How to Make the Wells Fargo Corporate Office Listen

It is all too easy to feel like David fighting Goliath when a big financial company doesn’t follow through with their promises.

This is particularly true when it’s the big bank that made the mistake in the first place but they won’t listen. You end up having to pay for the mistake, literally and figuratively, and then try to get a hold of their corporate offices to get compensation before the issue results in an account closure.

Phone calls with employees who don’t have any authority or just a waste of your time. Email complaints often go into a black hole and you have no evidence that anyone received them let alone responded to them. A request to speak with someone at the corporate office who has the authority to make a change often gets ignored or takes too long to be processed. What’s worse, they might tell you that they’re going to make things right but they never follow through so you’re stuck right back at the beginning.

So what can you do other than feel as though you were taken advantage of and are the laughingstock of the corporate office?

Use Arbitration to Settle Your Complaint

Doing business with such a large company can leave you feeling very powerless especially when there doesn’t seem to be any strict chain of command or anyone in charge with whom you can speak. Even services like Wells Fargo have contracts that try and prevent you from taking legal action. They usually include something in the contract that’s called a forced arbitration Clause. This means that you’re not allowed to take them to regular court if something goes wrong.

And for a lot of people even a seemingly small app like Wells Fargo might be the only affordable and available method of transportation around your city even if you know they have bad customer service or an unresponsive staff.

Thankfully you can use arbitration as a great way to get a satisfactory solution to your problem with the company without having to sue them. This is great because it appoints an impartial arbitrator, someone who’s familiar with the situation and will look at both sides equally. The decision they make is binding, too, which means that the company no longer controls the outcome.

Arbitration is Fair, Just, Reasonable, and Transparent

Arbitrations handled by the American Arbitration Association® is an option which complies with the Statement of Principles of the Consumer Due Process Protocol, which means:

• The process needs to be fundamentally fair for everyone involved, yourself included, and that means everyone should have a fair appointment of an impartial, competent, and qualified arbitrator who conducts fair hearings.
• A reasonable standard is applied, and this means you all get access to relevant information, a good time for the hearing, a good location, and affordable cost.
• The transparency standard means the arbitration agreements have to be clear, easy to understand, and include all the necessary information and provide you and the other party with the ability to hire representation.
• An alternative to arbitration, which takes the form of small claims court and, in some cases, mediation, has to be available to you, if you choose it.
• The process should be just, fair, and allow the arbitrator to award you the same outcome you could get in the courtroom, an award which is a legally binding decision.

Arbitration Gives You Leverage

Once you notify the company that you are going to pursue arbitration, they know immediately that they are going to be on the hook for more money than they expected. Firstly, they might have to pay out whatever it is they owe you and secondly they might have to pay for the process of arbitration. As soon as the accounting department gets wind of these additional costs, they become much more willing to meet your demands as long as your demands are reasonable.

If they are still unwilling though, you have the option of a reasonable, fair, and transparent hearing without having to spend any money. Our FairShake process will help you file for arbitration. It won’t cost you anything unless you win.

Leverage Leads to Faster Settlements

After you start your arbitration process, you remove any advantage that the company had. Now you are on equal footing because the neutral arbitrator examines both sides of the issue without any bias. The first step to giving you the necessary leverage to solve your complaint is to formally raise the issue with the company.

At FairShake we help you do this. We send a demand letter to the corporate office to start the process of resolving your case before you file arbitration. This process starts the clock on how long they have to make a reasonable offer to solve the issue. Usually that’s 30 days but your user agreement with the company could stipulate a different amount of time. Either way, roughly half of companies will make you an acceptable settlement offer during this time frame and then the issue is resolved without ever needing arbitration. But if they do not give you a reasonable settlement, the next step is to file the case with the American Arbitration Association. FairShake will put together all the official arbitration paperwork for you and guide you through the next steps.

Do I Need an Attorney?

If you take your case to arbitration, you have the option of hiring an attorney. In legal terms, if you decide not to, you are bringing your claim “pro se”. If you decide that you want to go forward without an attorney, check out some information from The American Arbitration Association’s Pro Se Case Administration Team.

There are lots of common complaints people have with Wells Fargo that fall under specific laws. The more specific, the easier it is to get high compensation on your own. However, for things that are a bit more complicated, such as illegal use of robocalls, something that violates a federal law, it might be in your best interest to have an attorney there to help you maximize the potential value of your claim.

What can I do next?

Start by telling us about your issue with Wells Fargo. With FairShake, we take away the frustration of trying to work with such a large service provider. We help you get a solution and we have a 100% satisfaction guarantee. If you are not completely satisfied with your service, you don’t owe us anything.