Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines • Hacker News Board

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#91

Post by twic » Fri, Apr 20, 2018, 6:37 PM UTC

clairity wrote: post #20

aphextron wrote: post #4

Something has happened to big banks along the way, where they no longer actually provide banking services to their customers. When I walk into a Wells Fargo branch now and sit down with a "banker" to take care of my accounts, it consists of sitting next to them while they call 1-800-WELLSFARGO for me and talk to a call center. There simply is no service anymore. I walked into my local branch to open up an IRA last we…

yay! i hope more people come to this kind of realization that small banks & credit unions are soooo much better--better service, better rates, better products, more forgiving about penalties and fees, and so much better at treating you like a real live human. wells, chase, citi, BofA & the other big banks should be broken up into 100s of regional banks. lack of dignity and respect for customers follows from "too big…

In the UK, there's this odd thing where some big high street banks have sub-brands that use the same core bank, but have their own customer service, online banking, etc. The Co-Operative has Smile, HSBC has First Direct. And these sub-brands generally have fantastic customer service!

Why? Why not just have great customer service for the main bank?

These sub-brands aren't, AFAIK, aimed at better-off customers who are worth more (there are examples of that too - Santander has Cater Allen), so it's not like there's some greater payoff to decent customer service.

They are phone and online only, without physical branches, so there are lower costs. Perhaps it's that?

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#92

Post by swsieber » Fri, Apr 20, 2018, 6:37 PM UTC

p-funk wrote: post #81

heurist wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's definitely an industry ripe for rebirth. For instance, I should be able to partition my money into several lightweight accounts - one for groceries, one for home expenses, investment, etc - and automatically have fractions of my deposits sent to those accounts so my budgeting and money management are handled without any effort on my part. I should have lightweight cards available for each of those accounts with…

I've been planning a side project with a lot of those features. That's exactly how I think about my budgeting and that's exactly how I would like to allocate my money. I'm really not aware of any way to do this currently, apart from a lot of manual work in a spreadsheet, which is annoying and still requires restraint in spending. Mint isn't even that helpful when it comes to budgeting because their alerts and categor…

Have you looked at plaid? I'm not sure what their rates are like, but if you're doing just a personal project, you might be able to get away with their developer evaluation (though that only lets you interface with big banks, not the small ones - the developer evaluation that is).

Edit: plaid is a nice abstraction bank api: https://plaid.com/

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#93

Post by kevin_thibedeau » Fri, Apr 20, 2018, 6:38 PM UTC

sandeeps_ wrote: post #50

heurist wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's definitely an industry ripe for rebirth. For instance, I should be able to partition my money into several lightweight accounts - one for groceries, one for home expenses, investment, etc - and automatically have fractions of my deposits sent to those accounts so my budgeting and money management are handled without any effort on my part. I should have lightweight cards available for each of those accounts with…

You can try capital one 360 account. It allows you to create virtual accounts for different categories. It doesn’t have all the features you desire, but is better than most other banks in this respect.

Capitol One has one of the largest advertising budgets at > $1.5B. Seems a bit insane to support an organization that is willing to send so much revenue out the door when a good chunk of it could be recaptured by its customers.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#94

Post by heurist » Fri, Apr 20, 2018, 6:39 PM UTC

dlgeek wrote: post #75

heurist wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's definitely an industry ripe for rebirth. For instance, I should be able to partition my money into several lightweight accounts - one for groceries, one for home expenses, investment, etc - and automatically have fractions of my deposits sent to those accounts so my budgeting and money management are handled without any effort on my part. I should have lightweight cards available for each of those accounts with…

Check out the first half of http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2009/04/have-you-ever-legali... for a discussion of this.

I disagree that all those questions (and probably most of the others he didn't list) need thorough discussion. A strong product head can define the vision that answers those very early on. Integrating with existing systems is definitely the hard part.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#95

Post by gascan » Fri, Apr 20, 2018, 6:40 PM UTC

Someone1234 wrote: post #77

cspags wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I highly recommend checking out https://www.youneedabudget.com for the ability to do this and more. (No affiliation, just a very satisfied customer)

Does that require giving them your banking online login details?

If you're concerned about that, you can always go with desktop software. Quicken will do "virtual accounts".

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#96

Post by JustSomeNobody » Fri, Apr 20, 2018, 6:41 PM UTC

Skunkleton wrote: post #67

aphextron wrote: post #4

Something has happened to big banks along the way, where they no longer actually provide banking services to their customers. When I walk into a Wells Fargo branch now and sit down with a "banker" to take care of my accounts, it consists of sitting next to them while they call 1-800-WELLSFARGO for me and talk to a call center. There simply is no service anymore. I walked into my local branch to open up an IRA last we…

Semi-related: If you have any entities (power company, cell phone provider, etc..) setup to directly pull their payments from your account, these can cause the account to re-open, and then overdraft. Be careful.

That sounds very unethical.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#97

Post by gascan » Fri, Apr 20, 2018, 6:41 PM UTC

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #93

sandeeps_ wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can try capital one 360 account. It allows you to create virtual accounts for different categories. It doesn’t have all the features you desire, but is better than most other banks in this respect.

Capitol One has one of the largest advertising budgets at > $1.5B. Seems a bit insane to support an organization that is willing to send so much revenue out the door when a good chunk of it could be recaptured by its customers.

If it matters, Capital One 360 is, or at least was, the old ING Direct USA. The whole division was acquired by Capital One.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#98

Post by makecheck » Fri, Apr 20, 2018, 6:42 PM UTC

Not sure how they calculate fines like these but it sure should work something like the following:

$100M + [(entire bank profit gained from illegal activity) * 7.0] + [(number of people screwed) * (average fees charged per person) * 2.0]

In addition, there should be a stipulation that the bank cannot (in present or future) pay the fee through employee layoffs or other cop-outs. Ideally, the government is able to require fine payments to come directly from executive compensation or by selling assets, etc.

My guess is it would come out to, let’s say, a hell of a lot more than this.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#99

Post by jobu » Fri, Apr 20, 2018, 6:42 PM UTC

aphextron wrote: post #4

Something has happened to big banks along the way, where they no longer actually provide banking services to their customers. When I walk into a Wells Fargo branch now and sit down with a "banker" to take care of my accounts, it consists of sitting next to them while they call 1-800-WELLSFARGO for me and talk to a call center. There simply is no service anymore. I walked into my local branch to open up an IRA last we…

The _only_ benefit of a large bank like Wells Fargo is that they're nearly everywhere, and I can deposit or withdraw money from any branch without paying a fee.

They do not offer any other service or product that comes close to competing with my local credit union (or even most small banks).

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#100

Post by ewams » Fri, Apr 20, 2018, 6:45 PM UTC

heurist wrote: post #38

aphextron wrote: post #4

Something has happened to big banks along the way, where they no longer actually provide banking services to their customers. When I walk into a Wells Fargo branch now and sit down with a "banker" to take care of my accounts, it consists of sitting next to them while they call 1-800-WELLSFARGO for me and talk to a call center. There simply is no service anymore. I walked into my local branch to open up an IRA last we…

It's definitely an industry ripe for rebirth. For instance, I should be able to partition my money into several lightweight accounts - one for groceries, one for home expenses, investment, etc - and automatically have fractions of my deposits sent to those accounts so my budgeting and money management are handled without any effort on my part. I should have lightweight cards available for each of those accounts with…

Have been doing this with savings and checking accounts at Ally Bank for over 8 years. Have stuff broken down into emergency fund, slush fund, home buying fund, monthly bills, regular checking, funny money, and some "business" labeled accounts for side projects. You can create an account in about a minute when logged in, though to remove an account you do have to call in, but they have no problem doing it. I have open and closed accounts several times a year when a project dries up or we change how doing finances.

It also doesn't hurt that they have good interest rates, no foreign expense costs, and don't charge for things like debit cards, checks, autodraft, bill pay, etc.

I do think they are USA only though. Not sure how it works for non US citizens.