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Wells Fargo double charged everyone on their bill pays today
Happened everyone today. If you have a bill payment which paid yesterday, processed today and will be sent tomorrow, I'd say go check your account. Mine and my wife's account along with a lot of people got double charged today. We've called the customer service and they've said that everyone was charged double and they are fixing it.
Well, this sounds like wells fargo played with our money overnight and giving them back to us.
What are your thoughts?
- zaptheimpaler 9y agoI wouldn't assume it was intentional, could very well be a bug. Anyways, as long as they fix it soon... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- thisisit 9y agoThey have gone through a massive investigation so doing something like this is strange. So, until proven otherwise it's safer to assume Hanlon's razor - Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.
- neosavvy 9y agoI was just thinking of switching all my accounts from Chase to Wells Fargo because Chase isn't located in my new town. This is a good reminder as to why I should choose a different bank. Thanks for posting.
- astura 9y agoWhy Wells Fargo specifically?
- neosavvy 9y agoSpecifically was considering Well's because they are less than a 5 minute walk from my house in NC - which is kind of rare in NC - most places are drivable. However their account opening practices from years ago, and this is a good reminder they are unscrupulous. I am being somewhat selective as I have a private client account with Chase which has been really nice, and Well's is one of the banks that offers such concierge services. I'll admit though I only really like the low fee stuff, like free ACH/Wire Transfers, Free Bank Checks, and ATM-fee reimbursement - no limit. Not to mention they waive tons of fees for having credit cards with them. Some of the higher value fees like using their investment manager, I don't take part in. I manage most of my retirement and savings in TDAmeritrade, Betterment and Robinhood accounts. I still maintain a rather high cash balance at my bank but I make sure to keep it below the FDIC insured amounts. Anyways, I asked Well's to call me about their services a week ago through their website - I guess they don't want my business - oh well. I have a state credit union account from my days as a TA in school - but they don't provide many loan services for home purchase / car purchase however I tend to use products that generate 0% interest loans on cars and home use I used Better.com because those guys are killin it - they gave me a low rate and just promised to transfer to the bank of my choice (Chase). The only reason I really want to switch off chase is that I have to do a lot in person because of new federal compliance rules. I was setting up a Last Will etc for my wife and I and we wanted a complex beneficiary rule on cash accounts and Chase was going to make me drive 3 hours to a branch to set it up. Just seems like if something happens to me and my wife (car crash or something) it would be tough to get the cash to the right place and my attorney is telling me it'll all end up in probate. Super morbid, but that's what made me start shopping.
- astura 9y agoBelieve it or not if you have a lot of money, Bank of America/Merrill Lynch is a very good option https://www.bankofamerica.com/preferred-rewards/ https://www.bankofamerica.com/preferred-rewards/ Fidelity let's you set up all your accounts with them (including checking) as transfer on death accounts, which would avoid probate. Mine are all TOD. I have primary a secondary beneficiaries. If you have a high cash balance you should really put it in a high interest earning account, Discover Bank, Ally, etc. Since those are all online only banks then they know how to do things without having to visit a branch. There's a zero percent chance a bank that doesn't have branches will tell you to visit a branch to do something.
- ams6110 9y agoUse a local credit union. None of the big national banks have demonstrated that they can be trusted.
- rconti 9y agoFor anyone worried about leaving a "big" bank, often credit unions will offer mobile deposit and free (reimbursed) ATM withdrawls. I'm actually happier using a bank with no local branches because there's no more thinking about driving to the "right" ATM. (mine reimburses up to $15/mo which is more than enough for me; these days even the sketchy taqueria ATMs only charge $1.25 or so where it used to be $3+)
- Consultant32452 9y agoIn my local area the credit unions have fees equal to or worse than the big banks. If you're in the same boat I highly recommend an internet-only bank. I've personally chosen Fidelity and it's been wonderful, but I'm sure others like Schwab, etc. are just as good. There's no minimum balance and reimbursed ATM fees just like some credit unions. There are upsides and down-sides to this approach vs a local credit union. Upsides are traditional banks usually have insane fees for investment accounts, but with Fidelity (and probably Schwab) you can have it all under one roof. You generally get more options, too. For example, when I opened a 529 I could choose to "open it" in one of several states. My previous big chain bank only allowed me to open an account with the investment options in my state. There are only two downsides I've seen so far. The first is that Fidelity does not offer personal Health Savings Accounts. This may not be a problem if you have one through your employer, or don't use one. The second is for rare instances when you might need large amounts of cash, larger than you could reasonably withdraw from an ATM. For example, purchasing a car from a private owner. Doing this might require some finagling. In my case, my employer has my 401k at a national chain bank, so I am confident I could cut a check there if I needed to, but it is a concern.
- rconti 9y agoYeah, I use USAA and hence have no local branches. For 4 or 5 years I kept a local credit union account, but to withdraw cash there I'd likely have to xfer it, wait 3-5 days, THEN withdraw it it wasn't a great solution either. Eventually I closed it because it was not useful to me. When I had a BofA account, I once asked a teller if I'd need to notify them in advance if I wanted to take out a large amount of cash; when she asked how large she was thankfully able to stifle a laugh and instead say "that should be fine" when I told her "About $5k"
- deelowe 9y agoI highly recommend schwab. Accounts earn interest, free everything, great customer service, all atm fees reimbursed, free cash advances against the debit card (for large withdrawals. The only thing that's challenging is depositing cash.
- alhirzel 9y ago+1 for Schwab for the same reasons; I have never had better customer service experiences with any business. Their chat is available pretty much always (as in, I have had 10-second replies at midnight).
- HenryBemis 9y ago99.9% this is what happened. No bank wants silly mistakes like this on their track record. Reversing all duplicates, cleaning up after alarms & penalties caused by overdrafts due to this mistakes, these are pains that no bank wants.
- arca_vorago 9y agoJust my obligatory criticism of Hanlons razor, it's a logically fallacious statement and should be relegated to the dustbin of intellectual discussion where it belongs.
- baddox 9y agoI generally assume the opposite for any significantly large, powerful, or successful bureaucracy. There is more incentive to be competent than to not be malicious.
- jmpz 9y agoNot seeing any other reference to this in the news..
- astura 9y agohttp://www.statesman.com/business/wells-fargo-customers-find-accounts-drained-mistaken-double-charges/PP0dDlnbsATuGFYwcm7q4O/ http://www.statesman.com/business/wells-fargo-customers-find...
- tristor 9y agoI was once double charged on an auto-billed mortgage payment two weeks before Christmas causing all my other bills to bounce. This is why I no longer trust auto billing services from anyone and hate Wells Fargo.
- tyingq 9y agoFwiw, almost a decade with Chase bill pay, and no issues ever. I even once misrouted one due to my own fault, and they resolved it in 4 business days or so. Like every other bank, they have some warts, but bill pay is solid.
- craftyguy 9y agoThis isn't just any News, it's Hacker News.
- cortesoft 9y agoIt might happen every now and then, but I still trust auto-pay to make fewer mistakes than me. I have accidentally missed bills way more often than auto pay has messed up. Plus, when auto pay messes up, the bank will usually make it right and you don’t have to pay any fees. If you mess up, you will have to eat the fees (usually).
- ctrl-j 9y agoAgreed. I'm to the point in my life where I'm generally liquid to 2x my monthly expenses - but I've set up an auto-reminder system over auto-pay because of failures in the past. Maybe it's the former poor person in me, but I don't trust anyone else to take money out of my account.
- pfarnsworth 9y agoI used to work in payments. This happens sometimes, it's a bug it's not something nefarious, and it's really disruptive. Many, many people will be put in a negative balance. Wells Fargo is probably one of those banks that don't order bill payments chronologically, but probably by amount, so things could get very very messy. There will be a lot of NSF charges that will need to be reversed, or Line of Credit charges for those accounts that have automatic line of credit to avoid NSF charges. But missed payments because of NSF will also be a problem as well, unless Wells Fargo foots the entire extra amount so that customers don't get massively fucked up.
- lerie82 9y agoeven monkeys fall out of trees
- strict9 9y agoUgh, saw this and checked. Yep, my mortgage payment taken out twice, with a plethora of overdraft protection notices afterward as it keeps taking money out of my other accounts. Inertia, and the fact I don't want to lose a credit card acct I've had open forever, has kept me with WF. But those two are rapidly becoming nothing compared to all the BS from this bank.
- forbiddenlake 9y agoDon't close the credit card, but move everything else away, and put one bill on the card (or just use it twice a year for gum)?
- craftyguy 9y agoI don't think you even need to do that? I had a wells fargo cc open for over a decade with only 1 charge in the previous 8 years. I closed it last year because, fuck wells fargo.
- cortesoft 9y agoIf there is no fee, keeping it open can help your credit score; a major factor for your credit is what percentage of your available credit you use, so having a credit card you don’t use simply adds to your total available credit.
- craftyguy 9y agoYes, I know of the reasons for keeping arbitrary credit accounts open, but the system is fucking stupid and I'd rather close accounts with banks/creditors that do stupid shit than give them an excuse for existing. Be the change you want to see, etc etc.
- cortesoft 9y agoI mean yeah, but I want to buy a house soon. Me closing an account will have a negligible effect on the system but a large effect on my ability to get a mortgage.
- denvercoder904 9y agoThis happened to my girlfriend's checking account last week. She was charged an overdraft fee because auto pay decided to charge two days earlier. Then all traces of the transaction magically disappeared from her transaction history. Luckily, she took some screenshots of it. We just shrugged it off but I'm going to investigate it now.
- cortesoft 9y agoDid the overdraft fee also disappear?
- HenryBemis 9y agoProbably some job scheduling issue; maybe a job got stuck (dependencies or what have you) and the techie just thought to re-run the job(s) without checking the progress of the "stuck one". I could as well have ran for 99.999% and got stuck on the last account (ZZTop's:) and then it run again "successfully" and the techie went home happy for saving the day. And after all the complains start coming in IT thought just what I thought and went through the support tickets and saw the "Job-Mother-Of-All-Payments" was ran twice. Now they should be having a chat with their BAs and their Finance on how to reverse the duplicates.
- bridanp 9y agoUnfortunately I was part of one of these at a much smaller bank in the past. A job that "memo posted" checking accounts failed. When we restarted the job, we tagged the restart to the wrong step. We should have hit the restore step first, prior to the posting failure. Instead, we tagged the one right after, duplicating the posting for all accounts that had successfully passed on the first run. It was thousands of transactions that had to be backed out before they were hard posted. It was an awful feeling when we realized it, made more awful to know we caused people so much trouble that day. Anyway, I'm telling the story because it doesn't have to be because Wells Fargo is inherently bad. Their management has made some significant errors lately that could be considered criminal. But in this case, I'd side with it being program, job scheduling, or technical admin errors. I'm almost 100% positive the people responsible are just sick about it right now.
- bpchaps 9y agoHah! Yeah, probably. No ops person I've met has NOT made this mistake. The more you touch, the more likely you are to break something. It's bound to happen eventually. So, when it does, you buckle down and hope that ALL_CAPS_REG_JOB_X-22 wasn't that important. A NOC I worked at used to send company-wide pages (in 2008..) whenever something important broke. "Inadvertently" was used maybe once a month!
- AlexandrB 9y agoI think it's time for Wells Fargo to get out of retail banking. Between the several well-documented instances of account fraud and now this it's apparent their priorities are not about providing good customer service to individuals.
- neverbroken907 9y agoI was double charged as well! Just got off the phone with customer service after a mini heart attack. They say this will be fixed by 8am...but why in the hell did it happen in the first place? I found this thread searching for any news on this "system glitch".
- WindowsFon4life 9y agoFirst month off of WF, and I'm soo happy.
- Leustad 9y agoAs of this morning, all duplicate charges was cleared. Charged amounts returned to the accounts and the over draft fees was erased.
- jdblair 9y agoThis morning its all fixed and the balance is correct. The double transactions were all in "pending" when I went to sleep (including overdraft transfers). I bet this isn't the first time something like this has happened due to a glitch in an overnight batch job.
- jimmie90 9y agoI was able to fix my credit score in 30 days after a friend review me to the hacker he come across from a forum.I also write clear credit letter to my bank.Finally my credit score thankfully jumped back to 850 within 36-72 hours through the help of the ultimate hacker and my refinance was completed. What is scary about the whole thing is that i had successfully refinanced another property with no signs of an impending hit due to the late payment i passed on. This is why I urge you to check your credit score once a year to make sure there is no errors, especially if you are planning to refinance or take out a significant loan.So it was with great surprise through the hacker process that my credit score is now 850.you can also get yours done at darkwebcyberservice@gmail.com.