clear a $1,200 check from a specific employee of the bank without first calling the person who wrote that check. What he can't nail down is whether there's a threshold on a check's value to prompt the double-check or whether that amount varies from one account holder to another. The reason: Two different branches gave him inconsistent answers. More »
A week after Wells Fargo rejected a couple's loan mod app and said it wouldn't start foreclosure proceedings any sooner than 30 days later, a guy showed up on their steps. He said he was with an investment firm that had just bought the house at a real estate auction, and if they would leave within 2 weeks, he would give them $1,500. More »
Before reviewing this woman's mortgage application, Wells Fargo asked her to write a "motivational letter" to explain why they were moving, with the essay to include reflections on her plans to "increase/decrease" her family or property size and her commuting distance to work. Besides being rude, the request could also be against the law, something the woman picked up on, because she is a lawyer. More »
Joe says Wells Fargo stuck him with a $30 fee because his accounts fell below a minimum threshold. A one-sentence email whipped the bank into shape and got it to rescind the charge. More »
A California judge ordered Wells Fargo to pay California customers $203 after finding that the bank had deliberately manipulated the way it processed transactions in a way that turned one overdraft fee into as many as 10, at $35 a pop. More »
Virginia discovered her Netflix DVDs stopped flowing because Wells Fargo disabled her credit card, apparently without notifying her. When she called to see what was up, she got an opportunistic upsell. The bank rep told her the account was closed because it had been "compromised" then offered her a $12-a-month protection plan to quell future compromising. More »
A couple thought they were snagging a $97,606 foreclosure fixer upper at a courthouse sale, only to find out months later they had actually bought its worthless second mortgage. The original was in arrears, and now the house would be sold at another courthouse auction. More »
Jennifer wrote earlier this month about Wells Fargo's inability to come to terms with the fact that she is a married woman who changed her last name. Maybe the bank had a thing for her and couldn't deal with her not being single anymore. Whatever the case, Wells Fargo finally corrected her name on the accounts. More »
Wells Fargo is the undisputed leader in Antarctic banking thanks to a pair of ATMs at McMurdo station. Despite the monopoly, the bank acts as a benevolent despot by allowing non-customers to draw cash without a surcharge. But who replenishes the stock of $20s? What happens when the ATMs break? Wells Fargo VP David Parker explained it all in a recent interview. More »
Jennifer has banked with Wells Fargo since 1996, and thinks the bank must have gotten so used to her maiden name that it refuses to acknowledge her married name. No matter how often she's complained, Wells Fargo refuses to acknowledge the name change on all her accounts and keeps sending her cards with her former moniker. More »
The APR on Kevin's Wells Fargo credit card got jacked up from 9.6% to almost 23%. He owes $16,000. At 9.6, he could afford to make double the monthly payments, but now he's paying $300+ a month in finance charges alone. He's begged up and down the hierarchy, from the CEO to any exec or VP he could reach, to please reduce his APR so he can carry this debt. Nope. The numbers have spoken. The odds are calculated. Your risk has been assessed, and the verdict has been issued: you lose. More »
According to a lawsuit filed in New Jersey, a CSR at Wells Fargo's Home Mortgage Division refused to correct a payment error for Jamie Nelson unless she had some "phone fun" with him first. Phone fun, in this case, seemed to mean naked pics of the woman. She's suing for emotional distress, since you can't take someone to court simply for being a skeevy jackass. Wells Fargo says they're taking the allegations seriously. More »
Greg has a question for the world travelers and expats who are part of the Consumerist hive mind. He writes that he has about $2,000 worth of Chinese yuan, in cash, from his first year as a teacher in China. He's back visiting the US for a few weeks, and can't figure out what to do with his giant pile o'yuan. More »
When you borrow from a bank where you also keep your day-to-day cash, you might be opening yourself up to problems down the line. Most banks have a right of setoff, which means they can tap other accounts you hold with them to repay themselves money you owe. For a woman in Atlanta, this meant Wells Fargo legally drained her checking account without warning, leaving her and her husband with no cash and $385 in overdraft fees, due to some ongoing confusion over a student loan. More »
For five years, the people at BrandZ (you know they're in branding because of the "Z") have been evaluating customer opinion and awareness of various global brands, and then putting a dollar value on that evaluation for their annual Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands report. Here are the top 10 brands on the BrandZ list. More »
John is in Bolivia. His money is not, thanks to Wells Fargo incompetence that has him making $10 phone calls to executive customer service and his friend wiring him thousands of dollars. More »
Max bunched together $94 worth of purchases with his Wells Fargo debit card that somehow racked up $480 in overdraft fees because he was dinged with a fee for each of his purchases. An Executive Email Carpet Bomb resulted in whittling $150 off the balance, but that still leaves a nasty $330 in fees hanging over Max's head. More »
Consumerist's Hero of the Weekend is attorney and writer Wajahat Ali, who fought an epic battle for a home loan modification against Wells Fargo and won. Eventually. It's a well-written and terrifying look into the financial crisis, the state of America's megabanks, and how homeowners in need seemingly stand no chance against the towering indifference, incompetence and confusion of those megabanks. More »
Faster! Leaner! Meaner! Ben Popken rounds up Consumerist.com's top stories of the week, from psychotic stewardesses to deadly foreclosures. This week we introduce a new feature: printing out the internet and turning it into a puppet show.
Wells Fargo foreclosed on a Rhode Island shelter for abandoned animals, barred former owner Dan MacKenzie from entering the property, and seems to be just letting the animals fend for themselves, the Providence Journal reports. More »
—>Chase and Bank of America aren't the only ones suddenly growing pseudo-human faces and reducing their money-sucking overdraft policies. Today Wells Fargo squirted out a press release that says they "will eliminate overdraft fees for customers when they overdraw their accounts by $5 or less and will charge no more than four overdraft fees per day." More »
—>The Wells Fargo banker who turned a foreclosed Malibu beach house into his her summer party pad has been fired. The couple who originally owned the place were victims of Bernie Madoff, and lost the $12 million house in May. Wells says the banker acted alone, and added, "We deeply regret the activities that have taken place as they do not reflect the conduct we expect of our team members." More »
—>It's Saturday night! Let's party! ...But where? Oh, I know. I heard that there's this foreclosed Malibu beach house where a Wells Fargo manager is having some killer parties. Well, at least until ACORN had to go and ruin everyone's fun. More »
—>Yesterday, the New York Times wrote about a judge in Arizona who forced Wells Fargo to explain why it keeps stalling and being uncooperative with a customer who has been trying to get a loan modification request approved. Sadly, in the past week we've gotten two separate emails from homeowners who are also having trouble with getting banks to approve their requests for the government-sponsored loan modifications. "Who can we contact to complain?" asks one frustrated customer. More »
—>"The best advice I can offer to those who wish to commit check fraud against Wachovia Bank," writes Jim, "is to purchase a typewriter." Although he's been a customer of the bank for years and had a hefty balance that more than covered the deposit amount of his handwritten check, because the dollar amount was in black ink and the signature was in blue ink the teller said it might be fraudulent and refused to take it. More »
—>Slate has put together a sarcastic look at financial-type commercials through the years. We like the one with Samuel L. Jackson and the centaur. More »
—>A misinformed bank teller at a Wells Fargo in Arizona was determined to explain how desert life worked to a woman who just wanted to buy some GPB (pounds sterling, aka British money). More »
—>Rachel's 86-year-old grandmother was a loyal Wells Fargo customer for more than thirty years. She's been forced to take her business to a new bank because Wells Fargo representatives refuse to talk to her. More »
—>Here's the official court filing (PDF) so you can get the full details on how Wells Fargo pushed or even fraudulently placed black borrowers into sub-prime loans, even when those borrowers could afford prime loans, along with an office environment where employees threw around racist slurs, calling black borrowers "mud people" and their mortgages "ghetto loans." The official statements referenced in the NYT article are in this document in full. The affidavits begin on page 48. Two screenshots inside... More »
—>Tom just received a great offer from his bank. He can receive a free credit report just by peeling off this sticker and affixing it to another part of the same page. That's right, a free motherloving credit report! Who doesn't want one of those? Free, you say? Sign me up! More »
—>If you're saddled with a Wells Fargo mortgage, now would be a good time to slash your rate and payment through little effort by hitting up the bank's streamlined refinancing program, which under certain circumstances lets you refi without being gouged for closing costs. More »
—>Freddie writes that his friend was tricked by a phishing email. All the warning signs were there to tip off his friend—an email saying he needed to click a link, a suspicious url, a page asking for his login info—but he clicked and entered the info anyway. Please do not be like Freddie's friend, who is now probably on the phone with the real Wells Fargo trying to get his account number changed. More »
—>The bailed-out banks have found a new way to annoy the government, according to the Congressional Oversight Panel, the body named by Congress to oversee the federal bailout. Chair of the committee and friend of the blog, Elizabeth Warren, is concerned that the same people who are subsidizing the banks are being targeted by abusive lending practices, says the Wall Street JournalMore »
—>After he got some overdraft fees that he felt were unfair, Karney Hatch decided to put the banking system on trial, and make a documentary about it. More »
—>The NAACP this week filed a class action suit accusing Wells Fargo and HSBC of charging unfairly high interest rates to African American homeowners with high incomes and high credit scores. The banks were quick to slap down the charges as "totally unfounded and reckless," even in the face of convincing evidence from the NAACP. More »
—>60 Minutes recently took a look at World Savings Bank, the acquisition that ultimately wounded Wachovia so badly that it had to be acquired by Wells Fargo. What was wrong with an institution for which Wachovia was willing to pay $25 billion? Well, one whistleblower claims that World Savings was engaged in fraud and predatory lending — tricking its customers into signing up for dangerous "option-arm" or (as they cheerfully called them) "pick-a-payment" loans. More »
—>Inside, email addresses, phone numbers, and addresses for over 100 different companies to inject your customer service complaints into their corporate executive offices, and get it well on the way to success. More »
Wachovia announced their $23.7 billion third quarter loss with an all-too-easy-to-mock pre-taped conference call. “Let’s just close our eyes and imagine what the combination of Wells Fargo and Wachovia will create,” said CEO Bob Steel. We suppose that does make it easier not to rudely stare at the number "23,700,000,000." [WSJ Deal Journal] More »
—> Wells Fargo is the winner in the battle for Wachovia, says the New York Times. Apparently, Citibank became nervous about splitting the bank when they saw the size of the "bad assets" it would have to take on, and quietly walked away. The bank will continue to seek $60 billion in damages, however. More »
—>Bloomberg is reporting that Wells Fargo and Citibank may split Wachovia. Neither bank would get assistance from the government and taxpayers under the deal being discussed now. More »
—>Tsk tsk, Wells Fargo. You should've known that stealing Citibank's unspoiled bride at the alter was going to draw a bitter legal challenge. Late last night, Citibank's team of repo-lawyers claimed a partial victory, announcing that a New York judge has agreed to block Wachovia's sale. Citibank is also demanding $60 billion from Wells Fargo for interfering with the deal. More »
—>Attention Wachovia customers: Wells Fargo just rode on on that stagecoach thing of theirs and stole your bank from Citibank, says the NYT. Rather than pick apart the pieces of Wachovia, Wells Fargo is going to buy the whole darn thing. More »
Surprise! Wells Fargo is buying Wachovia, even though Citibank said at the beginning of the week that it was going to. (Check out the full post here.) Unlike Citibank, Wells Fargo will absorb all parts of Wachovia, including its securities and retail brokerage biz, in a "$15.1 billion all-stock merger." [DealBook] (Thanks to Stephen!)More »
Here's some info we dug up that can help you contact some higher ups at Wells Fargo if you've tried regular customer service and escalating to supervisors and it's not working out. More »
—>In response to some of the comments posted on 12 Confessions Of A Home Mortgage Collector, the confessor has sent in a followup letter to answer your questions, and clarify some of his statements. More »
—>A former Wells Fargo Home Mortgage home collector has stepped forth from the shadows to tell you what's really going on. Here's his confession: More »
—>JD Power and Associates ranked American Express at the top of their 2008 Credit Card Satisfaction Study. Customers gave the company high marks in interaction, billing and payment processes, reward programs, fees and rates, and benefits and services, with the first three factors standing out in particular. Capital One and HSBC, which target revolvers with lower credit scores, received the worst marks. Oddly, Discover got second place. People must really like their two-cycle billing (see "Two-Cycle Billing And Why It's Evil"). Full rankings inside... More »
—>According to reader Caleb, Wells Fargo seems to have recently crippled their loan repayment system in a way that makes it impossible for borrowers to pay off loans the way they want to. That is, unless you prefer to let your highest-interest loans ride for as long as possible while you pay off your lower-interest loans... More »
—>If you have a problem with your Wells Fargo-issued credit card and regular customer service isn't helping you, you might want to try one of the 96 people whose phone numbers we have posted inside. Just like with tier 1 customer service, you want to be polite, professional, and able to calmly tell them exactly what you want in a sentence or two. This primer on using executive customer service should help too. Time to put that stagecoach on turbo! More »
—>People who got their money from IndyMac are facing new challenges as other banks put extended holds on releasing the funds when the checks are deposited. WaMu is putting 8-week holds on the checks. Wells Fargo is putting holds on amounts over $5,000. If you deposit more than that, Wells Fargo will only let you have access to the first $5,000. The Office of Thrift Supervision is looking into whether this is ok or not. Good, we needed something like this, that panic wasn't looking frothy enough. More »
Over on the Credit Slips blog, Elizabeth Warren posted an email from a bankruptcy lawyer who was stunned at the horrible deal one of her clients got from Wells Fargo on an equity loan on a car. More »
—>Reader Bryan's Wells Fargo credit/debit card stopped working unexpectedly one day while he was trying to gas up his car. He was confused because he had used the card the night before with no problems. He spoke to a Wells Fargo CSR at a local branch and discovered that the data for 125,000 cards, including his, was "compromised" thus deactivating his card. This had already happened to him once before within the last year and he was not pleased. His letter, inside... More »
I recently tried to sign up for online access to my Wells Fargo Financial account. I am on a mac and use Firefox or Safari - depending on my mood. More »
—>DM reports that he was able to get Wells Fargo to reverse all his overdrafts... because his dad has a big Wells Fargo account and was able to call up some company Vice President. Ahem. Three cheers for the power of escalating issues outside of the customer service line, we suppose. More »
Forgive me, I'm a bit emotional over this. I'm raging mad and sad and disappointed because today Wells Fargo just lost my business. Yeah, I screwed up in this, but I'm a poor college student, and I thought I fixed it before it was a problem... More »
—>Some of Wells Fargo's customers experienced an service outage that lasted about 24 hours, according to the Associated Press. Affected customers were unable to get cash or use their debit cards. More »
—>Seven big payday loan chains are extensively bankrolled by brand name banks. Bank Of America, Chase, WellsFargo, U.S. Bancorp, and Wachovia all extend tens to hundreds of million dollars in lines of credit to these predatory lenders who charge several hundred percent interest on cash advances, often made to the poor and uneducated. More »
If a box of your checks gets stolen from your mailbox, only call if you're going to cancel your account, at least if your bank is Wells Fargo. One blogger found they refused to cancel a whole box worth of checks stolen from his mailbox. And Wells Fargo told him that if he hung up without canceling his account, he removed the bank of any liability for any fraudulent checks getting cashed... More »
—>Wells Fargo touts its prepaid VISA gift cards as "the perfect gift" and has sold over a million, but perhaps they would sell a little less if people knew about these terms and conditions, flushed out by Mouse Print: More »
—>Over at This Is Broken, reader Mike wrote in with a scan of an insert in his latest credit card bill from Wells Fargo. "One of those side-tear envelopes where you tear off one side and slide the contents out. The other three sides remain sealed, to ensure that the text printed on the inside of the envelope cover is unreadable." More »
With debit card fraud on the rise, banks are getting way hardcore about putting stops on accounts if they notice any slight deviation from normal activity. Unfortunately, their customer service desks haven't kept pace with the uptick. More »
