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Bus One Seven
There are three sides to every story: Yours, Mine, and the Truth
by Roderick Armageddon

Let’s not beat around the bush here… I’m peeved as all hell that Wells Fargo has decided to add a $1 charge (monthly) to my checking account to cover the cost of using my debit card for point-of-sale transactions… mind you, this is a service that I think all bank customers have grown to love as a standard part of their checking account. Hell, I’ve been using this service for years without any additional charges, so why now? That’s my big fat question… why now?

My wife picked up the phone almost immediately, contacting Wells Fargo customer service to ask why we would now be charged $1 per month for using our debit card for purchases. The customer service rep told her very simply "it’s only $1… and that’s for the whole month." Thanks for the help Wells Fargo. Could I help you with the Vaseline or do you have that covered too?

Let me dig a little deeper… Wells Fargo claims to have over 2 million customers using their online access - not bad. To me this means that they have at least 2 million people using debit cards for everyday purchases at Amazon.com, Fred Meyer, or the local gas pump. That’s a lot of $1 service fees… to be a bit more speculative, that’s an additional $24 million a year in revenue. But hey, it’s only $1 a month, right? Bullshit.

I’m pissed as all hell over this one little dollar - one dollar that I put in about 3 minutes to earn (before taxes), but hey, it’s still MY dollar. Why should Wells Fargo have 3 pre-tax minutes of my life for a service that I have grown to know and love as part of my general checking account? $24 million a year, that’s why. Filthy, rotten bastards.

I haven’t taken additional action yet, but I’m in the process of hunting down the best possible resource to vent my complaints. One of the main reasons I use Wells Fargo is their easy-to-use Web interface for balance transfers and checking the status of my account. Maybe that’s what my $1 is paying for, but they said it was FREE? Right? They get to hold my money and play with it all day long, making loans to businesses and individuals just like me - with my money - earning huge interest rewards off of my measly accounts, all why offering me FREE access to services that allow them to make money off of my money. Seems like a fair trade… I give you access to make money from my money and you give me access to a free debit card and online checking. Sounds simple enough. I’m guessing that the $1 probably isn’t for the Web site, they’ve had that running for quite some time with no additional fees… but it has to be for something, right? I’m going to dig to the bottom of this.

If you look at the Wells Fargo Web site (www.wellsfargo.com), they have a very comprehensive list of resources for nearly every service they offer, yet to contact them about anything other than general questions or technical support, you need to fill out a form and hit the submit button. Where are the phone numbers and a map to people who care, versus people who are paid to be speed bumps? Are you afraid of your customers, Wells Fargo? The fact is, we’re talking about you, you big red ball of corporate banking bullshit… why not try to join in the conversation and learn a thing or two about what people think about you? Would that hurt so much? Markets are conversations and Wells Fargo is refusing to offer an open door to conversation, instead putting a variety of bottlenecks in place that make open conversation only possible through interaction at one of their branches - good luck trying to get a branch phone number from their Website. We have the Web; we have telephones… open the doors! We are your customers and we provide you with your source of revenue… talk to us!

Tirade aside, I’m going to push forth and get to the bottom of this. I don’t claim to have the means or resources necessary to take my $1 back, but I’ll grip it tightly while they pull and tug on the little green bastard. Hold on Washington, we’re going to hold up a stagecoach at sunrise.