5,300 Wells Fargo employees fired for creating over 2 million phony accounts
- Thread starter crimsonaudio
- Start date
I had an account with Compass years ago and had a similar situation happen to me where they apparently sent a letter to my childhood home saying if I didn't respond that I would be enrolled in some "program", of which I never received any kind of service. Needless to say, I never saw the letter and after I had stopped using the account (still had a little money left in it) I got an overdraft notice one day. I went back to check statements and noticed they had been siphoning money off my account (about $2 or so a month) for YEARS.
I have been a customer of Regions (First Alabama Bank when I joined) for a very long time. I was about 15 when I opened my first account. My grandmother worked for them until she retired. I have been pretty happy with them.
I have both my mortgage and IRAs with WF but not my checking, savings, etc. I have noticed about a year ago that I started being bombarded by emails from them, offering fantastic deals on credit cards, which I ignored. I've started watching them a lot more carefully...
Your mortgage is something that is out of your control. You buy a house and use your favorite local bank to secure the loan, the two weeks later you get a notice that megabank now holds your mortgage. So long with going to your local bank if you need something concerning your mortgage.
Never had an account with WF - but on occasion would cash a check with them.....and of course every time I would be asked to sign up with them....
With a BIG smile, my routine reply would be (with as loud a voice as possible - short of shouting):
"I have both personal AND business accounts at Riverside Bank.....and I am EXTREMELY happy with them....and would HIGHLY recommend them to anyone!"
:biggrin:
With a BIG smile, my routine reply would be (with as loud a voice as possible - short of shouting):
"I have both personal AND business accounts at Riverside Bank.....and I am EXTREMELY happy with them....and would HIGHLY recommend them to anyone!"
:biggrin:
The most disappointing thing to me is the size of the fine. It's positioned as this enormous fine.
And $190 million sounds like a lot. Until you realize that it represents less than 1% of 2015 Net Income ($22.9 billion) and less than 0.3% of 2015 Total Revenue ($86.1 billion).
This wasn't even hard enough to be considered a slap on the wrist.
There is no way Wells wasn't aware of this. One of their favorite metrics to tout in investor presentations is products per client. The culture is one of sell as many products to people as possible, regardless of need. Not shocked that some in the organization would resort to shady tactics to do so.
And $190 million sounds like a lot. Until you realize that it represents less than 1% of 2015 Net Income ($22.9 billion) and less than 0.3% of 2015 Total Revenue ($86.1 billion).
This wasn't even hard enough to be considered a slap on the wrist.
There is no way Wells wasn't aware of this. One of their favorite metrics to tout in investor presentations is products per client. The culture is one of sell as many products to people as possible, regardless of need. Not shocked that some in the organization would resort to shady tactics to do so.
I do some of my banking with Regions, but greatly prefer the two smaller banks I also use.
My thoughts on Regions...there is always a long wait at the teller line. Trying to navigate their phone system in nearly impossible and has been that way for years. Then last year, al.com had an article about the top paid people in Alabama...if I remember correctly, the top dog at Regions made 14 million dollars in one year.
Looks like the poor baby could get by on 13 million, and use the other million to hire some tellers and live people to answer the telephone.
As someone else mentioned, you can start out with a small local bank for your mortgage...I did...but then they sold the loan to Chase.
Yeah, some of the Regions in major cities there are long lines. I only use the one close to where I live and it feels like a local small town bank. There phone system is horrible, I will give you that. I have told them how bad it is, they seem to ignore that.
I seem to see general agreement on the board that this was a bad thing for WF to do, and it's good they were caught & stopped & fined.
So I'm wondering if everybody realizes it was the Federal Agency called CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ) that brought it to light. This is the agency that Elizabeth Warren got started (that was fought against so hard by the GOP and the big financial institutions).
So I'm wondering if everybody realizes it was the Federal Agency called CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ) that brought it to light. This is the agency that Elizabeth Warren got started (that was fought against so hard by the GOP and the big financial institutions).
I never have to wait at the location on Independence Drive in Homewood. I spend longer writing a deposit slip than I do standing in line.
I used their phone system to cancel a debit card and get a new one sent to me. It worked fine.
About a year ago, my wife lost her wallet on the way to Virginia Beach. Regions was easy. The nightmare was with PNC. It was impossible to get the right hand to communicate with the left. Replacement cards were supposed to be sent to the USPS office there but were routed instead to home, where we obviously weren't. When they were not picked up, they were returned. There was more, but I'll stop here. Thankfully, we had backup cards...
Regions dropped the ball with me literally 20+ years ago - they're so poorly coordinated, it took me almost that long to get ti straightened out. I'd never consider leaving my money in their care...
I actually had the first home mortgage from Regions in this area when they moved in around '96. They had just taken over a local savings and loan bank that had been here forever and was very popular. I was fortunate enough to meet one of the local managers when he came into my store to buy some fertilizer. That paid off later when I applied for my mortgage because the home I bought was right at the edge of what I qualified for.
I ended up refinancing with Chase 4 years later and stayed with them until I paid that sucker off year before last.
Most of the time I had a mortgage were OK but that homeowners and windstorm insurance deal was more like extortion to me than anything else. Glad to get rid of those shysters....
I ended up refinancing with Chase 4 years later and stayed with them until I paid that sucker off year before last.
Most of the time I had a mortgage were OK but that homeowners and windstorm insurance deal was more like extortion to me than anything else. Glad to get rid of those shysters....
So many comment-worthy statements.
Most involve the tradeoff between the advantages a large bank has in breadth of geographical coverage vs. the advantage a small bank has in individualized customer service.
Others involve the vagaries of the financial marketplace, viewed through the prism of hindsight. Still others involve trying to wring top-tier customer service from a staff that may have never experienced that themselves.
Then, complicating matters both ways, you have the individual customer-contact person who often makes peanuts, but has an inordinate impact on the customer experience.
To address the first: suppose you have all your accounts at a local credit union. You probably get awesome service and favorable interest rates on both deposits and loans. But you lose your wallet in Paris. ATM and credit cards gone. Good luck saving your vacation in 72 hours or less. Big bank may be impersonal, but there's somebody there who can handle this problem.
Bazza, you got a mortgage on the edge of what you could afford in 1996. In Florida. You made out like a bandit, even taking the Great Recessioni into account, and love your benefactor for it. How would you feel if that same benefactor made that same stretch in 2006, and three years later you owed $200K more than your house was worth? Prolly not so many warm fuzzies, and a lot more rants against the machine.
How many times have you walked into a three-figure restaurant and gotten a crappy experience? How much of it is due to the maitre'd? How much to the waitstaff? How much to the kitchen? Often, from a patron's perspective, it's hard to tell who's at fault. But ultimately the patron doesn't care. He wants seamless service for value given. Fair enough. But guys, I'm here to tell you, that's a lot easier said than done.
Banking and restaurants have the exact same problem: they need flawless customer service delivered to the masses in a fast, knowledgeable, professional manner, by a staff that has an encyclopedic knowledge of regulations that the SCOTUS argues over. But they have to do that with wages that attract personnel who can't pass drug tests, or show up only when it's convenient, and are more interested in grabass with their colleague than in processing your deposit or making sure your lactose-intolerant son gets real soy milk.
Raising wages to attract better talent is an option. As a depositor, are you willing to pay for it? As a shareholder, are you willing to decrease EPS by 25 cents? Be careful...at today's multiples, that translates into $4 a share. Before you answer be sure you don't own some either directly or indirectly through a mutual fund. If you have a pension, check the pension fund's investments to be sure you're not cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Guys, I'm not defending banks' mistakes. They are legion. But if you think you can rant away the value of a large bank, you simply don't understand the inter-connections.
There's a reason trillion-dollar banks evolved, and it's not because they set out to screw the little guy.
Most involve the tradeoff between the advantages a large bank has in breadth of geographical coverage vs. the advantage a small bank has in individualized customer service.
Others involve the vagaries of the financial marketplace, viewed through the prism of hindsight. Still others involve trying to wring top-tier customer service from a staff that may have never experienced that themselves.
Then, complicating matters both ways, you have the individual customer-contact person who often makes peanuts, but has an inordinate impact on the customer experience.
To address the first: suppose you have all your accounts at a local credit union. You probably get awesome service and favorable interest rates on both deposits and loans. But you lose your wallet in Paris. ATM and credit cards gone. Good luck saving your vacation in 72 hours or less. Big bank may be impersonal, but there's somebody there who can handle this problem.
Bazza, you got a mortgage on the edge of what you could afford in 1996. In Florida. You made out like a bandit, even taking the Great Recessioni into account, and love your benefactor for it. How would you feel if that same benefactor made that same stretch in 2006, and three years later you owed $200K more than your house was worth? Prolly not so many warm fuzzies, and a lot more rants against the machine.
How many times have you walked into a three-figure restaurant and gotten a crappy experience? How much of it is due to the maitre'd? How much to the waitstaff? How much to the kitchen? Often, from a patron's perspective, it's hard to tell who's at fault. But ultimately the patron doesn't care. He wants seamless service for value given. Fair enough. But guys, I'm here to tell you, that's a lot easier said than done.
Banking and restaurants have the exact same problem: they need flawless customer service delivered to the masses in a fast, knowledgeable, professional manner, by a staff that has an encyclopedic knowledge of regulations that the SCOTUS argues over. But they have to do that with wages that attract personnel who can't pass drug tests, or show up only when it's convenient, and are more interested in grabass with their colleague than in processing your deposit or making sure your lactose-intolerant son gets real soy milk.
Raising wages to attract better talent is an option. As a depositor, are you willing to pay for it? As a shareholder, are you willing to decrease EPS by 25 cents? Be careful...at today's multiples, that translates into $4 a share. Before you answer be sure you don't own some either directly or indirectly through a mutual fund. If you have a pension, check the pension fund's investments to be sure you're not cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Guys, I'm not defending banks' mistakes. They are legion. But if you think you can rant away the value of a large bank, you simply don't understand the inter-connections.
There's a reason trillion-dollar banks evolved, and it's not because they set out to screw the little guy.
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I dumped WF a few years ago. I didn't like the fact that every time I went in the bank there were different tellers in there. If their turnover was that high, I really didn't want some part time teller that works there for 2 weeks having my financial info.
I worked for the credit card side of Southtrust before it was bought by MBNA and Wachovia and this practice was rampant. Most times new checking or savings account holders were set up with a credit card as an added "bonus". I received many calls and letters asking "Why did I just get another card?".
[If you ever think that crime doesn't pay read this:
http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/comp...ected-dollar125-million/ar-AAiN0iA?li=BBnb7Kz
http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/comp...ected-dollar125-million/ar-AAiN0iA?li=BBnb7Kz
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