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Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

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Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#301

Post by erikb »

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 illusion here is that it ever was different. A new bank, a small bank, a new office in your location with strong competition, that's the short term situations where you get real service. A well established bank won't even try to hide that they are just screwing you, because it costs too big a share of the money they screw out of you.

A few months (or maybe years?) ago here on HN I read a nice small article about that you always get screwed, not just with banks. Everywhere! The question is how, how much, and what for. Try to get screwed for a good reason, and if not possible at least for the smallest possible amount.

Not in the article but my experience so far: Try not get mad at the getting screwed part because it can't be avoided. And try not to imagine a fantasy world in which the screwing never happened before.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#302

Post by FireBeyond »

samstave wrote: post #22
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…

I once took out $25,000 from my WF account and asked for it in a cashiers check. I paid the $5 fee for the check (even though they had stated that it would be free) - then I took my money.... I came back ~1month later to re-deposit the check into SAME WF acct. They stated that they had to put a hold on the check for 14 days until they could verify the funds. For a WF issued cashiers check. From the SAME act the funds…

Leaving aside that it's your money and yours to do with as you wish...

Out of curiosity, if you care to disclose, what was your reasoning behind this?

If I'm a bank, I can see a couple of red flags with this (maybe some obscure kiting, or similar), "take five digit sum from account, in a check made out to self - then one month later deposit same uncashed check into originating account"... and "verifying the funds" is not verifying availability, but 'minimizing possibility of sketchiness'.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#303

Post by kolinko »

Someone1234 wrote: post #59
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 should be able to partition my money into several lightweight accounts - one for groceries, one for home expenses, investment, etc Heck not even real "Accounts" (in the traditional banking sense) but just "funds" or "virtual accounts." I should be able to put $5/month into a "waste of money" fund, and then flag specific transactions against that balance when I use it, or as you said have a virtual credit card tha…

The innovation occurs, just outside of US for some reason.

When I was a student, in 2001, Poland, I had such functionality - I had separate sub-accounts, each one of them with a dedicated IBAN number, receiving funds.

My monthly allowance from the parents went to one account, my payments from clients (freelance programming) went to another one. From that I distributed the money into another account for holiday savings, and to a spending account with a dedicated and free wire transfer of $5/day for daily spending - the only one I attached a debit card to.

Once I got a browser in my phone, I think around 2004, in case of emergency (as in "standing in line at the store, and discovered I'm $2 short"), I could transfer the money between various accounts instantly.

Another cool thing was that since my father had an account in the same bank, I received all the wire transfers from him instantly. As in, I call him, ask him for extra $100 for something, he says "hold on", opens up bank account on his browser, sends the money, and I instantly get a text message that the funds are received, and I can politely say "thanks dad, I got it" before disconnecting :)

Using past tense, because that was all in 2001-2004. 16-18 years ago. Right now I think all the major banks offer that, so nobody considers it a big deal any more. Oh, and now we have instant inter-bank transfers, but they cost "a lot" - like a flat fee €1, so people usually send the regular free ones, which take <1 work day to get delivered (<3h if you send them between 7am and 5pm) - regardless of which bank you are using.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#304

Post by FireBeyond »

Bye_Felicia wrote: post #142

disgusting. conclusion: Bankers are above the law. They should be in jail, along with the CEO. This isn't just white collar crime. This was blatant, premeditated, financial fraud. Directed from the very top to every single Wells Fargo office. How is the public so stupid and uneducated, as to not be outraged? All this does, is help to motivate the next generation of sociopaths. Zero consequences.

> This was blatant, premeditated, financial fraud. Directed from the very top to every single Wells Fargo office.

Oh no! No it wasn't! They never directed their employees to do anything illegal or unethical in hitting those unrealistic account targets, and the fact that hundreds (or more) tellers to do so the very same way is entirely coincidence and not the executives' fault! /s

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#305

Post by FireBeyond »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #55
vinhboy wrote: post #2

It's hard for me think of wellsfargo as an "evil" company, because every time I had to go into the branch, they have some of the nicest tellers and it's always a pleasant experience.

My mother opened my first bank account at HSBC a long time ago. Then the recession happened and their regional branches got bought out by First Niagara, the shittiest and most customer-service-time-deaf corporation I ever had the displeasure of dealing with. (And then we learned through the news that HSBC actively assisted drug money laundering in South America, woohoo) Fortunately they were then bought out by KeyBan…

> ... the shittiest and most customer-service-time-deaf corporation ... Fortunately they were then bought out by KeyBank, although now I just use a local credit union.

The same KeyBank who hit my account with $380+ in overdraft fees _in a single day_ when they decided after four years of seeing the same paycheck being deposited twice a month that it was "subject to hold"?

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#306

Post by giancarlostoro »

sjm-lbm wrote: post #202
minthelper wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi djsumdog, We understand you have concerns about security. Here at Mint, we use a very strong proprietary cryptographic security model which guarantees the safety of your personal information. We'd love to discuss this more with you so if you reach out to us at https://help.mint.com/ we would love to make sure you're happy with our services. /KEB

Honestly, this is so tone deaf as to be a little amusing. (though I'll admit the sibling's comment about satire is probably right)

The account was made today and has -4 karma from likely it's only ever post.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#307

Post by endgame »

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…

Have you been following the royal commission into banking that the current Australian government was dragged into, kicking and screaming all the way?

The system around the world needs to be bleached clean by some harsh sunlight and broken apart so these messed up incentives are untangled.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#308

Post by ansible »

rectang wrote: post #105

The executives responsible (principally Carrie Tolstedt and John Stumpf) not only did not go to jail, they ended up money ahead to the tune of 8-9 figures, even after clawbacks. So if you're an executive, you know what to do... And if you're a shareholder, is a billion dollar fine compared against 88.4 billion in 2017 revenue sufficient to sustain your motivation in an endless fight against the backscratching directo…

You think that even in this day and age, anytime you're getting hit with a billion dollars in fines, you'd sit up and pay attention.

I'm not saying WF (or more importantly, their shareholders) actually cares. But you'd think that they would at that level.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#309

Post by r00fus »

henrikschroder wrote: post #253
djsumdog wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I deleted all my Mint stuff years ago just because of the security concerns. If you mention the security concerns on Hackernews, a Mint employee typically replies with a link to the wikipedia page on their patented security model. Still, I'd rather not type all my bank passwords into an Intuit website. I like your concept of the multiple credit/card style budgeting. That makes a lot of sense. There are even some of t…

> Discover card has a section in your UI that tries to automatically break down your spending by store type All merchants that accept credit cards are placed in a category by the card companies, and every credit or debit card purchase therefore gets this category attached to it. Some places surfaces this information to you, in various ways. I have Chase, and they have a pretty shitty UI for this, but there's somethin…

It's even codified and part of ISO standards [1]. It's not a conspiracy, it's simply Discovercard putting a UI around data that's already being collected.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_category_code

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#310

Post by mixmastamyk »

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…

ANZ does most of this, though you’ll have to set up the logic yourself. Oh and US banking may be too primitive.
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