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I had a similar breaking point with Wells Fargo. I was about 20. Needed to get something notarized, someone mentioned that banks could do it. I googled and con
by istorical 9y ago
I had a similar breaking point with Wells Fargo.
I was about 20. Needed to get something notarized, someone mentioned that banks could do it. I googled and confirmed WF could do it for their customers so I went over to my nearest branch.
Asked the front desk if I could get something notarized. They said sure and referred me to a banker at a desk. I walked over and sat down and told him I was looking to get something notarized.
He said sure, but first can I ask if you've considered upgrading your bank account? I said I didn't think I was interested, but he decided it was worth a few minutes of my time to pull out a pamphlet and talk me through the benefits. I thought I was through it. But then he started asking me if I had considered opening an investment account. I told him that with my current earnings and burn rate it didn't make much sense. But he decided to walk me through the benefits. Then I thought surely, he must be ready to help me notarize my document. Nope. He wants to talk about - I don't remember - small business loans, life insurance? Something that made no sense to offer a 20 year old. Sat through that presentation. I'll make an aside - I was much less experienced with deflecting sales pitches at that age, today I'd have stopped it all much sooner.
But I digress. After 10-20 minutes of pitches for products I never expressed interest in, he finally gave up and asked me what I needed notarized. I honestly don't remember what it was, but he turned around and instantly told me that they weren't able to do that type of notarization. Despite wasting so much of my time, they didn't even have the courtesy to make sure they'd be able to help me out afterwards before launching into their pitch.
A few months later walked by a branch and on a whim decided it was a good time to close my account. Walked in, ask to close it, they said I had to wait, I said oh OK that's alright I'll just withdraw all of it. Good riddance.
- ellisv 9y ago> A few months later walked by a branch and on a whim decided it was a good time to close my account. Walked in, ask to close it, they said I had to wait, I said oh OK that's alright I'll just withdraw all of it. Good riddance. Careful, if it's not actually closed they'll hit you with fees.
- citilife 9y agoAnd thats when he realized Wells Fargo got the last laugh, 10 years of late fees
- paulie_a 9y agoPersonally I would simply ignore those fees. At the end of the day they have zero leverage to collect.
- thaumaturgy 9y agoIf only. All banks, even the local ones, use something called Chex Systems, which works somewhat like Equifax for bank accounts. If you leave an account open with a $0 balance, and something hits it, and causes an overdraft, and accumulates fees, and then they close it later on for you with a negative balance for hundreds of dollars, then this gets reported to Chex and the next time you try to open an account with any other bank, they say, "Nope, we have a record here for you for account abuse." These records stick around for about 7 years -- longer than many items on a credit report.
- Karunamon 9y agoCan confirm. I had a negative ChexSystems report cause me all manner of grief after a credit union account I forgot about got closed out 23 cents in the negative. Two dimes and three pennies. It cost them more than that in angry phone calls and reporting it in the first place. Broken system.
- smacktoward 9y agoC'mon, this is Wells Fargo we're talking about! They'll hit you with the fees whether the account was closed or not.
- paulie_a 9y agoOr just apparently open a new account for you.
- sjm-lbm 9y agoIn college, I had an account at Wells Fargo, and my parents would occasionally deposit money into it as a way of sending me money for free. One day, my mom tried to do this and got sucked into a 20 minute sales pitch to switch my parents' mortgage to WF. The teller finally took the cash, but it never actually appeared in my account. After a few hours, my mom went back to the bank, and they couldn't find any record of the transaction - but the teller remembered spending 20 minutes talking to my mom, so there were able to find the money, deposit it correctly, and solve the problem. So, I mean, there are some good things to those pitches I guess. Wells Fargo is impressively awful.
- mgkimsal 9y agoI have a suspicion that they (and other banks) may employ some 'secret shopper' types. If they don't pester you with annoying stupid unrelated questions, they will get penalized or fired. Such is "retail" in the US.