Wells Fargo Excessive Fees and Poor Customer Service

I have experienced the same thing. If one larger items comes through
your account and several smaller items the same day and enough funds
are not present, they pay the larger one as if it is priority and
charge fees on all the smaller ones. This is a very nasty uncaring
business practice. As long as people keep using them they will
continue to do this. Obviously this ia a major problem here or SO
MANY PEOPLE would not be complaining!!!!!!!! This is a very large
banking company. There needs to be a massive boycott of this bank in
order to send a message. Otherwise it is business as usual. We are
allowing them to continue business this way. The only way the American
people can be heard is when they rise up by the masses to send a
message. We must do this here!

I agree. We had to pay over three hundred dollars in overdraft fees.
We had some reversed but not all of them when we were unable to
transfer our money from one account to another because their computer
was down. In fact when we went to the bank they couldn't help transfer
the money either, I guess they were too busy working charging their
customers. Wells Fargo sucks.

Banks debit the largest item from the account first because they
assume it is the most important, like a mortgage payment. They COULD
debit all of your smaller items first, leaving you with a tiny balance
for the mortgage payment, but that would mean the bank is actually
paying your mortgage payment. You could then never look back at this
account, and the bank is out 700 dollars because they decided to make
the payment. On the other hand, they COULD debit all of your smaller
items first, and then REFUSE to pay your mortgage payment. Then you
owe late fees and returned check fees to the mortgage company.
Honestly it doesn't matter what your largest item is for- if you
bought 700 dollars worth of candy that day, banks are still going to
look at it like it's your most important payment. Technically it IS
your most important payment because you told the candy shop you'd give
them 700 dollars in return for all that candy. Get what I'm saying?
If you make an agreement like that with a merchant, it is going to be
most important, therefore debit from the account first. Like I said
before, the bank could just REFUSE to pay it, then you're stuck
looking like an idiot to the merchant.
My advice? Apply for a cash reserve or a line of credit attached to
your checking account. Basically it's the same thing as receiving the
"34 dollar overdraft fees" because you still have to pay it back to
the bank. At least this way your balance doesn't have a negative in
front of it.

Uh, our elected official looked at other financial institutes and look
at the mess we are still in. So do you honestly believe they should
intervene again?

I for one say the bottom line is.If there was enough money in account
to cover all transactions, there should be NO fees.
Sounds like a little check kiting(but card instead)
if you have $100.00 in account, you DO NOT charge $101.00 or any
additional amount.Period!!!!
If writng a papercheck it constitutes bad check charges in the eyes of
""the law""

Before I say anything else, you should not have been laughed at. I
hope that you contact a supervisor at the call center -- or wherever
you encountered this representative -- and provide as many details as
possible (date, time, apparent sex of the rep) in order to try to help
them find the person who did this and make it clear that laughing at
you, even if you have unreasonable expectations about what's going to
happen, is not okay.

As for the rest of it ... so basically you authorized 10 transactions
that *all* could have safely gone through without you running out of
money, and you authorized 1 more transaction that was for more than
the total amount in your bank account before the other 10 transactions
went through.

They processed that 1 huge transaction before the other 10 (thus
resulting in an overdraft fee for the big one, and then because you
already had a negative balance before the other 10 hit one more
overdraft fee for each of them); but you think they ought to have run
the 10 smaller transactions first (so that they would each go through
fine) and then the big one, resulting in one overdraft fee.

Here's the problem: what they did (as you acknowledge when you say it
"should be illegal") is perfectly legal. Worse, it's a pretty common
thing for banks to do. They're in the business of making money, and
doing things this way just got them an extra $350, so this is the way
they're going to do things.

They're not gonig to refund you the $350 for the 10 smaller
transactions. They're just not. Nobody is happy when this happens
(there are a lot of letters about this exact practice on PFB), and if
they were going to be swayed by people's unhappiness, they wouldn't do
it in the first place.

So you have a few options. You can complain about Wells Fargo in
particular, which isn't going to have much of an effect on them
because other people are complaining about Bank of America or whoever.
You can take your money and find a bank or credit union that doesn't
do things this way (and I'm pretty sure I've heard that at least some
credit unions don't) and put it there. That could have some effect,
especially if you publicize the fact that you're banking somewhere
that this won't happen. You can take your moeny and open an account
with a different bank that does do things this way, and just not make
the same mistake again (but even if you publicize it, there are going
to be other people doing the same thing and moving *to* WElls Fargo.
Or you can start a grassroots movement to change the laws. If you
publicize your movement well, you may get a lot of people who are
willing to work on the same issue: *a lot* of people end up with
cascading overdraft fees because they make a mistake like the one yo9u
made, and *nobody* is happy about it.

I suggest that last option. If you succeed, you will really have an
impact on banking practices. And even if you don't you may be able to
win some concessions.

But writing this letter, as cathartic as it is and as helpful as it
may be for people who expect that the transactions will go through in
the order in which they were authorized or from smallest to largest,
will probably not get you your $350 back. After all, you agreed to
the terms when you opened the account, and the rules allowing them to
take that $350 were almost certainly in there.

Good luck, though.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but....

that's legal.


http://tinyurl.com/bankinfo


There's a section there marked "Can a bank really...." and it lists
things you think a bank shouldn't be allowed to do.... only to find
out that yes they are allowed to do it.

and yes there's an answer for ... "Can a bank really...... post
withdrawals from my account from the largest dollar amount to the
smallest to get more overdraft fees?"


(and the answer is "yes")

If you kept an accurate record of your balance then you would not be
in this mess. Let this be a lesson.

http://tinyurl.com/n5yhgs

This is from two years ago, and it shows how slowly the wheels turn.
This problem has been known for several years.

Evidently it is the Federal Reserve that is backing the banks'
overdraft policy. Therefore you may be better off complaining to
them, if you want to see the policy changed.

You didn't provide the specifics as to why you incurred overdraft
fees, but here is one scenario. Your 11 items debited the same day.
The largest was debited first, and caused the account to go negative.
Then the other 10 caused overdrafts.

It may be that if the 10 smallest items were debited first, you would
have still had a positive balance, and then the 11th and largest would
cause an overdraft, which is why you feel you should only have to pay
one overdraft fee.

Unfortunately many banks clear the largest item first, and it is easy
to guess they do this for the reason you suggest. If it isn't
illegal, then they can do it, correct? In the future, there may be
legislation passed that changes this, but we as consumers are stuck
with it for now. It is one way the banks make money.

Shawn K.,
I might have missed it but did you state how many individual
transactions you had that were overdrafts?
BillR.