Wells Fargo bank is a ripoff that hires unqualified clowns; they penalize customers to pay BIG execs fat bonus. Phoenix, Arizona

After reading all these reports, (both complaints and "Employees") Its not hard to understand why so many people have complaints.

First I will comment on the "Complaints". For most of them, I agree with (with a little harsh name calling). However, understand this is not only Wells Fargo, But with MOST banks, I am a programmer and a business owner. First, when ATM cards came out, they were suppose to save the bank money (from the wages of its employee) so people could go to the atm to make the routine deposits and withdrawals, it was suppose to save the customers time so they didn't have to come into the bank. However, as greedy people, if its a hit, charge for it. Now the bank gets billions if not trillions of dollars from fees from non customers even though the cost of the transaction is pennies. Yes I understand there is expenses, but not as much as the bank would want you to think (God forbid they tell the truth). Now as you tell, the "website access" is the newest trend, Some banks are offering this access for a fee, others are for free (but if the website costs hundred thousand $$$ where do you think they will come up with that, the millions of $$$ they charge to use the fee.

Now on the the ID situation. At one point in my life I worked for the DMV. Obviously, banks and other retailers, corporations, think that someone can change their identity by a time limit on the ID or by punching out a hole on the id. Let me clue your readers in. The DMV needs $$$$ so they put a time limit on the ID so you have to renew the id and pay another fee, (why would they expect you not to). Yes I know someone could change their looks every 4 years (in some states) however, be surprised here, most people dont. As a customer, I have been asked for two ID's and you know something, if i didn't have a credit card, I wouldn't have two. Again, God forbid, someone live without having a credit card.

Regarding non-customers fees, when I pay for a business checking account, i would expect my employees to be able to take my company check and go cash it without paying a fee. Same with a Supplier. In todays age where accounts bounce for MANY NON-CUSTOMER REASONS (atm deposit fall behind the deposit box, i was told this once, third parties collect atm deposit at outside atms, yes i did this for a living too) it is safer to take a check to the issuing banks and know that one would get their money, then to put it in there own bank (and if it bounces, they get a charge for accepting a check for services or product). Customers, BEWARE, BANKS AND CREDIT UNIONS ALIKE, ARE A RIP-OFF, LONG GONE ARE BANKS/CREDIT UNIONS BEING TRUELY FRIENDLY AS THE NEIGHBORHOOD BANKER. They all have motives to keep their job, keep your business, keep your money.

I have been ripped off for more money by banks with fees than I ever have by muggers with guns.

Use a credit union for minimal banking requirements, and pay your bills with money orders. It works for me.

Banks are suppose to be a 'safe' place to keep your money. If they keep coming up with flim-flam excuses for tapping the balance, how is that safe?

Wise up.

Not to long ago when I worked as a hard working night janitor. One of my colleagues worked cleaning the small WF branch inside one of the local grocery stores. She told me about how she went into the back office to vacuum and the safe was wide open. She was too shocked and kind of scared not to take any money, so she quickly called our boss, and he called his client of WF. Apparently one of the employees of WF forgot to close the safe. This is one of the biggest reasons why I don't bank here. For that reason and some of the other unpleasant experiences with this particular bank and the hostile employee comments above. If this is how employees feel and conduct themselves, why would anyone want to do any kind of business with them? Sticking money in your sock as suggested, might actually be the best solution; it is a lot safer than any bank. Any employee comments are more than welcome.

In light of reading some of these, I'm amazed I ever did business with Wells Fargo in the first place.

I too placed a rip off report, and my complaint is generated not just by the $340 I paid for a "loan application" which I wasn't told was refundable, but the obvious dismissal and curt disregard for my situation and my impression nothing had been done. Some of the supposed "WF employee" responses here are simply astonishing. A reputable company would NEVER allow that to occur, and frankly should be petitioning the owners of this site for information like IP address, email address and supposed contact information of a supposed "employee" writing items like that.

THE BAD part for Wells Fargo in my case is the person I dealt with did so in writing via email, which is pretty hard to dismiss. Folks, if you can, get what you can in writing from these people rather than on the phone or in person. If you have to do so in person, take someone with you as a witness to what's said, and follow it up with a faxed or emailed letter documenting the conversation. They don't like it when you do that, but tough :)

I don't understand how banks can say if as a non-account holder, they can charge me for cashing a check of an account holder....I made an issue of this practice at Bank of America, they asked if I was an account holder (of a checking or savings account-no, credit card from B of A, yes). After explaining it twice to the teller, and once to a supervisor, they stopped charging me to cash my payroll check drawn on their bank.

Sometimes just with explaining your side of an issue, it can be resolved without having to resort to name calling childishness. Whomever from WF wrote the last rebuttal is obviously not an educated human being who cares about the customers that pay his/her salary.

I don't know who really wrote this report. I can see why many employees are angry but it also sounds like a few WF employees are now going to point a finger at any/all Jim's who might be a little bit of a hothead thinking he was the j*****f report man.

I too am a customer of WF, and right now have a problem of money SECRETLY disappearing out of my account. This has been going on now for the last 2yrs. All of a sudden I ended up with a bounced check when I had alot of money in the checking account.

They said the funds were not there, when 2 days before had $4000.00 in the account. The funds secretly disappeared and not on my online statement and 3 days later reappeared with the money. Go figure? And I still had to pay the overdraft fee on free checking.

I tried to set up another account in WF which still failed me. Who to blame besides possibly.... myself, I don't know? I too have noticed while waiting in long lines the amount of personal talk that goes on in the bank AND certain tellers that give me a hard time when doing my transactions. Rather than complain on this site, I immediately talk the to the Branch Manager or a call to the Dristrict Manager and let them know how I was treated by the certain teller.

I will say as a member of 1st Interstate Bank in 92' I was very happy, but since WF bought them out I've had numerous problems. I will be changing banks soon to a Federal Co-op Credit Union soon as I previously really like how I was treated and the credit union is OWNED by the people!

I don't know who really wrote this report. I can see why many employees are angry but it also sounds like a few WF employees are now going to point a finger at any/all Jim's who might be a little bit of a hothead thinking he was the j*****f report man.

I too am a customer of WF, and right now have a problem of money SECRETLY disappearing out of my account. This has been going on now for the last 2yrs. All of a sudden I ended up with a bounced check when I had alot of money in the checking account.

They said the funds were not there, when 2 days before had $4000.00 in the account. The funds secretly disappeared and not on my online statement and 3 days later reappeared with the money. Go figure? And I still had to pay the overdraft fee on free checking.

I tried to set up another account in WF which still failed me. Who to blame besides possibly.... myself, I don't know? I too have noticed while waiting in long lines the amount of personal talk that goes on in the bank AND certain tellers that give me a hard time when doing my transactions. Rather than complain on this site, I immediately talk the to the Branch Manager or a call to the Dristrict Manager and let them know how I was treated by the certain teller.

I will say as a member of 1st Interstate Bank in 92' I was very happy, but since WF bought them out I've had numerous problems. I will be changing banks soon to a Federal Co-op Credit Union soon as I previously really like how I was treated and the credit union is OWNED by the people!

I don't know who really wrote this report. I can see why many employees are angry but it also sounds like a few WF employees are now going to point a finger at any/all Jim's who might be a little bit of a hothead thinking he was the j*****f report man.

I too am a customer of WF, and right now have a problem of money SECRETLY disappearing out of my account. This has been going on now for the last 2yrs. All of a sudden I ended up with a bounced check when I had alot of money in the checking account.

They said the funds were not there, when 2 days before had $4000.00 in the account. The funds secretly disappeared and not on my online statement and 3 days later reappeared with the money. Go figure? And I still had to pay the overdraft fee on free checking.

I tried to set up another account in WF which still failed me. Who to blame besides possibly.... myself, I don't know? I too have noticed while waiting in long lines the amount of personal talk that goes on in the bank AND certain tellers that give me a hard time when doing my transactions. Rather than complain on this site, I immediately talk the to the Branch Manager or a call to the Dristrict Manager and let them know how I was treated by the certain teller.

I will say as a member of 1st Interstate Bank in 92' I was very happy, but since WF bought them out I've had numerous problems. I will be changing banks soon to a Federal Co-op Credit Union soon as I previously really like how I was treated and the credit union is OWNED by the people!

I don't know who really wrote this report. I can see why many employees are angry but it also sounds like a few WF employees are now going to point a finger at any/all Jim's who might be a little bit of a hothead thinking he was the j*****f report man.

I too am a customer of WF, and right now have a problem of money SECRETLY disappearing out of my account. This has been going on now for the last 2yrs. All of a sudden I ended up with a bounced check when I had alot of money in the checking account.

They said the funds were not there, when 2 days before had $4000.00 in the account. The funds secretly disappeared and not on my online statement and 3 days later reappeared with the money. Go figure? And I still had to pay the overdraft fee on free checking.

I tried to set up another account in WF which still failed me. Who to blame besides possibly.... myself, I don't know? I too have noticed while waiting in long lines the amount of personal talk that goes on in the bank AND certain tellers that give me a hard time when doing my transactions. Rather than complain on this site, I immediately talk the to the Branch Manager or a call to the Dristrict Manager and let them know how I was treated by the certain teller.

I will say as a member of 1st Interstate Bank in 92' I was very happy, but since WF bought them out I've had numerous problems. I will be changing banks soon to a Federal Co-op Credit Union soon as I previously really like how I was treated and the credit union is OWNED by the people!

We could not verify the identity of the author of this Rebuttal. Furthermore, this individual provides the best explanation why customer service at Wells Fargo is so lousy and even abusive. No "clown" has a right to abuse an individual by virtue of their access to their personal account information and the perceived power they base on that access. Grow up, and maybe someday we will let you progress in your service to the public. Maybe we will trust you to keep our crappers sterile. We are including the REBUTTAL below with this caveat:

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Dear Mr. j*****f,

I am also an employee of Wells Fargo, and a former employee of the the 'New Account' clown, Julie Csikany. I'd like to inform you of the new policy our branches across the country are considering in light of your recent complaint. In order to reduce the fee assessed for cashing checks for non-customers, we will be providing simple IQ tests, from which we will charge $1 for every point you earn on it. Based on the information collected by your rip-off report and the eyewitness responses to your transaction, we've determined that a $4 refund is in order. That is only the first idea we had.

We also have other ideas in the works, such as:

1) Instead of charging you a percentage of the check's amount, we can charge you a percentage of your annual income. We've agreed on 10%, so in this instance, we'll refund a majority of the check, and you end up paying $.23!

2) In states such as Kentucky or Arkansas (and maybe Arizona), we're considering charging you based on the number of relatives you've considered having sex with. After further investigation, we're demanding another $12.

However, ultimately, we've come to the conclusion that we'll correlate the amount to charge to cash a check to the amount of time you waste complaining about rules and regulations put into place to protect Wells Fargo's customers, who have made our company successful for the last 150 years and will continue to make our company successful for the next 150 years. Wells Fargo Bank is not in the business of cashing checks, we do that as a favor to you, for a small nominal fee. Maybe if you brought in checks for amounts higher than $100, you wouldn't feel so bad.

So, Mr. j*****f, I hope these scenarios which have been designed to save you money can be implemented so that you may succeed in your mission to save a buck. Our customer service clowns are glad you have provided them the opportunity to go in the back room and laugh at your stupidity.

Who is Jim Jack? That is the big question that I have. Who am I, I am an employee at Wells Fargo Bank. You are judging the tellers that want to cash your check with no account...mmm let me think, I don't think calling other human beings not much more important than yourself clowns, is a good idea to get ahead in life.



I would like to ask you a question. Do you have any idea on what we are doing, so what does "shooting the bull like it is a night club" mean? I have no idea where you get this phrase it sounded like it came from a child about 4 years old.



Mr. Jack I would think that being an ex car salesman you should know about ripping people off. I myself used to sell cars, so what does that have to do with anything in your complaint? We have high interest rates? It has absolutely nothing to do with your transaction. Mr. Jack tried to "Close" us as they say in the car business, but Mr. Jack you got closed with a 5 pounder. Jim have you ever worked in a bank? I don't think you have, in a sence you have no idea how much money the banks have lost last year and are currently losing. That is why we ask for two forms of ID's and valid ones.



I would like to inform you once again as other rebuttals have been stated Wells Fargo offers FREE checking, do you know what FREE means? It means nothing, and another thing that this in-store branch does is GIVE you your first box of 200 checks FREE with a savings account package. Come on folks I don't know how much more you would like to get. We are giving you free money. If Mr. Jack would have opened his eyes a little and seen the big picture he could have saved $5.00 on that check, about $20.00 for the checks, and the freedom and comfort of over 6,400 locations across the nation to go to.



If you are reading this then I would suggest to come into Wells Fargo and get more information about our Free checking accounts and other programs to fit your needs.



Mr. Jack if you had a business, the point is to make money, right? Ok, do you think that charging you a $5.00 fee is going too far? Look at it this way we could have gave you money and a free account with no hassle or charge you $5.00 that is praobably not going to make you bankrupt. We are a corporation that is is to make a profit, not lose money because of fraud. Like other corporations in the past several months filing for bankruptcy, Wells Fargo is not in that category.



We make money and do not produce fraud. We are talking about a $100.00 here, either take the $5 hit and spend your money or open a bank account. Time is money and the amount of time he did researching about Wells Fargo and writing this complaint, he probably lost more than $5 in the process.



I don't think anyone is going to care if he is wirting some complaint about a company and expects to have something done to satisfy this disrupted customer, or should I say non customer.



This is one customer that is mad because he didn't get his way in life, well Mr. Jack life isn't fair and you could be in a worse situation than worrying about a $5 fee and an invalid ID. I would like to say one last thing to everyone who reads this whether you like Wells Fargo or not, don't complain about the pointless things in life, it doesn't help, so someone gets their way, what next, what are you going to do next? It is this never ending cycle on how to get stuff your way, is it to prove that you won?



It is not that big of an accomplishment, winning an argument has no meaning in the future of life for anything and it shouldn't. Some times people have to swallow their pride and take the hit. Not everything goes the way you want it to.

It is definitely a sad day when the banks begin coming after you, as is the case with the non-customer above. Let's take a step back for a moment and analyze this unfortunate situation where this non bank customer allegedly gets the screws.



First and foremost, Wells Fargo in-store branches are designed to be a convenience to Wells Fargo account holders who rely on such convenience in their hectic lives. They are not designed like a traditional, free standing branch nor do they operate like one. The cash amounts on hand pale in comparison to those of a traditional branch and the transactions that are processed in these in-store branches reflect that.



Now knowing this, in-store branches do not have the monetary means to cash every check that passes through their branch for that is not the intended purpose on an in-store branch. At times even customers of Wells Fargo are directed to a traditional branch because their needs cannot be met at the in-store location.



Now, a response to JimJACK's complaint. When non-account holders present a check to be cashed they are informed before the transaction begins that this fee will be assessed. If the customer feels that this fee is unreasonable they have the option to leave and cash their check elsewhere. The fee is charged because Wells Fargo is doing a service to this non-account holder. Think of it this way, if you were to try to walk into a Costco without a membership you would not be admitted.



They charge a membership fee because they offer a service to their members. There are other options if non-account holders wish to cash their check without a fee:



1.Open a FREE checking account. There is no minimum balance and no monthly or annual service fees. No fees are charged to cash any checks.



2.Go to the bank where you have an account and they will gladly cash the check for you without any fees.



Secondly, all persons who enter Wells Fargo bank are greeted and treated with respect. Regardless if you are living paycheck to paycheck, or are a millionaire everyone is treated well.



In the event of a customer being unpleased and in turn becoming unpleasant, which is obviously the case here due to this person's uneducated grammar and vulgarity, it is painfully obvious that the teller or the dreaded New Account Specialist will not be willing to make the same exceptions that are made for somebody who keeps their cool and maintains a level of respect for the person who is just doing their job. After all, it is not the tellers or even the managers who write policies and procedures for Wells Fargo bank.



Thirdly, as far as identification goes there is a list in plain sight as to which types of current and valid identification are accepted. There is no financial institution or even business for that matter in the United States or beyond that will accept an old driver's license with a hole punched in it as a valid form of identification. The hole is punched into the license to show that it is no longer valid.



On top of that, Wells Fargo does not use the bank card provided as identification to find out information from other financial institutions. Not only is that illegal but Wells Fargo does not operate under the same unmoral business practices as a company such as *E*nron.



Reading this I would hope that you now realize that Wells Fargo is not conspiring against the consumer. If this person would have only taken a few seconds to listen to his options rather than becoming irrational and unreasonable, a situation such as this would have never happened.

I am an employee at another Wells Fargo Bank in Phoenix and am amazed daily by the ignorance of customers like JimJACK. I will attempt to address your scattered points one by one. Since your mindless ramblings about the CEO and the bank getting richer all the time is painfully obvious, due to the fact that banks are, in fact, corporations, we can bypass that argument.



Mr. Jack, why do you think the state of Arizona punches holes in old forms of state identification? The answer, which I'm sure you know, is to plainly show that the punched form of ID is no longer valid. This simple hole is the reason why that ID was not acceptable in the bank. It is no longer valid, rendering it useless as a form of ID.



Now, if Mr. Jack were at all familiar with bank operations, he would realize the importance of presenting two forms of identification. In 2001, fraud hit an all time high. Since that time, many banks have taken measures to protect themselves. When an individual who is not an account holder presents a check to be cashed, the bank must take ever measure to ensure this individual is who he or she says they are. If that check turns out to be fraudulent or the funds are insufficient, the bank has no recourse to recover its money. This is why a VALID for of secondary ID is needed. Any individual who does not recognize the importance of verifying identification should be charged twice as much to cash their checks just so that they will not come in to the bank in the first place.



Finally, I would like to address the $5 fee. If Mr. Jack has ever walked into a freestanding branch, he would realize it is quite a bit larger than the smaller branch he cashed his check at. It stands to reason that the vault inside this tiny little branch is probably going to be much smaller than the walk-in vaults at larger branches. This, in turn, would mean that the small branch keeps less cash on hand. If there were no deterrent for non-account holders to cash their checks in these small branches, they would likely run out of cash for their customers. I would agree that $5 is a lot to pay for a $100 check, so go to a bigger branch where they have more cash.



I'm not sure if you have accounts at any other banks, but do they not charge you small fees for many things as well. Don't Bank One and Bank of America charge you to actually talk to a teller in person? Take a look around, Mr. Jack, the world is controlled first by money and corporations, then by governments acting on behalf of their own financial well-being. The term "profit driven" applies to every aspect of our society. So keep up your anti-corporate writings and anti-WTO rallies, keep your sock full of money hidden and your fallout shelter well stocked, because the corporations are coming to get YOU!