Bank (Wells Fargo) Error In Your Favor

[RunningBum]

Recently I did a $5000 transfer from my Wells Fargo savings account to PenFed, initiated from PenFed. On 11/1 I saw the money show up in PenFed, right about when expected. I like to check both ends on a transfer, so I logged into my WF account and the money was still there. Odd, but maybe they'll post it by end of the day. And it's a Friday, so maybe not until Monday morning.

Nope, still no sign of the transaction end of day Friday, Sunday, Monday, or this morning. It's a lightly used account so there's no way I'd miss it among other transactions.

I thought about letting it sit to see how long before they caught this, but I was afraid it might be awhile, and I'd forget and transfer the money a second time and not leave enough in the account. I remember a recent thread where someone was going to jail for spending money that was mistakenly posted to their account, so I decided to contact them. I gave all the details, including that the money showed up at PF on 11/1.

I got back a reply about 4 hours later, saying that the transaction created on 11/1 (should have been earlier) was showing as pending, and then an explanation of the transfer process, including this line:
"The debit to your Wells Fargo account will appear immediately after the
outgoing transfer is initiated."

I laughed at first, but then got a little PO'd, because they just blew off that they screwed up the transaction. This time it was in my favor so no big deal, but what if the opposite had happened, they debited my account by didn't send the money over? So I wrote another reply back saying that there was no way the transaction followed this process, and I'd feel more confident about banking with them if they'd admit there was an error and they've fixed it.

I suppose it's possible they found the missing transaction in an audit in the 4 hours between my message and their reply, but it's more likely that my message prompted them to find and fix it. I didn't say it, but I'd have expected some kind of "thanks for being honest" in their reply.

The only reason I'm with WF is that I want a bank I can walk into if I need something like a medallion signature or something else that would be easiest to do in person. I used to be with BofA but they closed down the branch I was using and the nearest one is 20 minutes farther away.

 

[Spock]

While you would expect perfection in financial transactions, I haven't found a single institution that doesn't routinely screw something up.

WellsFargo: transferred out an IRA to another custodian. WF forgot to include a small amount of credited interest in rollover... so they just dumped the interest into my checking account creating a large hassle with a taxable distribution that was further penalized as I was "under age" for IRA withdrawls.

Discover Bank: Their year end interest statement for IRS reporting missed the December interest payment. Customer support argued that it was correct until I walked them through the years interest and showed them the total didn't match.

Fidelity: Got a letter in the mail yesterday that there is a problem with a rollover IRA. They included a postage paid envelope with which to return the requested information. BUT. They did not say what the problem was nor what additional info is required. I go onto the Fido website and the transfer process says "it needs my attn" with a link to the transfer tracker page... which only shows "in progress". So I'll be spending the morning playing Fido tag to see if I can get it resolved... but its going to be sticky because I'm doing it under POA on behalf of my Dad.


Its part of a broader decline. Ever since we started accepting software that required "close all windows and try again" (the same OS runs a major ATM supplier) the bar has been lowering bit by bit, year by year.

 

[grasshopper]

Wells Fargo deposited a billpay check to my account, I could go online and download a copy, it clearly looked like an online payment of some kind I called 2 times both times I was told that "no it was for me", still got the money.

 

[JustCurious]

I would have not replied the second time after you notified them of their error and they blew you off. No one could criticize you for keepin the money after you notified them of the error and they did not fix it.

 

[Texas Proud]

There are always problems with banks and they sometime take a long time to get fixed...


I use bill pay and paid AT&T for my mom's account. But AT&T screwed things up as they seemed to change her account number (they still say she has one account but when I called in it says two)....


Since AT&T said they never got the money I contacted the bank to have them show proof of payment... I had done it myself but AT&T did not like what I sent. The bank said they can send more info than I could and it would be taken care of. Well, AT&T said they did not get the money even though the bank said they did. WTF? So, the bank said it is not their problem and AT&T demanded payment. I asked the bank to put the money back into the account since the vendor is saying they do not have the money... they refused saying they did.


The recommendation was to sue AT&T ..... really, for what.... we owed them the money... AT&T or some collection agency is still trying to get the money for 3 plus years... got a letter late last week even...

 

[Texas Proud]

BTW, I would bet anything that the money will go out within a week.... sometimes it takes awhile before a person is involved with recons...

 

[HI Bill]

This discussion makes me even more nervous when I was in the past when requesting a rollover of a 401(k) to and IRA at a different institution. My past several with Vanguard have gone well, but there's the part where the contributing institution mails a check to the receiving institution, and you have to wait a week for it to clear.

 

[MRG]

While you would expect perfection in financial transactions, I haven't found a single institution that doesn't routinely screw something up.]

+1

My career was based on the fact that something was always breaking in these organizations. You don't hear about 99.99999% of them as there is no customer issues, they fixed them. I had the fun of being part of a bunch of them. When a major computer manufacturer takes a large system and air freights it into a customer there's a problem. Yet no one who wasn't part of the outage was aware of the issue.

 

[DFDubb]

LOL @ expecting WF to thank you for being honest.

 

[scrabbler1]

Back in the mid-1980s, my bank made an error in my favor, just like the Monopoly Community Chest card. It was for $100, and it happened at a time where I had very little money because I had just bought a new car.


I made a $100 cash deposit at a bank branch and as the teller was trying to process it, he saw the ribbon on the typing machine was not printing for some reason. He removed my deposit slip and stamped on each of the 2 or 3 copies, "deposits subject to collection unless cash" and handed my copy back to me.


A few weeks later, I got my monthly bank statement and saw that my $100 deposit had been credited twice to my account. I didn't say anything, figuring the bank would easily figure it out and reverse the second deposit. But one month went by, then another, then another. So it was mine.


Whenever some little thing happens which rips me off for a few dollars here and there, I don't get very upset because starting then I knew I was in the black (although I had some bad breaks before that which cost me a few dollars from time to time).

 

[2retireearly]

While you would expect perfection in financial transactions, I haven't found a single institution that doesn't routinely screw something up.]

+1

My career was based on the fact that something was always breaking in these organizations. You don't hear about 99.99999% of them as there is no customer issues, they fixed them. I had the fun of being part of a bunch of them. When a major computer manufacturer takes a large system and air freights it into a customer there's a problem. Yet no one who wasn't part of the outage was aware of the issue.

My career was also based on my fixing financial issues. (I wonder if we did the same thing..same place?) The number of transactions were in the millions,daily... the financial products were overly, mathematically complicated, with insane, easy to break rules..both in the computer, and by a human....I made a lot of money fixing these, because of all the places errors can and will occur. It was eye opening though. How things WILL go wrong. I imagine every large (and, maybe more so, small) financial institute of any sort has these issues, daily. 6 sigma..ha! But I got paid well to 'fix' them before the consumer knew what was happening! We truly never 'harmed' the consumer...we always made them whole, or better. Ah...what fun!

 

[RunningBum]

LOL @ expecting WF to thank you for being honest.

Yeah, that was pretty ridiculous on my part. It just irked me that they basically talked down to me, telling me about the process a transfer goes through when it's clear they screwed up and didn't notice until I told them.

 

[Walt34]

The only time I can remember the "bank" (actually it was a single teller) making an error was when I cashed most of my paycheck - and in the early '70's it was a check - because I paid everything I could except the phone bill in cash, even the rent. The teller made a $100 mistake in my favor and I remember sitting in the car, counting the money four times to make sure the mistake wasn't mine. Knowing that I was probably paid three or four times what that poor girl was making, and that she'd take the hit and probably get fired when the accounting came up short, I got back in the drive-in line and gave her the money back. The look of relief I got told me I was probably right.

The thing is, she was really cute and if I'd had more sense than a box of rocks I'd have asked her out but I was more focused on getting the money straight at the time.

 

[RunningBum]

I heard back from Wells Fargo after my last message. It got escalated to an "Email care specialist". He says he thoroughly reviewed the case and assures me there was no error.

He goes on to say "Preauthorized payments post to
your account on the business day the payment authorization is received
from the merchant". How they can say there was no error when I initiated the transfer before Nov 1 (probably Oct 30), saw the money at VG on Nov 1, and didn't see the transaction on WF until Nov 5 where it showed as pending, and finally complete today on Nov 7 is beyond me.

I wish I had waited a couple weeks to report this, to see just if or how long it would've taken them on their own to find this.

 

[ckelly78z]

When we were buying our fist house, the bank messed up the transaction by crediting our account $7000 rather than debiting it. They realized their problem, and removed the $7000 a day later. When our next statement showed up, it showed the credit, and the debit, but it still showed that our balance was +$7000, they should have pulled the money out twice.

We carried this balance in our account for 6 years, until they must have done an audit, and realized the issue...no problem, we hadn't seen it either...

 

[RunningBum]

Looks like I might get another chance at this. I did the same kind of transfer, just $1000 this time, a couple days ago. The money is in my PenFed account. Does not show as pending or anything. Absolutely no sign of anything at Wells Fargo. I'm going to watch this and see if it ever shows at WF. Maybe after a month I'll ask them about it. Or maybe not. They were pretty smug about how it all went as expected last time. We'll see if they're right when I don't tell them about it.

 

[Backpacker]

It seems to me the issue may be with penfed I'm guessing they post prior to actually receiving the funds. Perhaps even though the funds look available there is some kind of provisional hold internally?

 

[RunningBum]

It seems to me the issue may be with penfed I'm guessing they post prior to actually receiving the funds. Perhaps even though the funds look available there is some kind of provisional hold internally?

Could be, though I'm not seeing any kind of hold or "pending" with the transaction on the PF (receiving) side. Just that money was received on 12/3. I think I requested it on 12/2. I was surprised it was available that quickly.

Wells Fargo is showing the transfer out today as a pending transaction, without any prompting from me. It just seems backward, that WF should be getting the request and posting it as soon as they initiate the transfer, and PF should be receiving it ~3 days later. Instead it's acting like a check deposited, where it takes a few days to clear. But this was an electronic funds transfer.

Oh well, at least it is consistent.