Tired of the computer generated fees and the automated phone lines? Tired of branch managers who aren’t empowered to make common sense decisions and override the computer? Tired of supporting an industry that pays its CEOs multimillion dollar bonuses while picking your pocket? So are a lot of other people.
Mike Iacuessa learned two things from his recent experience with a Wells Fargo checking account. First thing: It’s expensive to be poor.
Iacuessa said that in August he overdrew his account with three transactions that together totaled about $28, triggering several $35 overdraft fees and $5 daily charges totaling $205.17. Furious, he walked away from the account.
Another case made the front page of the Daily Courier in Grants Pass
A locally-based bank in Jacksonville has landed a deposit exceeding $100,000 because the executive committee of a local nonprofit group believes the high salaries and bonuses paid to the chief executive officers of major banks are irresponsible.
Spearheaded by Jack Shipley, a founding board member of the Applegate Partnership and Watershed Council, the executive committee of the
partnership approved withdrawing the group’s certificate of deposit from the Jacksonville branch of Chase Bank last month and switching to a local
institution, which they declined to identify.
Shipley said after the CD expired in December, “we were faced with the decision on how best to reinvest those funds to maximize our return.” After
experiencing “some aggravation at the inconvenience of having to accommodate Chase Bank paperwork requirements,” Shipley said he went online to see what the Chase CEO earned this year. He was amazed to learn the figure exceeded $21 million in bonuses.
Further, the CEOs of other major banking institutions also received staggering bonuses…
Shipley said, “I would speculate that if we added up the total salaries of all the Chase Bank employees in theentire Rogue Valley, the total of all their wages for their entire lifetime would not exceed the amount given to the Chase CEO in just one year,”
Iacuessa was ultimately talked into reopening an account with Wells Fargo…
He claims that he was tricked into coming back to Wells Fargo on the promise the debt would be forgiven (a good question: “Why else would I go back there and open an account if I owed $200?”). He deposited $1,500 in a new account in October.
If Wells Fargo notified Iacuessa upfront that he’d be liable for the $205, his balance statement shows that the bank waited until Jan. 6 to actually take the money. Iacuessa didn’t find out until after he received a letter informing him of two overdraft fees from Jan. 8. The involuntary payment left the account $43 short when a rent check cleared that day. Two subsequent transactions for less than $10 each wound up costing an additional $70.
When he went to the press Wells Fargo did finally reverse his fees, so it pays to complain. Banks talk about minimizing their risk and justify the $34B a year they make off overdraft fees. So the only way the customer can minimize their risk is to pull money out of the big banks in favor of smaller banks with real managers empowered with real authority.
