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Comment by scottLobster | Hacker News Reader

You'd think they'd have seen a mass abandonment after the whole "signing people up for accounts that they didn't want" thing. They don't really have any attractive credit cards last time I looked compared to other banks, are they really good for mortgages or business loans or something?

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The Wells Fargo Active Cash card is 2% cash back on everything which is nice for lazy people like me who don't want to remember rotating categories.

The only superior general-purpose credit card that I know of is Citi DoubleCash, which offers 2% cashback on everything and permanent 0% interest if used correctly with Amazon purchases.

(The best Amazon credit card is Amazon's own, because of the 5% cashback. But even it doesn't offer DoubleCash's 0% interest option.)

So you know how at gas stations there is often a 10 cent discount per gallon when you pay in cash instead of credit?

What's 2 percent of 5 dollars?

I just recently went through the process of closing my Wells Fargo account and switching to a different institution. It was surprisingly difficult to open with a credit union (none that were in my region offered 2FA, and the one big national one wanted me to verify some information during signup with Stripe . . . no thank you). I was determined to switch and ended up opening a bank-like account elsewhere, but I can see why people don't do it.

Most of that bank 2fa uses telephone SMS, which is a bad joke.

BofA turned on sms 2fa for me some years ago without my asking.

They support U2F these days, thankfully. It's buried deep in the settings but it's there

I asked my credit union if I could use TOTP and they were like "no, we only support SMS". I then asked if I could disable SMS and they said "no, but we'll remember you computer for up to 90 days!".

Great. I don't check my bank account much more often than that. That's useless.

The only account I have with Wells Fargo is my Micro Center card, because I have a Micro Center spending problem and the 5% discount is nice to have.

I have to avoid the electronic parts and 3d printing aisles. I get nerd sniped every fricken single time

I keep their cash wise card solely to pay my mobile phone bill. When you do so, you get free accident insurance for the devices on the plan. I’ve taken advantage of it multiple times (kids), and have had zero issues with claims.

I've heard people getting stuck with them after their mortgages were bought out, but I imagine not everyone has heard the horror stories, either. Someone else mentioned a 2% cash back card, but I have one of those from elsewhere, so it's hardly any reason to bank there.

I suspect people just bank there because it's big and available, but I don't think I will ever bank there, at least not on purpose.

Nah, it would be surprising if they did. Most people just assume that the problem was dealt with and won't happen again. It's similar to <popular open-source software> which has backdoors discovered all the time but people keep using it.

I have a Wells Fargo account because I came to the US as a grad student and they were signing people up for an account on campus on my first day.

Later on I came to know about their history but I have never really had any bad experiences myself to consider closing the account.

> Later on I came to know about their history but I have never really had any bad experiences myself to consider closing the account.

You need to wait until your bank commits fraud against you personally before you decide that a bank that commits fraud against its customers is something to be avoided?

I also have discover, capital one, chase and local credit union bank accounts and credit cards. How do I know if one of them is going to screw me?

Perhaps rather than predicting the future it's more a question of which bank is more likely to commit fraud: the one that's a repeat offender, having committed egregious acts of fraud against millions of customers, or any other comparable bank.

"Catastrophe risk modeling expert." That's good stuff.

I appreciate you looking up my bio :) It's important to make financial decisions based on calculated risk.

Past behaviour is a good guide to future behaviour. But you knew that already, so the only reason to ask your pointless question is because you don't want to make the effort to look.

This card looks attractive for travelers (and likely some non-travelers): https://creditcards.wellsfargo.com/autograph-visa-credit-car...

Yes, Gas, Dining, Transit, Tolls, Travel, Hotels give 3%. Although points are usable after 2 months; & Cash back is possible only in $25 increments. I use PayPal to pay by WF points in any denomination.

In my case the deposit account is a condition of the loan. I don't have a lot of faith that my refinancing options are much better and I wasn't excited about the transition costs.

I'll probably switch to a local bank when the loan is paid off.

They gave me a credit card with a $18,000 limit at 0% interest for 24 months.

The bilt rewards card is great if you usually pay rent with a bank account. No other card with that benefit I believe

None that I'm aware of.

I think bankrate.com calculates the value of a Bilt point as 1.1 cents, which is not great but more than the $0.00 from anywhere else. So I have mine set up for paying rent (the "pull straight from a bank account" option is welcome, as it saves the credit limit in case I need the full amount), do a few other smaller purchases with the card during the month to hit the five-transaction requirement to earn points from rent, and use Citi DoubleCash and Wells Fargo Active Cash for everything else.

People have terribly short memories.

And some people I’ve met just don’t give a shit. When I tell them about the scandals, the attitude is “so what? Didn’t happen to me. And It’s a hassle to switch.”

ergo FaceBook, Google Analytics, TikTok, SmartTVs, Ring, etc on companies that make you think you are using their product when you, the person, are their product.

Does anyone else offer their “we will mail a paper check for you, for free” feature?

For me, that’s by far their killer feature. I have a couple monthly bills I can’t otherwise pay online without a convenience fee.

Pretty much every bank offers a bill pay service that automatically reverts to paper checks if the recipient can’t be paid electronically. Capital one 360 as well as my local credit unions have this feature.

Are there banks which don't offer that? That's been a standard feature for a long time.

I have used that with almost every bank, Discover, Wells Fargo, Chase, Capital One. Surprisingly, few of different banks looked like had same third party printer/mailer i.e. mailed from same address.

Just a tidbit, My work is paid by 1000s of Californians through these bill pay checks. Often we receive a thick stack (maybe 100) of these checks with sequencial serial numbers, same account & routing numbers, & each customer's unique identifier (for us to allocate money), all in same envelope or box. Its fun to go process those stacks.

Both WFC and BAC aren't really customer friendly, however, they have a lot of branches and atms.

Now I don't think any bank is your friend, but WF is probably one of the least bad options (among the big banks -- there are arguments to support a small local bank instead, although today's news put that somewhat in question). I've been customer of them for 20+ years and there were few irregularities (all, except when I distractedly left $200 at an ATM were resolved). They also signed me up for a new CC without me requesting such. As it turns out, that new CC had better conditions, so I don't mind at all. Not long ago there was a banking error (I suppose) -- a _substantial_ wire transfer from an unknown to me source, right around the time I expected a background check. That was resolved, but it took quite a while to get the wire fee refunded (a small amount, but why should I fund their mistakes?), in the end it was a local branch which paid me from some allowance they have to keep customers happy. Last year a woman unknown to me bought her cell phone with my funds using an ACH transfer. That was resolved and WF stated in writing that I "was not at fault" (well, I knew _that_). That's as far as their apologies go.

I do like their web site. It's comparatively simple and efficient (Captital One's is better, Citibank's is a whole mess last time I had to use it). Citibank also froze my account while I was abroad. Goes w/o saying that I severed my ties with them once I returned.

That sounds like a terrible experience with WF. I don’t understand why your conclusion was positive.

From what I hear, a terrible bank experience looks different.

Also, while not truly terrible my experience with Postbank (in Germany) is awful. I wanted to close my account before, but the clerk in the branch I went to simply refused to do so (only much later did I learn that there is indeed some time limit for closure of checking accounts, but that clerk didn't even bother to mention those).

I need a bank to be first and foremost reliable, secondly efficient. WF, as far as I can tell, meets those requirements (well, they could improve on the speed of check transactions). If the clerks are friendly, I appreciate that, but I do not go to a bank to stoke my ego (once, long time ago, I got paid for three months worth of a contracting job at once and the clerk was very friendly -- that was somewhat unnerving).

WF is the single worst bank I've dealt with in several countries. Dishonest to the core. I can't detail it here, but I spent years fighting them over stupidities and unsuccessfully trying to close an account while living outside the US.

The problem is, the signing up to an account you don't consent to wasn't a system error, it was a deliberate policy at the highest levels (that knew about it and could stop it).

Don't mention Postbank... The only reason why I didn't switch yet is, that due to their IT migration, man did they botch it, I am affraid they botch the account move as well.

That being said, Postbank is actually rather good. They have physical locations in every postal office, before their migration their online banking worked great. They used to be reliable, offered good conditions. Well, I'll propably not move anyway, assuming things return to normal once the migration project is done.

Honestly sounds like Stockholm syndrome…none of those issues have ever happened to me at my local credit union where I do all my banking. And I certainly wouldn’t come out with a favorable view of them if it did.

They signed you up for a credit card you didn’t ask for, but at least the terms were good - ok lol

Everything in this comment is your personal anecdote. You can't defend a thesis (in this case, that "WF is probably one of the last bad options") without actual data.

For example, the thesis that Wells Fargo has a predatory stance towards its customers can be supported with the following:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wells-fargo-scandals-the-comp...

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/15/investing/wells-fargo-bank-ea...

https://hbr.org/2016/10/the-leadership-blind-spots-at-wells-...

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/20/investing/wells-fargo-cfpb-fo...

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