Wells Fargo bank and bill pay?

[Russ Smith]

Anybody use Wells Fargo and pay $6.95 a month for billpay? if you have WF you might want to check your monthly statements to see if you're being billed for it without knowing it.

2 weeks ago my girlfriend found out on a call that she was being billed and when she asked what it was and why she was being charged the operator admitted there was no record of her signing up. THey credited her for 35 months of wrongful charges and that was it, but they convinced her to sign up for online banking to keep better track of her account(I've been telling her for years to do that). So tonight using online banking she went back looking at old statements and discovered that 6.95 has been billed monthly since 11-17-2001, a total of 80 times, not 35 and they owe her another $312.75.

So she called up and spent an hour on hold, transferred etc only to eventually be told they were launching a fraud investigation and disabling her online account because of the fraud. Note, she signed up online 6-15-2008, the alleged fraud(someone signing her up for billpay) occurred in November 2001. I think we can all agree that when people commit fraud with bank accounts they do it to steal money from the account, not to sign them up for billpay?

She admitted that the ONLY way to sign up for billpay is online, she confirmed my girlfriend had NEVER used billpay, but she refused to credit the other 45 months without this fraud case. My girlfriend eventually got so frustrated she hung up. We then confirmed they had indeed disabled the online account which of course prevents us from using it to prove she was billed since 2001.

So I got mad and called back, 25 minutes on hold before I get a human who essentially said that's our policy, when there's a fraud suspicion we disable the online. We are not accusing her of fraud but someone signed her up. When I asked why they credited 35 months she said that was a mistake it should never have been done without the fraud investigation.

My take is the first person did it correctly but only had access to records so far back thus the 35 months, she likely didn't have access as far back as 2001. WF likely figures if they just make it difficult, we'll ultimately give up and settle for the partial credit.

Net result we have to wait up to 10 working days for their results, online is disabled during that time, and when this is over even if they give her the credit, we'll be pulling her money out of WF and putting it into a different bank.

Yet another reason why we all need to check our statements carefully.

 

[Linderbee]

I despise WF. I have to have my acct there because my paychecks come via customer-to-customer transfer, but I've gotten to where every week when I get paid I'm just pulling it out & putting it in a different acct elsewhere.

Sorry you are going through this. I hope you're able to get it taken care of out with minimal pain/inconvenience.

 

[RON_IN_OC]

About 5 years ago I was looking to change banks because B of A had started charging outrageous fees. I went to WF and they said they had completely free checking and I inquired about Online Banking...the lady said it was free. In my world Online Banking meant doing Everything Online that I could do on paper or in a branch, include right checks...I was used to that from B of A. So we got the account set up and she took me over to the computer terminal to set up my online banking info...I got to a part where it said the fee for Bill Pay was $6.95 and I protested. I told her B of A didn't charge and that WAMU (Washington Mutual) didn't charge. She said I must be mistaken because every bank charged. I asked if the fee could be waived because I would have direct deposit, etc. She checked, but her manager refused to waive the fee. I promptly had her close my brand new account and I walked across the street to WAMU and started with them...and got my Online Banking/Bill Pay for free. In fact, everything about my account with WAMU is free. I can honestly say that I've had zero issues with them since I started 5 years ago. I even do my business banking through them.

 

[Hollywood]

I have had a Wells Fargo account since I got married 5 years ago and the only problem that I have had was signing up for the online bill pay. I thought it was free but it turned out that it was only free for a couple of months. The first time I was charged I called and they explained that it was a trial offer. I asked why I would pay them to do that when most places have sites that you can pay them online. it just takes about 10 minutes more to pay all my bills individually. She said don't worry and credited me the fee and closed the bill pay option.

I didn't really like it anyway because it felt like I was handing checks to someone and telling them to mail them for me. I was just waiting for some company to call saying that they didn't get paid.

 

[Russ Smith]

About 5 years ago I was looking to change banks because B of A had started charging outrageous fees. I went to WF and they said they had completely free checking and I inquired about Online Banking...the lady said it was free. In my world Online Banking meant doing Everything Online that I could do on paper or in a branch, include right checks...I was used to that from B of A. So we got the account set up and she took me over to the computer terminal to set up my online banking info...I got to a part where it said the fee for Bill Pay was $6.95 and I protested. I told her B of A didn't charge and that WAMU (Washington Mutual) didn't charge. She said I must be mistaken because every bank charged. I asked if the fee could be waived because I would have direct deposit, etc. She checked, but her manager refused to waive the fee. I promptly had her close my brand new account and I walked across the street to WAMU and started with them...and got my Online Banking/Bill Pay for free. In fact, everything about my account with WAMU is free. I can honestly say that I've had zero issues with them since I started 5 years ago. I even do my business banking through them.

I bank with WAMU and like you free. The only issue I ever had with them was that they will take checks out before they count your paycheck so that it overdraws you temporarily, but now my account has free overdraft so that doesn't matter either.

 

[thirty-two]

That sucks!

I could do bill pay with my bank (USAA) for free, but I just have an issue with not paying for each bill manually. I like the sense of control, I guess. Plus, it keeps me more in-tune with my bills.

 

[Russ Smith]

FYI to update, 10 business days passed with no update so we called yesterday. 45 minutes later and 3 transfers later(despite calling the number they gave us on their letter confirming the fraud investigation it wasn't the right number).

End result they conceded that we'd waited long enough and they agreed to reimburse her for the remaining amount. She'll end up in total getting back just over 562 bucks. They at one point claimed her account was transferred from a bank that WF acquired and that's when it happened which is neato since she was never at a bank they acquired she's been with WF since she had a bank account. So in the end they ultimately conceded they have no proof she ever signed up for it and admitted she was being billed incorrectly for it and will give it back.

She still intends to switch banks. The interesting thing is they conceded yesterday that at this point the most likely source of the fraud is WF themselves, that it's likely someone signed her up without her knowledge because of some internal incentive program at WF in the past where customer service people could get bonuses for hitting quotas of signups for billpay!

 

[Gizmo Williams]

That sucks!

I could do bill pay with my bank (USAA) for free, but I just have an issue with not paying for each bill manually. I like the sense of control, I guess. Plus, it keeps me more in-tune with my bills.

You can still pretty much pay manually...you do not have to schedule the payments. You can log on anytime and enter the amount and date you want to pay for each bill. It is much better than writing checks and putting the bill in the mail.

I have 3 accounts WAMU, USAA and B of A and none of them charge for online banking or billpay. I am shocked that Wells charges for Online Banking and Billpay. If anything, banks usually prefer you do do everything online....it saves them money.

B of A's online billpay is much better than WAMUs...many payees are already signed up so you don't have to enter as much info, the money is taken out when the payment clears instead of when you initiate it, and most payments process the next day vs several days.

 

[nathan]

B of A's online billpay is much better than WAMUs...many payees are already signed up so you don't have to enter as much info, the money is taken out when the payment clears instead of when you initiate it, and most payments process the next day vs several days.

This is a good part of B of A billpay. I can send car payments electronically to Nissan through B of A for free. If I used Nissan's website I would have to pay a $5 convenience charge.

I ran out of check blanks so I now use B of A for everything (including my rent check).

 

[Russ Smith]

You can still pretty much pay manually...you do not have to schedule the payments. You can log on anytime and enter the amount and date you want to pay for each bill. It is much better than writing checks and putting the bill in the mail.

I have 3 accounts WAMU, USAA and B of A and none of them charge for online banking or billpay. I am shocked that Wells charges for Online Banking and Billpay. If anything, banks usually prefer you do do everything online....it saves them money.

B of A's online billpay is much better than WAMUs...many payees are already signed up so you don't have to enter as much info, the money is taken out when the payment clears instead of when you initiate it, and most payments process the next day vs several days.

Yeah the part of Wamu I don't like is as you said they withdraw the money before the check clears so you have to factor that in or you can overdraw.

With longer trips it can get kind of hard to schedule payments for that reason I had problems the last 2 trips although I have free overdraft so it was more I hate to overdraw than it cost me money.