Wells Fargo customers scramble after deposits disappear from their accounts | Hacker News Reader

Wells Fargo customers scramble after deposits disappear from their accounts

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69 pointskungfudoi69 comments

This is absolutely unacceptable, and I'd like to see regulatory fines.

A worse version of this that I've read a few times is banks suddenly "security" flagging your accounts and disabling everything for sometimes up to weeks at a time while they "investigate."

I've tried to protect myself from a single banking point of failure with this setup:

- Paycheck into local Credit Union Checking

- Partial automatic transfer from Credit Union Checking into online Bank Checking

- All bills are paid from the Credit Union except Credit Cards, which are paid out of online bank

Ultimately if either the Credit Union or online Bank has problems, I just use the other one. I'd then move my next months Paycheck if it was the local Credit Union that was problematic. This setup is actually simpler than I am making it sound, two checking accounts and a single automatic transfer (then splitting your bills appropriate).

Nobody should have to do this to have a good banking experience, but prudence never hurt.

If they resolved this in just a few hours (as the article states) why should there be fines? Unless there was some kind of negligence involved anyone can have a technical issue. Software is just too complex now, especially when you are supporting legacy code from 50 years ago

few hours or days, whatever. The fine should be proportional to damage done to customers (more if days, less if hours)

Is your paycheck direct deposit? Have you considered splitting that into deposits at each of your banks instead of your partial automatic transfer?

If that happens to you CFPB[0] is your friend.

Chase closed my account because I deposited a valid check, but chase fraud dept closed my account with close to 13k in it.

I made a lot of trips to the bank, countless hours on the phone and what I found is different departments don’t communicate or share data. Every time I call or go to the bank the first agent would say a check was mailed and I should wait for it in the mail, but wouldn’t give me an ETA. After I insist they never mailed anything, I get transferred around and finally someone says they have not received the requested document - which I had submitted in person at a local branch.

This process repeated few time and got escalated to their “executive office” twice - which restarted the process. It felt like I would never get my money and after two months found out about CFPB and filed a complaint. About 3 weeks later chase magically found all the documents and mailed a check for the balance.

[0] https://www.consumerfinance.gov/

At what point do we say, “Ok, we’re revoking your corporate charter. Please wind down your operations and liquidate your holdings.” A corporate charter isn’t supposed to be an eternal grant. If the corporation continuously breaks the law —lies, cheats, and steals over and over — there’s no reason why it should be allowed to exist anymore. As a bank, their first responsibility is to secure their customers’ money, and it’s clear that they are incapable of that. Wells Fargo has shown that they cannot reform itself. Time to pull the plug.

> At what point do we say, “Ok, we’re revoking your corporate charter. Please wind down your operations and liquidate your holdings.”

I think we do that at the moment that the government decides to make the shareholders whole. And, that's expensive. Nothing short of that is politically feasible.

Maybe they should buy into a more reputable company.

Presumably the liquidated assets would go to the shareholders.

Not shareholders, they took a risk and lost. The customers should be made whole first. Then liquidation where those proceeds are distributed to shareholders.

Wells Fargo does something unethical, damaging, and arguably unforgivable every couple of years. It boggles my mind that anyone would knowingly and willingly do business with them.

My local mortgage lender wound down right after we bought our house and sold our mortgage to Wells Fargo. I'd been avoiding them for ages; I guess sometimes there's just no escape.

I will say it 1000 times. Everyone should have an account with a local community credit union as your primary daily expense account

If you are living paycheck to paycheck this is doubly true. Never trust your ability to buy food to a commercial bank

Is there some report that confirms the higher availability of local credit unions on average?

The smaller the credit union the more likely you can get it resolved during the next business day - mine is small enough that I'm often served by the bank manager just because she's the one on duty - and the main office is only a few miles away.

When you can personally talk to someone who has basically "full control" lots of issues can go away quickly.

Though I've personally never had an issue.

I’m not sure how this is better than WF. The article says they resolved the issue by noon that day, which is pretty fast I would think.

Sure, that's the impression. But does it actually hold up in practice for everyone, beyond anecdata?

I would trust a bigger bank more than I would a smaller bank, simply because the former has more money (or should, anyway...).

Really though, the moral here is to not put all your eggs in one basket. Keep another checking and/or savings account at another bank, big or small, with ample funds so your finances are redundant in the face of freak incidents.

And if you are really paranoid or just have bad luck with these things, keeping some physical cash at home for true emergencies certainly wouldn't hurt.

> I would trust a bigger bank more than I would a smaller bank

I never understood this concept. Would you trust Amazon and Google more than a smaller provider? I trust big companies to still exist for the foreseeable future, but I don’t trust them to serve me, personally; they are known for disabling individual accounts for little or no reason and providing no recourse.

The bigger the company, the less incentive they have to keep any individual customer.

That’s what I enjoy about a local credit union. In a worst case scenario there is a building local to me with folks personally invested in solving my problem.

Credit unions are not "a smaller bank"; they work differently, they are regulated and insured differently, they are closely connected to the local community, and these are more than superficial differences.

Credit unions are smaller businesses than some banks, so they may have fewer branches, less sophisticated mobile apps, etc. but it's nice to walk into your home branch where everybody knows your name, like in that TV show about a bar.

On the flip side, I've literally never walked into a branch of any bank I've ever actually banked at. The only times I've ever walked into a bank was to make large cash withdrawals that most ATMs wouldn't honor, but those were never at a bank I actually had an account with. And those times it was just a large debit card transaction, zero fees.

Going to an actual, physical bank location just seems archaic to me. It's about as dated as going to a Blockbuster to rent a movie. Outside of maybe some big business loan negotiations I can't imagine needing an actual person to really talk to for basic banking needs. What banking task would be better handled taking time to travel to the bank, wait in line, talk to a person who may or may not remember you, and have them do it as opposed to just doing it yourself on your computer anytime anywhere anyplace?

Note, I'm not talking about investing, as there can often be a lot of questions about how specific investment products actually work. I'm only talking basic banking like checking, savings, CDs, credit cards, and auto/home/personal loans. I don't do any real complex investing at places where I do my banking.

Banks offer Notary Public services. Sometimes I like to pick up a few rolls of quarters. Safe deposit boxes (are also being phased out.) Bottle of water when I'm in the neighborhood. Cashier's check or money order purchases. I believe it was necessary for them to see me in person to open a Certificate of Deposit. YMMV.

Yes, branches are becoming less important.

First and foremost never consider a credit union a "smaller bank" the rules and regulations around credit unions are very very different than commercial banks the biggest being they are coop's i.e member owned, and non-profit.

second yes a large bank like JP Morgan Chase has most assets, and is "to big a fail" so institutional collapse is impossible, however they also are soo big that your individual account means nothing to them and they have no incentive to provide any customer service at all, which results in a numbers of horror stories where accounts are locked, cancelled, frozen for months or even years with people unable to access funds or at the mercy of the large institution for when or if they will ever get their money back. Where the local branch you go to has zero power or authority to help you, or even access any real info about your account, and to get any info it is a exercise in calling 100's of different helpdesks...

Sorry I will take a Local Credit union 100x, secure knowing that even if the institution were to collapse and credit union have a very very small collapse rate compared to commercial banks, my deposits are fully insured anyway so my money is safe, and I get 1000000000% better customer service.

>First and foremost never consider a credit union a "smaller bank" the rules and regulations around credit unions are very very different than commercial banks the biggest being they are coop's i.e member owned, and non-profit.

My concern as a common man is whether I can trust a bank (or credit union) to keep my money more safe and accessible than I can myself. I don't care what their internals look like, they're all banks of varying sizes and reputations as far as I'm concerned.

>however they also are soo big that your individual account means nothing to them and they have no incentive to provide any customer service at all

I bank primarily with US Bank, and their customer support has been nothing short of exemplary both in-person at the local branch and over the phone. That exemplary service combined with their size means I will continue to bank with them for the forseeable future.

I will add, for context, that I live out in the countryside where all business matters become more personal as a matter of practical reality. Most of the bankers working at the branch all live locally, after all. This is irrelevant for the customer support folks on the phone, of course, which as I just said are exemplary nonetheless.

The people highlighted in this article are living paycheck to paycheck, they do not have enough eggs to necessitate multiple baskets.

The issue here is that once again a shitty mega-bank has prevented them from accessing the little money they do have at a time where they need it. The amounts here are literally a pittance to these institutions, and they _could_ make these people whole immediately with little to no impact on their bottom line, but their systems and bureaucracy are so bloated and inefficient that it takes days to weeks to fix it.

For people like you and me, that is frustrating and inconvenient and worthy of a twitter rant, but ultimately not a big deal. For the vulnerable in our society, this is potentially life altering, and it is mind boggling that these institutions can continue to get away with treating people like this with practically zero consequences.

People should extend this to tech; I don't understand why anyone would e.g. use Google for a business email account. Who do you call and yell at when something breaks?
Pay a smaller company for this.

Don't actually yell of course, in my case you beg for forgiveness and get pleasantly surprised, like the time when my dad accidentally deleted LITERALLY ALL OF HIS LAW FIRM EMAIL, and I had no idea what I could do. Provider was able to roll back the server a day for a whopping 15 bucks.

Is there evidence that a CU is less likely to have technical issues?

They are a lot more likely to not fuck you over if they do. The big bank will have customer service stonewall you until you threaten to sue them enough times.

Honestly I think these days credit unions are way overrated. The true small independent ones that look out for their members are a rarity, and non-existent in many areas. They've merged, or shifted strategies, and most of them are driving for higher profits the same way that the major banks are. But the difference is that they usually have way worse technology, and fewer branches, so you get the inconvenience of an old school credit union without the benefits. It's often the worst of both worlds. I do still have a credit union account, but I think people need to be really careful about just jumping to a CU and expecting it to be great. You have to do your research and try to find one that is actually still decent, if that even exists in your location.

I feel sorry for your community

Around here community credit unions are still plentiful.

I am still a member of a credit union not in my current community as a moved away, but I use the services of the local credit union like it was own, the credit union here services about just this metro area, and the credit union that holds my account services just the former metro area I used to live in

I did have a auto loan shortly with one of the large nationwide credit unions but I did not have the loan long so i can say if they were good or bad.

I also have accounts with banks like including those on the "technical edge" of financial system, I find the technology stack of my local credit union to be on par with those more "technical" banks for banking services. Now some of banks also have non-banking services like Wealth management, investing, crypto, etc that my credit union does not have but I dont expect that from a credit union, nor would i want them to expand into that.

I have experienced this in three states, so it's not limited to a single community, but I'm glad to hear that it can be better in some places.

Yeah, people are quick to recommend credit unions but they are not always the godsend commentors claim they are.

Most of the credit unions participate in shared branching, so you can usually do business anywhere with credit unions (which is most places). Pandemic banking was sketchy where I live though. When I needed a cashier's check during the pandemic, I was more or less forced into opening a local account, but the local credit unions and banks don't have competitive interest with the credit union from where I used to live (which is still behind internet banks)

It’s not that they are great, just that they aren’t actively awful. Regulatory changes make most of the “help a buddy out” stuff harder to do.

In my area for normal mortgages they are also consistently cheapest. If you travel internationally, are high net worth, or routinely need access to a lot of cash in different cities, you don’t need a big commercial bank.

I do this. The biggest drawback for me with this is that many online services are using plaid or equivalent for setting up payments and my local credit union isn’t on their radar. I can do it, eventually, but you have to find the screen that allows the small transfer verification method, which takes days to set up. A lesser drawback is that there are other virtual checking accounts that pay almost 5% interest and that means that the cost of having a credit union account can be bigger than expected. We have just $7000 in one of those virtual checking accounts and it paid over $20 last month. I say this as lesser because it’s always possible to move money from checking into investments, it’s just much easier when it happens without any friction.

Between stuff like this and the fraud, why would anyone still use Wells Fargo at this point?

Absolutely. Remember, 7% of all American adults believe that chocolate milk comes from brown cows [1].

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/06/15/seven...

The idea that 7% of American adults like lying on surveys is more believable to me than the idea that people think chocolate milk is not from added chocolate.

That would be a relief. The number of customers that will continue to bank at Wells Fargo, however, suggests not only that the respondents didn't lie, but that the model was likely too conservative.

This is technically correct (the article notes this). Milk of all kinds comes from all cows. Some fraction of chocolate milk comes from brown cows.

Aren't some cows brown?

Only if you're an existing customer and don't want to go through the effort of switching.

However, I am now going to switch. I feel like an idiot for not switching earlier. There is nothing redeeming about Wells Fargo, other than they might have your money available for you. Other than that, it's shenanigans every few years, pushy customer service, a crappy website, and an even crappier mobile app.

+1 for having the balls to reveal where you bank on a public website with "hacker" in the name

I just did this. Went in and got cashier's checks for all my accounts and dropped the money elsewhere. Worth it.

Well, it is Wells Fargo who are one of the most garbage banks on the planet. A mattress is safer.

I picture someone furiously reverting changes on a 2,000,000 line COBOL monorepo

You're optimistic if you think there's source control.

LOL

I picture someone furiously unzipping WELLSFARGO_2023_V5-FINAL-3.zip.

  WELLSF~1.ZIP

Not ready reading drive A

Abort, Retry, Fail?_

When you deposit money, it's no longer your money. You've now lent the money to the bank. That bank may or may not be worthy of your trust, and there are likely rafts of laws protecting you. But ultimately it's a loan to the bank. All you own is an acknowledgement from this institution that they owe you $x.

On the other hand, if you buy shares in the bank, you now own a chunk of it. Of course this isn't a feasible way to keep your day-to-day cash; we all need checking & credit accounts. But anything above the minimum is a risk, and a lost opportunity from investing returns you could've gotten from shares, bonds, or even the money market.

For that minimum expense float we all need to have, cash under the mattress is not that terrible of an idea, assuming you live in a safe place.

Something to keep in mind!

Also, if you loan money to a bank and the bank becomes insolvent, the FDIC will pay you back (up to at least $250k). OTOH, if you bought shares in the bank, in that scenario you’d probably lose everything you invested.

Well, the US Government actually reneged on only $250k. Now, if you are politically connected enough, blessed with "systemically important" status, you may get your billions $ payed back by FDIC...

Hence "up to at least $250k"..

Unless the bank is too big to fail

What the world needs is decentralization across the board. Finance, internet, media, and government.

Ya crypto has shown how well that works.

Not crypto. At least not specifically. I'd be happy with a whole lot of regional banks that aren't going to just get acquired in a year. Consolidation isn't a friend.

It has done precisely that. You can now have near unlimited exclusive control over money that can be beamed to anyone on the internet cheaply in a very short period of time. Practically speaking, with some basic precautions, it is totally uncensorable and nobody can stop you.

That was not possible before.

Those are facts, regardless of anyone's personal emotions about whether or not cryptocurrencies are good or bad.

It has so much crime associated with it specifically because it is functional and decentralized. You can't receive ransomware payments at a retail bank.

Personally I don't have a problem with crypto because it's being used to move drug money or ransoms around.

It's the exchanges that look to me similar to the people needing to move drug money or ransoms...

It used to be more that way. It was the deregulation of the 1980s and 90s that allowed the massive concentration of the banking industry.

Perhaps unintuitively, smaller banks tend to be more susceptible to problems like the recent bank runs. Matt Levine has written about this in his column for Bloomberg, Money Stuff.

What is the typical root cause of these issues ? Is it improper architecture / transaction management that only gets exposed when certain things that usually work become unreliable ?

Every large bank is the merger of thousands of banks, and the it systems are just strapped together.

I get that, but Wells Fargo didn’t just have a major merger did it?

The real problem with the mergers is that the system are too complex for the analysts and architects to understand, and the software mirrors that.

The knowledge is also distributed across a huge array of people that have no reason to change the status quo to keep their knowledge valuable to the bank.

Functionally it's usually an edge case somewhere or someone doing something stupid. Recently where I reside there was an overflow scenario of a registration number and the powers that be decided to add another digit. Of course to maintain "compatibility" this number is a string and they added "0" to the start of it. Some organisations treated it as a string, some as a number. Ones who treated it as a string ended up with two orgs defined as "01234" and "1234". Of course org "1234", now known as "01234" wondered where the hell all the integration data went. Even worse someone registered an org "045" when "45" already existed which means that the wrong org got the integration data. This manifests itself as stuff being missing usually.

At that point, the outsourcing managers adopt the spiderman pointing pose ( https://i.imgur.com/ypYY6yg.png ) and try and establish blame. This takes forever to resolve due to a Mexican-standoff scenario, usually broken by one of them getting hungry which can take a few hours. Eventually blame is assigned and a team is set upon it. Because staff turnover is so high due to the low salary, no one at the outsourcing outfit knows anything about some rancid bit of COBOL/REXX/RPL or if you're really lucky Java which is holding all this together. In a panic, only initiated after someone informs them that they are going to have to pay a hefty compliance fine, the management team start running around like headless chickens. Eventually they bump into someone they forgot to fire who can remember who the original engineers are who wrote this. Delving into an ancient HR database, they find the mobile number of the last guy who touched and call him. His widow answers and informs them that Bob died 3 years ago but his old colleague Terry is still alive and you might want to call him. They call up Terry who is on a golf course somewhere. Terry is concerned but not that concerned about the situation because he knew what a steaming shit show the org was and moved his money well away from it. Eventually the manager starts waving daily rates around meeting the "I can be bothered" level of interest. Terry finishes his game, throws the clubs in his car and heads into the office to look at it. After 3 hours of unsuccessfully trying to work out how to get Terry an account on the mainframe again without having to involve the outsourced helpdesk, which is currently down due to a huge mudslide, he sits at someone else's terminal and stares intently at the problem. He utters a few words, edits a few characters in one file and resubmits the job. Several minutes later, the phone lines stop ringing. All is good again, Terry made $1500 and the org only lost 2% of its customers compared to the 0% it should have lost if they hadn't outsourced everything.

Now imagine this in 20 years with Kubernetes!

Sounds like business as usual, which is very sad. This was very entertaining, however.

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