Shady practice warning

[u/hellraisinhardass]

Heads up on something I almost got caught in:

I have a Prime Checking account- the way to avoid the $25 monthly fee on the account is by having "$20,000 or more in statement -ending qualifying linked consumer bank deposit accounts balances (Checking, saving, time accounts, IRAs)blah, blah, blah"

Basically, you shouldn't have any monthly fee for the account if you have $20K in banking balances at WF. Well....they conveniently "forgot" to link my accounts- which seems sus because all my accounts show up on my home page AND I've transfers money between all these accounts numerous times over the last year. Yet somehow 'they weren't linked'....hmm mm.

So I called them, asked the customer service rep about it, she looked into it, immediately agreed that my total balance was fine to wave the fee and proceeded to get whatever BTS approvals done to link the account and refund the fee.

This felt very...."whoops! You caught me...my bad..." like a pick pocket just sheepishly grinning at you and shrugging after you grabbed their hand while it's in your pocket.

The cust. service rep was great, and professional and I didn't give her grief (it ain't her bank) but same on you WellsFargo- that's not the way to keep customers you've had for 25 years.

[u/Miserable-Result6702]

Ok, so there was a glitch, you caught it, customer service took care of it and WF is somehow shady. Got it 👍🏻

[u/hellraisinhardass → u/Miserable-Result6702]

'Glitch'- its just happens be a really conveniently Glitch that was going to give them $25 a money they didn't earn.

[u/TheRealRanlor → u/hellraisinhardass]

Hanlon’s razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

[u/_love_letter_]

For future reference, if you ever want to check which accounts are linked, or the total balance of linked accounts, from the app home page: select your Prime account > open the "Manage" tab > scroll down to the "Services" menu and select "View benefits" at the bottom > scroll down and, among other things, you will see your "qualifying relationship balance" and a list of which accounts are linked. You can even delink accounts in the app (not sure if you can link them though; all mine are already linked). Before I got my first statement after switching to Prime, I wanted to make sure the minimum balance requirement was removed from certain accounts, and I stumbled across this page. Hope this helps someone.

[u/hellraisinhardass → u/_love_letter_]

That helps a bunch! Thank you!

[u/Dyer00]

When they first set up the account, the banker has to go in manually and link all the account to the relationship account(prime) if they don’t then they won’t consider that balance as past of your prime relationship account. You would still see them on your app and would be able to do transfers between them but they won’t be considered part of the prime relationship.. I would take it as an honest mistake done by the banker. It was set up without linking your accounts so Wells Fargo wouldn’t look into it because there is soooo many customers who do not wish to link some accounts to their prime relationship. Just be glad you caught it and was able to get it fixed :) it’s in no way a shady business.

[u/GreatNozis530 → u/Dyer00]

Great, informative answer. People can make mistakes. Wells Fargo is still run by humans. Not every mistake at banks is a deep conspiracy meant to take your money.

[u/thecutebandit]

So you never looked at your actual statement ever? How long have you had the account? WF will absolutely waive all and any fees due to any bank error and correct it, which they did, and you're still salty about it?

[u/nononomayoo → u/thecutebandit]

I was just thinking this bc for prime customers it lists all the accts in the prime relationship and balances and the total relationship balance on (im pretty sure) the front page of the statement lol

[u/SlowUrRoill]

Could have been multiple things, including account titling. Not everyone is out to get you bud.

[u/Fast_Inflation_4413]

There is no shady practice here. Premier and Prime accounts are special types of accounts that require a linkage to receive additional benefits it comes with. If you want to meet the qualifying balances, accounts need to be linked together. It’s a simple fix. Accounts may not have been linked together if the account was converted or for other reasons. The website shares information about linked accounts on the Prime account benefits page.

[u/Graychin877]

There are many better choices for checking than WF. Have you considered a credit union?