Wells Fargo Bank Slanted bank fee rules. Distructive overdraft fees Nationwide

Even though your are trying to come off as someone incapable of managing your acccount, you appear to be somewhat articulate.  So I will just say it appears you have a couple of choices.

1. Stop this "poor me pitty party" you are trying to put forward and actually manage your account, where even in your own words would make these fees a "moot point". 

2. Close your account and use cash.  Oh but you say that you have a direct deposit..okay keep the acccount open and as soon as the money is made available withdraw all of it and use the cash for eveything.  Because guess what..an account is not a right or a requirement.  Yes, it may be a bit more inconvienient but at least you can't spend cash you don't have.

In the end the bank has specific terms, you are apparently well aware of these terms.  So it is your CHOICE as to if you continue to do things that cause you fees or act like an adult and manage your account.

Hi strider, Although I thought my acquiescence to the earlier comments from you and others was enough, it appears that you didn't read my later statements or you don't get it. Your statements about my being incorrect on regarding timing, I think you have to remember that there is more to timing than you think. First let me say that the reason this doesn't make sense to you is because you probably don't let yourself get into situations as precarious as mine. I have already admitted that as long as you keep such things as "an accurate ledger" then the complaint would be a moot point.

Now, here is a small example of how the timing would work against a person who makes mistakes (not you) because you appear to be a very practical person.

If i was off by let's say 20 dollars in my check book and 5 checks (or debit card transactions) were processed that night. One of those items was 80.00 and the rest were less than 2 dollars each.

If you process the items from largest to smallest, then the first transactions processed would immediately consume all of the existing funds. The remaining postings that are less than 2 dollars each would be od and a charge would be sustained for each one. Processing from larget to smallest and ignoring the posting time woul always be in the banks best interest because they would always generate more money in od fees. To make it worse, remember that as soon as you begin to charge overdraft fees, whatever you thought you had has changed drastically due to the fees, so it all begins to s****.>

I have never complained to Wells Fargo about forgiving all of my oversights and returning my money, I complained to them about their timing. Which in my opinion was suspect and slanted towards benefiting the bank. I also likened it to casinos because their bottom line will never suffer, because those that win big are few and far between and the majority of the money will always go to the casino.

As far as the transfer fees for overdraft protection, here is what I think is unfair. If I noticed at the last minute, that my account was going od and made a transfer from savings to checking ahead of time (which is something you might do because you are more cautious than I) There would be no charges. However, if you want your savings to automatically protect you in the case of od, then you will be charged 7 dollars. It is a computer setting that you could have set yourself! It would be different if they had to assign an (overdraft analysis technician) if there was such a thing to my account who watched everything and made critical decisions on when money should be transferred, then maybe I could see the reason for a charge. But the fact is, it is a computer setting! There is no intelligence required. The act is robotic. So why not just let the customer make the setting? Because you profit from the charges for every mistake made by the customer.

Take all of that and throw in few fees to boot, and you have a very instable account and are ready to slip into the "s****.>

Lastly, if the system is so fair and works just fine, then why are they changing it? could it be that since they cut off the direct deposit advance portion of their business? (a regulatory move because the direct deposit advance was a way of recovering from your mistake by using a high interest rate short term loan to cover your losses, and the government didn't like it because it was too much like a payday loan) DDA was a magnet to thousands of folks who either messed up their checkbook or just needed extra money fast. I believe that anyone who looked at that as an ace in the hole now have accounts that are even more "unstable" if you will, then before. It is all subtle but shrewd.

The PDF you shared shows the upcoming changes. It then walks you through the steps of nightly processing. If you look at the information, the first chage is a later cutoff time for deposits and transfers into the account. When they begin processing they credit the deposis/transfers, as the do now. Proving that this point was wrong  "When the timing is in your favor such as a deposit, anything but cash will be delayed." The second change is in posting debits not largest to smallest but in the chronological order they are reeived by Wells Fargo (NOTE: NOT the order they're made.)   These changes are unnecessary when you keep an accurate register.

Question for you: You stated that you had OD protection but cancelled it due to the $7 transfer fee. This fee was per daily transfer that could cover multiple ODs. Are you seriously telling us that you would rather pay $35 times the number of ODs instead of $7 per transfer? You could pay for transfers for 5 separate days for what you pay for 1 OD. How/why would you come to that conclusion???

 Hello again, I bring some good news regarding my recent bashing of Wells Fargo. Although I won't see any of those fees come back to me, They are changing the way they process and post deposits and how they process overdrafts. So, I guess they do have some concern for those who decide to speak out :)

I am attaching a pdf that details the changes, and if you look carefully will probably be able to grasp what was wrong with with their original methodology and the tendency for mistakes on your account to pile up against you and maybe even blow up beyond control if you don't have reserves somewhere. I will leave that determination to you.

Those of you who don't see what I am trying to show you are probably very miticulus with their finances and that makes it hard to see why I could ever let myself get into a situation that would cause this sort of problem. I concede to you that you are correct in the assumtion that my priorities and yours are different. I tend to expext others to bring empathy into their assessment of situations and that is not how the world works, that is how I work.

I will fix or pray about the areas of my life that are unruly and get it together. But I wil also always speak out when I believe that someone who is providing a service that I pay for has set up processes to take maximum advantage of my errors. Their is something wrong with that in my book. Anyway, I believe someone in WFB management must think the same way, or they have gotten too many complaints and have decided to make some changes. Which ever way that came about, it appears to be a change for the better.

Someone is listening...

Well, although I thank everyone for their advice (even if you find my whining a bit annoying because you take much better care of your accounts than I (no contest). While I was in the middle of my complaint and moving the balance of my savings into checking to try and fend off the effects of fees causing accounts with low balances to cascade. They again hit me with another $105.00 A casino could not have done it any better :) Your criticism although justified now just adds to what is turning out to be a growing state of depression. Maybe I should just hide the money in a coffee can under the bed. It was very presumptuous of me to wish for something better in this complaint. I defer to the frightening question from body snatchers when it comes to the silly things I was asking for as a customer. Even though I treat my customers that way. The phrase is:

Where you going to run? Where you going to hide? Nowhere!, because there is no one like you left...

First of all, Thanks for your questions and comments. All were very sensible and frank in nature. I loved the one about the definition of insanity because I ask myself the very same question. I suppose the best answer to the question of longevity would be convenience. It is a pain to change a lot of the information to those who bill you. In my correspondence to Wells Fargo, I did mention that the real fool in this matter was me. As some of you mentioned "If you don't agree with the practices of the bank, then why would you stay with them? This makes real sense and just shoots the wind out of my sails :)

I believe that before I mentioned the timing of the fee assessments. This is what bothers me the most. Believe it or not, that timing is perfected and works in favor of the bank. For example if they already know that a direct deposit is pending for the same day as an overdraft occurs, which do you think they will transact first? When your money is tight, little upsets like a 35 dollar charge for the 50 cents you were off can cause a cascade of problems that you may not be able to fix without using up your reserves or borrowing.

As far as those of you who say that I should learn to be more careful about the way I monitor my account, you are absolutely correct. Only an idiot (like me) would allow this to go on for 23 years without making some sort of change to improve my situation, so this is totally a fault on my end. After all, Casinos work in much the same way and many go back to them anyway, when in their heart of hearts, they know will come out on top most or all of the time.

I have tried overdraft protection in the past. But I couldn’t get over being charged $7.00 a transaction when I know that the automatic transfer of your own money is a setting on a computer that requires not special effort from the bank. Yet, the make money off of the deal. If you want to penalize a customer for a mistake, or for their incompetancy in the way they handle their accounts, why not make the fee a percentage of the magnitude of the mistake? Well then how will the 1% in charge make the yacht payments :)

For the person who asked what I meant with the term "customer centric" If you make less than 500K a year, you wont have to worry about the meaning because you will not experience what that feels like unless you still have some mom and pop stores in your area that weren’t put out of business by Walmart.

Finally, to all. Don't get the idea that I am a bitter person. Although my report to this site was done when I was angry, I still stand by the belief that you can do business and treat your customers like they are always right (even though they might not always be right) and you will build loyalty. I have experienced this first hand because I run a small consulting business and I constantly make the customer happy, sometimes at my own expense. But they have stuck with me for years, and some of them have even left me and come back later because they didn't see the quality of service that they were getting until they used someone else’s services because they were cheaper etc.

So, all I can really say is that the insanity has to stop as a result of what "I" do. Not Wells Fargo. They provide many convenient services like their nationwide ATM service. People don’t realize that by the time they pay the fee for using a private ATM, and the additional fee (5 dollars at WFB) for using an ATM other than theirs can take a toll on your account too. I don't see this getting better with the larger banks in the nation. I think it will get worse. The question is, how bad does it have to get before it bothers you? Time will tell...

 You do know what the definition of Insanity is...

To do the same thing over and over and expect different results.

So one has to wonder why if you have two other banks who don't treat you this way, and you have paid thousands of fees to Wells Fargo.  Why in your right mind would you continue to stay with Wells Fargo?

Perhaps you are not exactly truthful?  Perhaps you are afraid that if you start to really use your other accounts they will all of the sudden treat you the same way as Wells Fargo?  Or who knows perhaps you really just like Stage Coaches and horses.

I also really want to know what you mean by "Customer Centric".  After all if these two other banks don't treat you as bad as Wells Fargo does and they don't qualify as "Customer Centric" I really want to know what you require.  If you mean finding a bank that will allow you to overdraft your account and NOT charge you a fee, then please when you find one post it here because they will have a line out the door of people like you who can't manage their accounts lining up.

If you have indeed paid them "thousands of dollars"in fees, why have you not learned to keep an accurate register and not give your money away??? Add your deposits when they're available in your account. Subtract your debits as soon as you authorize them. Keep your register balance positive and never pay a fee. 

To avoid those pesky little NSF fees, the first thing you must do is maintain an accurate, up to date check register.  If you do this and also verify the deposits you have made have actually been made available, it will go a long ways to helping you.  Checking  your balance online only shows what transactions have cleared or been credited at that time.  It does NOT reflect any transactions that are pending, including checks you just wrote or debit card usage, especially when your debit card is used for gasoline purchases which can and  usually do incur up to $100 in funds temporarily held to make sure the merchant gets paid.  Check with your financial institution for help in properly using your account.

If you don’t want to make this little extra effort, those of us who do thank you for keeping our banking costs lower.  Most banks follow the same procedures, so constantly changing banks will yield the same end result. 

Years ago, money management, ie  good banking practices was taught in schools.  It’s pretty apparent that has either changed or is being disregarded.