Thursday, January 10, 2008

Fighting with Fargo

Wells Fargo that is. At this very moment I am on hold waiting for someone with authority to reverse a charge on my account. Here's the whole "fun" story:

Back in 2007 I was really busy from the end of October to the end of December. So busy that I neglected to see that Wells Fargo had decided to start charging me service fees for their Bill Pay service. Ridiculous as: 1. I wasn't using Bill Pay for anything. and 2. Bill Pay is supposed to be free for college accounts, which my account was supposed to be. Since the Bill Pay had been active on my account since July, without any fees, I assumed this to be the case. So when I noticed the fees in December I had my roommate, who worked at WF at the time, reverse the charges and update my student status so it wouldn't be a problem again. I looked at my account today to find a brand new Bill Pay charge for January.

So I called WF Customer Service and spoke to some (thankfully English speaking) girl who transferred me to the online banking / Bill Pay people. This person lets me remove Bill Pay (which I wanted since I wasn't using it anyways), but told me she couldn't reverse the January charge because Customer Relations had already reversed charges for December and November. I was sitting thinking, "What?" Let's go through this again. Your company screwed up, and can't fixed it because you screwed up a few months ago and fixed that screw up? So I said something along the lines of, "Isn't there someone that can authorize this charge reversal, because I was told everything was taken care of in December, so this isn't my fault." She says, "Let me transfer you, can I put you on hold for a moment?" So that was where I was when I started this post. About halfway through this post I got "accidentally disconnected" apparently.

So now I'm talking to someone else, who is supposedly asking her supervisor to authorize the reversal. Now she's telling me that it can't be done because of the "courtesy reversals" already done in November and December. So now I'm arguing with her about it. And now I'm on hold again.

[sigh]

It's one charge of $6.95. It shouldn't be that big of a deal to them. I'm getting ready to tell them off and hope they like their seven dollars because that's just what they got for losing a customer.

Finally, she "spoke to her supervisor" again and now they'll reverse the charge, after adding some notes into their system. Which (having worked Tech Support) I know means making notes on my account saying I'm a difficult customer and probably a liar.

Supposedly it's done now. Hopefully Lisa (I asked for her name again) actually did it and my issues will be gone now. My transaction reference number for this is FR1886083.

Thanks for playing another game of "Fighting Corporate BS!"

Our next episodes will be: "Why didn't management get my rent check?" and "Health Insurance: The answer is 'No'."

5 comments:

Amy Grigg said...

Here's another reason not to bank with Wells Fargo: They own 20% of the stock of Playboy.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/mh?s=PLA
Your money at work.

erin said...

I had a mysterious charge of $1.14 appear on my credit card statement from AT&T. I called customer support and they had no idea what the charge was for, but they reimbursed me no questions asked. That was a nice thing.

Anonymous said...

I have called that same online banking number for several issues that were actually my fault, and I was immediatly refunded fees associated with services I was no ponger using. My guess is that you were acting a bit self righteous and pissed off the wrong people!

Unknown said...

As glad as I am to see you deciding how I felt and acted; in no way did I imply to the nice woman I spoke to that it was her fault; nor did I ever raise my voice, insult her, or speak disrespectfully. I've worked customer service jobs before, I know how that end feels. I simply explained my position and was basically told to piss off, until I pushed back.

Anonymous said...

I found your blog by searching on "Wells Fargo" +billpay +charges, because I *never signed up* for Billpay and they tried to charge me for two months of it. In fact, they just enrolled me out of the blue without asking even though I never would have assented to this - my Wells Fargo account is a simple cash stash, nothing more.

I use them because they're withing walking distance, but if they pull this crap again, I'm closing the account out and will drive to B of A, where I do all of my other banking.

Beyond which, the idea that you'd charge for billpay, which B of A and other large banks do not charge for, is ludicrous. They also charge for ATM statements, which is a headscratcher. This is the electronic age. 21st Century. They really need to get with it.

Aside from the convenience of living close to them, I'm not sure why anyone would do business with them, rather than their competitors.

Anyway I don't trust them now, and I hate that feeling.