Is Wells Fargo a Good Bank?

Are you considering Wells Fargo but you’re not sure whether they are a good bank or not? Making the decision to open a new bank can be overwhelming if you don’t know which banks are best. To help you with that we’ve compiled some reviews and ratings for Wells Fargo Bank to make the decision easier for you. 

About Wells Fargo Bank

Wells Fargo is one of the largest banks in America that offer standard checking, savings, and CD options. The overall experience that the bank offers is pretty extensive. They not only have 5400 branches across the United States with access to over 13,000 ATMs, but they have customer service that is available via phone 24 hours a day, social media, or through the app. The mobile banking app they have works so effectively that NerdWallet has given it 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Services Offered by Wells Fargo

Everyday Checking

The checking account is pretty standard and earns 4 out of 5 stars. It has a monthly fee of $10 which can be avoided in a multitude of ways including:

•  maintaining a balance of $1,500 in your checking account
•  making 10 debit payments per month
•  setting up direct deposit with a minimum of $500 per month

There is no growth to be found with this but you do get access to over 13,000 ATMs.

Way2Save Savings

NerdWallet gives the savings account 2.5 out of 5 stars. The APY is 0.01% with a $5 monthly fee and a minimum required balance of $300. This is simply not deemed worth it when so many other banks offer better interest rates.

Wells Fargo CD

The Wells Fargo CD has a minimum requirement of $10,000 so, while you can get a one year CD with an APY of 0.20% which is better than some banks, you can’t get anything longer than one year. Plus, that minimum requirement is quite high.

Ratings 

NerdWallet does give a 3 out of 5 star rating for what is called “overdraft rewind”. This is where accounts that use direct deposit will have overdraft fees erased four charges that occurred the day before a direct deposit, meaning, if you get a direct deposit on a Friday but some of your bills came through on a Thursday, that direct deposit money would cover the bills and the fees for the overdraft would be waived.

They don’t fare as well when it comes to overdraft fees. The overdraft fee itself is $35 and that can be charged up to three times per day which means if you are overdrawn by just a penny or two, and you don’t check your account for 2 days during which time three different transactions came through, you’re not only in the red for those transactions but for the $35 per transaction, for the two days. 

Like most banks, Wells Fargo has the overdraft protection where you can link another savings account or checking account to cover these situations but there’s a $12.50 transfer fee every time you have to do that.

Customer Service Reviews

Reviews pertaining to customer service seem to be acceptable if you are visiting a physical branch. You go to your local branch with a problem, they are able to look into it. But when things get more convoluted or have to do with customer service on the phone or online, they are not highly regarded for their professionalism.

In fact, one consumer stated, “Wells Fargo has extremely poor customer service, but their supposed fraud department is operated by persons with the true art of being unprofessional and skilled at having extremely poor customer service.”

Customer Complaints About Wells Fargo

According to Consumer Affairs, many customers have voiced complaints to do with fraudulent charges and account activity taking far too long to resolve, and in the meantime incurring a lot of extra fees. Other complaints have had to do with bad customer service experiences, especially long wait times and customer service representatives who were unable to fix the problem even in very severe situations.

Some consumers who have worked with the bank for years have been particularly disappointed when company policies that are not thoroughly explained result in serious hardships such as Wells Fargo representative pushing consumers to get a loan modification if they are unable to pay their mortgage but then stating that they can’t accept late payments during the loan modification which, as a result, puts that same person even farther behind in their payments. These types of pushy tactics are symptomatic of a larger problem that resulted in subsequent government penalties and lawsuits. 

Wells Fargo Lawsuits

Wells Fargo has found itself at the center of multiple lawsuits and penalties from government regulators over the last few years when it was revealed that the employees were given such mathematically impossible and stressful requirements for creating new accounts (with serious fear of being fired if they failed), that they created unauthorized accounts for existing customers in order to meet the sales quotas, charged said customers unnecessary fees for things like car loans and mortgages (which fell under the unauthorized accounts). The bank had to settle for millions of dollars to those affected customers. At this point the total cost of that settlement has exceeded $3 billion dollars.

What to do if you have a complaint

If you have a complaint against Wells Fargo, and you aren’t getting a solution to your problem, we can help.