In ordering my fourth debit card in less than a year from Wells Fargo, I have gotten very familiar with its brand of customer service, which is, there is no “service” as you and I understand the term. Let’s call it “sellthis.” The commitment, first and foremost, to the upsell.
“I see you qualify for a better checking account.” Or,
“I see you’re writing a lot of checks. Would you want to consider automatic bill-pay?”
“Have you considered upgrading your savings account? Can you hold while I qualify you?”
But yesterday we got a letter in the mail that floored me. About a month ago, my husband got a call from a Wells Fargo rep, who showed up at his office to pitch him an installment plan loan to pay off our Visa debt in three years — for just $379 in monthly payments. Since we’re already committed to our own plan to do this and don’t want to be locked into someone else’s plan, my husband said no.
This letter, however, says that we were “approved” for this offer, although “not with the original terms or conditions requested.”
It goes on to tell us which credit agency it queried (Trans Union) and our rights in obtaining that report as well as in requesting from Wells Fargo “information, not necessarily unfavorable, from a person other than a consumer-reporting agency. You have a right to make a written request to us within 60 days after the date of this notification for disclosure of the nature of this information.”
The mind reels. Any “inquiry,” that is, application for credit, dings your credit score, and we hadn’t been planning any such applications. We thought “no” meant no.
So I will be calling Trans Union. And Wells Fargo, with the ultimate goals of ensuring that there are no credit errors on our report, and, if possible, reversing this inquiry by Wells Fargo that we didn’t authorize.
I’m sure I’ll have plenty more to report on this — it is never easy dealing with large institutions, and if there are errors on our reports, the process of fixing them can be notoriously long and laborious.
In the meantime, check out this other tale of Wells Fargo woe shared with me by a friend of a friend — Jacki, who lives in Oregon:
So anyway, I have been trying to pull off a refinance for almost 3 1/2 months with Wells Fargo, our lender. The first major hurdle was the incorrect ding on Ed’s (husband’s) credit report by Verizon. I first attempted to get that removed last September but finally managed in April. Talk about frustration.
By removing that ding it raised Ed’s score over 50 points with each of the three credit agencies, which we needed in order to get the best rate. So, we proceeded to move forward with the refinance.
Then, last week we had an appraisal. I didn’t see it at first, but our WF mortgage consultant told me the appraisal came in too low in order to meet the loan-to-value ratio threshold. I asked her for the appraisal. I read it. The number she told me was simply not on there, but rather a higher value. I asked her about it today. She said, ‘Thanks for checking my work, but the number is on page 2. We’ll keep trying to make this work!’
Uh, if it were me and I were her, I would have CHECKED the appraisal before saying that. She was wrong. I called her just now. She was so flustered, shuffling papers and stuttering. I asked her to pull it up and go through it with me. She did, and she said, ‘Oh my stars!’ several times. She was wrong! So now, it looks like we CAN move forward with the refinance.
So, to quote Jacki, be diligent in whatever you do, because customer service is sooooo far gone! She reports that the re-fi still probably won’t be finished until July, although they have at least locked into a desirable rate.
Stay tuned…
- The Easiest Way to Check Your Credit Reports In dealing with this Wells Fargo letter we received, I...
- Strike Three: Wells Fargo ATM Card Fails Again The ATM card fail saga continues. Continues! This is my...
- Credit Card Rate Hike? Take These Steps To Negotiate A reader writes: Like most folks, we have lived on...
Tags: Wells Fargo5 Comments
To clarify the timeline… I got a cold call from a WF banker in Plymouth. This was right around the time we were trying to figure out how to pay down our credit card debt. I told him we were not interested in any new monthly payments, but if he had a credit card with a lower rate I might go for that. What he offered to do was “put together some options” for me. I said fine, and then gave him some basic information he needed to see what options we would qualify for (this should have clued me in as to what was actually happening). The only option he came back with was a three-year payoff loan. I explained again that we did not want any new fixed payments (see multiple earlier posts about flexibility, cash flow, etc.). Yes, I realized we would be saving money by paying it off faster. But we are going to try to do this on our own. After the customer three no’s, he finally stopped pushing. Then I got a call two days later from the banker’s supervisor, wanting to confirm my loan application details. I explained that I didn’t want the loan. He gave me an even harder sell, sounding irritated that I did not want to save money. (It was not as bad as Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross, but that’s what he was reaching for.) Finally, after three more no’s, he gave up, and told me to ignore any paperwork I might receive related to my application. To sum up: Ignore those cold calls, no matter what the offer is.
I’m a Wells Fargo customer, too, and I can’t stand their upsell. Every six months or so, I get (incorrectly) dinged $12 for “service charges” on my checking account. And every time, I go in, politely explain that they’ve charged me for something, and they try to get me to sign up for automatic savings deposit accounts or something else.
A friend of mine who used to work there told me that they have quotas — they have to sell/upgrade people a certain number of products each month.
I put up with it because of the free money changing, checks, and (strangely) notary. The online banking is pretty good, too.
@Erin. Thanks for commenting! I remember you saying something about that on Facebook. I’m wondering how many of their debit cards I would have to go through before it raised a flag for someone. 100? How many times will you have to correct these service charges? It is the kind of thing designed to drive us mad, this endless fixing of the same problems!
The lower payment is just sitting out there waiting for you to take it! Are you man enough to take it? You don’t answer the phone lest you want to refi…but I digress. I’ve run into similar service issues with Bank of America and my suggestion for any of these behemoths is to look up their “Executive Customer Service” phone number on the web. It won’t be on their website or your statement, but if you do a Google search you should be able to find it on a related consumer reports type blog or website. They change frequently and they won’t be toll free, but if you’re like me you can just call them from work. In the 2 instances when I’ve needed to do this I quickly reached a human being capable of using logic and not trying to upsell me anything. Problems were solved quickly and they were contacting me to make sure this was satisfactory i.e. I didn’t have to chase them down.
Thanks Gav! Will try that.