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

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#351

Post by closeparen » Sat, Apr 21, 2018, 2:00 AM 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…

Wells Fargo and BofA have earned a negative reputation for "the big banks," but in my experience, Chase and Citi are perfectly fine ACH + ATM utilities. (YMMV if you aren't the kind of customer they want, i.e. playing close to $0 or making weird high-volume transfers).

Regardless of customer service concerns, the rates on other financial services are simply more favorable at specialist firms. American Express for rewards credit cards, Vanguard for investment, Marcus or Ally for cash savings, etc. A local bank or credit union with impeccable customer service around a full suite of services is still probably not worth the money you're leaving on the table.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#352

Post by MichaelApproved » Sat, Apr 21, 2018, 2:22 AM UTC

kaizendad wrote: post #19

OK, but Wells Fargo made $5 billion last year, and the activity they were fined for took place over many years, which leaves me to ask: after the fines, was this activity profitable or not? If it was profitable, do the fines actually dissuade future dishonesty? Also, apparently Wells Fargo thinks that 27,000 people lost their cars over this. I bet none of those people will be made whole. Cars are really essential thi…

Fines don’t seem to be preventing these cheats from ripping off consumers.

When a bank cheats its customers, they should be prohibited from providing those services for several years. Shut down their mortgage division and force them to sell it off. That is the only real penalty that has teeth.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#353

Post by cup-of-tea » Sat, Apr 21, 2018, 2:32 AM UTC

What's really funny is this is a bank and the bank essentially printed that $1bn itself anyway because banks control the money supply.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#354

Post by astura » Sat, Apr 21, 2018, 2:51 AM UTC

kn0where wrote: post #314

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 use Wells Fargo for one purpose: obtaining foreign currency. I keep my actual money in savings and checking accounts with Ally, and the minimum $300 in my Wells Fargo 0.01% APY (lol) savings account (so they don't charge me $5/month fees). In exchange for this, if I'm traveling out of the country and don't want to rely solely on ATMs and credit cards, I first transfer some money into my WF account, and then I can g…

>I'm traveling out of the country and don't want to rely solely on ATMs and credit cards

Ummm... Why not? There's plenty of accounts that refund ATM fees. I don't want to have to stop at the bank on my way out and i especially don't want to carry around more than $60 in cash. Especially in a foreign country!

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#355

Post by saagarjha » Sat, Apr 21, 2018, 3:04 AM UTC

PHPMyAdmin wrote: post #214

volandovengo wrote: post #208

I've interacted a lot with the larger banks and been flabbergasted at how they view the world. Banks, big and small, regard the consumer operations of the bank as a cost center, which they should do as little as possible to maintain. In fact - I believe the only reason that they even have public facing consumer branches is largely to get access to capital as cheaply as possible. Every proposed improvement to the cons…

> In fact - I believe the only reason that they even have public facing consumer branches is largely to get access to capital as cheaply as possible I would agree with this. Banks nowadays– maybe not local independent banks or credit unions– leverage your money to purchase investment vehicles on better credit for their higher-profile clientele, and also as liquid capital to dispense as needed. > If a direct line from…

To be honest, the same could be said about some Silicon Valley tech companies as well…

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#356

Post by astura » Sat, Apr 21, 2018, 3:08 AM UTC

Consultant32452 wrote: post #195

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…

In the absence of a quality local bank or credit union, I can't speak highly enough about e-banking at places like Fidelity or Schwab. They're huge banks but you can open new accounts online in no time. You can use literally any ATM in the country and they'll pay whatever fees you are charged. No minimum balance, bill pay, basically every feature you should be able to expect from a bank these days. The ONLY downside…

That's any ATM in the world, not just country.

I always have a local bank just for the one time you need to go to a branch for something dumb once every ~5 years.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#357

Post by tzm » Sat, Apr 21, 2018, 3:23 AM UTC

Relative to a salary of $90k / year, $1 billion fine is roughly equivalent to a $1k fine.. or roughly a parking ticket in downtown SF.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#358

Post by aaavl2821 » Sat, Apr 21, 2018, 3:25 AM 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…

Agreed. Scarily, a lot of consultants and industry watchers foresee the healthcare industry going through the same wave of consolidation that banks did in the 1980s and 1990s -- they even use it as a metaphor for what they think will happen. I think that's something to worry about

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#359

Post by Spooky23 » Sat, Apr 21, 2018, 3:48 AM 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…

You can do those things.

For sub-accounts, Capital One 360 is the easiest in terms of creating and removing accounts for specific purposes.

Most credit unions have this ability as well. I have accounts in two, and they use the same software platform that makes it easy to partition money in the way you describe. The only difference is that opening and closing sub accounts has only recently been available from the web interface.

Basically, there is no good reason to ever use a commercial bank, unless you have millions of dollars sitting around or handle a lot of cash and the convenience of a BoA or Wells Fargo has value to you for that purpose. Commercial banks will always be more expensive and less responsive.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#360

Post by streptomycin » Sat, Apr 21, 2018, 3:51 AM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #153

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Warning: anecdotal. My friend is a recent employee of Capital One via the Paribus acquisition, and he has quoted his CTO as saying "We're not a bank, we're a technology company." I don't bank with them so I can't comment on their offerings, but his insider perspective indicates that they're taking technology seriously (hence acquisitions like Paribus).

Every big old enterprise company loves saying things like "we're a technology company".