This week Wells Fargo surprised customers who maintain free checking accounts.
The San Francisco-based bank sent notice that it’d be charging new monthly fees ranging from $5-$12 to customers who do not maintain a minimum daily balance in the thousands or have a direct deposit of $500 each month.
Bloomberg reports these new fees are a result of recent legislation banning excessive overdraft fees. Wells Fargo lost 27 percent of its service-charges revenue since the law was implemented, dropping it to a measly $1.3 billion annually. It must make up for it by imposing fees on customers who don’t have a couple extra grand sitting in their checking account indefinitely (i.e., students, those living paycheck to paycheck, and the unemployed).
Maybe instead of nickel-and-diming its poorest customers, the bank could take the shortage out of executive pay, which has increased by 180 percent since 2008. Or it could stop spending millions lobbying against things like corporate transparency laws and consumer protection
It could also raise more capital by selling off the 4 million shares of America’s prison industrial complex it possesses. Or it could fall back on whatever is left of the $25 billion it received in government relief, provided by taxpayers, many of whom lost their job when the bank’s bad investments helped topple the economy. The term “class warfare” is thrown around a lot in the media lately, but it accurately describes the way Wells Fargo conducts business.
This article appears in Jun 27 – Jul 3, 2012.
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I think my favorite part is where Wells Fargo is referred to as IT instead of THEY. You know, because corporations are not people!
Correct, Scott. But there’s no sneaky agenda here. A collective noun, whether it is Wells Fargo or Creative Loafing, doesn’t get a plural pronoun — or it shouldn’t. When Creative Loafing sponsors a party, for example, it would not be referred to as “they.” As for the reporters at Creative Loafing? They would be referred to thusly. And so would Wells Fargo’s employees or board members. Thanks for noticing!
So…this all came about because the Federal Government passed some new regulations?
Right. If you don’t let me overcharge person one, then I have to overcharge person two. It’s all your fault.
DLP: You need to do your homework. Many credit unions are beginning to charge fees for all kinds of services. Just one here and one there but I will predict that soon they will have as many fees as the next bank.
They are still fewer than the largest banks. Small banks charge fewer fees, too, but large banks use their huge profits to buy the smaller banks, so to keep up you have to keep changing. It’s easier to move to a credit union.
I’m leaving this awful bank after YEARS of being with them. I started in the early 2000’s when they were First Union, then loved them even more as Wachovia; but Wells Fargo is simply terrible. Awful products, poor customer service, and fees up the ying yang. Nice to see them throw their long-time customers a bone. Moving to a local bank with free checking AND free checks, no minimum monthly balance, and ATM fee reimbursement as long as I have direct deposit of any kind/amount. That is a bank I can build a good relationship with and feel confident giving them more money to hold in savings accounts and such. Wells Fargo should be ashamed of themselves…