Why I Hate Wells Fargo

In response to my blog post of a couple of days ago, let me be clear, this is not the first time I've had a problem with Wells. The little things: I'm tired of them charging $2 to talk to a customer service rep, without telling you they're going to charge you. I'm tired of the little fees that pop up. I'm tired of 0.0000001% APR. I'm tired of the way they treat poor people--I'm not poor now, but I was when I got out of school, and they treat poor people like crap.

But let me tell you an honest-to-god story, that I think exemplifies this company:

A few years ago, I started a writing group, and in that group was a woman from the Wells Fargo call center in Minneapolis. I'll call her Tari. We got along at first, but the relationship headed downhill quickly. Tari bragging about the way she treated customers. Because they couldn't hang up on customers at the call center, Tari told us that they would just "smile-them-out," which meant they would use those idiotic, card-board-cutout bullshit statements until someone started to swear at them, at which point, per some manual, they were allowed to put someone on hold--indefinately. Tari bragged about putting people on hold for forty-minutes.

Tari bragged about the time, and I kid you not, a woman called in after her husband died. The husband died after a battle with cancer. In making preperations for the funeral, the woman accumulated overdraft fees that she could not afford. The woman was broke and destraught. After stonewalling her for a while, after listening to this woman cry on the phone, Tari told this woman:

"Mam, cancer is not a bank error."

I am not making this up.
Things rapidly deteriorated between myself and Tari. Then one day, in the middle of the writing group, Tari told the group I had an overdraft on MY account at Wells. She had looked at my account, and relayed this information to the public via my writing group.

I blinked. I had no idea what to say.

I went home and called some family members. They were unequivacable--they said I had to tell Tari's boss. I emailed Tari and told her my complaint, and she spun back a litany of self-rightiousness. In her response, she left her manager's name and telephone number. I sat on it for a day. The writing group was obviously shot--I had formed it, put over a year's effort in building it, and was pretty pissed that I didn't feel like I could go back. Eventually, I called Tari's boss. I explained what happened. I mentioned the woman with the cancer, and how I felt that was a pretty shitty way to treat a human being that way. I mentioned that I thought banking matters should be private.

They thanked me, and nothing, as far as I know, happened. last I heard, Tari continues to work at Wells. I never got a letter, a message, or any follow up on this incident.

Now, I know that this last thing I sent Wells, the complaint letter from a couple of days ago, isn't about anything as serious as this, but this time I'm not giving up.