A massive bank now fails to protect customers from missing money in their accounts due to fraudulent activity, sources report.
Wells Fargo has taken the easiest way out, by freezing or closing customer accounts without warning.
Michael and Mary Ellen Mervis had been loyal Wells Fargo customers for decades until they discovered and reported fraudulent activity on one of their accounts in 2015.
Recent reports have found that the couple have yet to receive any of their stolen funds.
The bank was investigated by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2018 for its frequent practice of closing or freezing customer accounts in response to fraud.
A couple was left unprotected by Wells Fargo after finding they had been the victims of fraudulent withdrawals that stole six figures from their accounts over several years.
They had been horrified to discover that one of their accountants had been withdrawing money from their checking account without authorization for several years.
The couple alerted Wells Fargo and filed a police report in their home city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
However, the bank’s response to the couple’s plight was to tell them it was closing all of their accounts, even their brokerage ones, and that they would not be permitted to open new ones with the company.
The couple disputed the closure of their accounts but the bank responded to the couple’s objections by stating their decision was final.
Wells Fargo cited its “responsibilities to oversee and manage risks in its banking operations,” as their reasoning, according to The New York Times.
The couple had no choice but to move to a new bank and were left on their own to deal with their missing funds.
“We got a hold of a lady in the fraud department, and she said this happened to a lot of people who filed fraud complaints,” Michael said.
“We were horrified. The bank had this attitude that if something went wrong, instead of trying to fix it, they were just going to run you over with the stagecoach and be done with you,” he added.
The accountant was eventually convicted of theft and ordered by court to pay restitution, however the couple has yet to get back all of their stolen money.
Freezing or closing the accounts and cutting customers loose after detecting fraudulent activity, seems to have been a common practice for Wells Fargo to save time and money for a more thorough investigation according to Matthew Valles, a former fraud investigator for the bank, in Portland, Oregon.
Valles claims the company allegedly mishandled hundreds of fraud investigations.
Matthew Valles was later fired for whistleblowing.
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Also Read: A US Bank is Now Denying Customers Access to Money
Other Banking News Today
A Chase customer now loses money due to illegal activity reports KMGH, with the bank giant refusing to lend any help.
Banking giant JPMorgan Chase is reportedly refusing to make a customer whole after thousands of dollars exited her account in a slick banking scam.
Colorado resident Betsy Rich says she received a text message last month asking her to authorize a $1,700 transaction from her JPMorgan Chase account, reports the ABC-affiliated news station KMGH.
After abruptly denying the suspicious transaction, she says she received a call from someone whose phone number matched the customer support number on her Chase debit card.
Rich says the person knew her account number, address and balance and told her that someone was trying to move funds out of her account.
At that point, Rich says she used another phone to contact Chase.
“It was very urgent, and he said that it was continuing as we were speaking.
So, I immediately picked up the other phone and called Chase Fraud. It was a 20-minute wait.
Their live chat wasn’t available either. And our branch wasn’t open.”
While waiting on hold with Chase, Rich says the scammer convinced her to change her PIN, telling her that she might lose more money if she failed to take action, reports The Daily Hodl.
Shortly after changing her PIN, $10,700 was drained from her Chase account.
After the debacle, Rich says she received a letter from Chase telling her that her fraud claim was denied.
“It says, ‘We are denying your claim because we determined that the items being disputed were authorized.’ No, they weren’t!”
Although her claim was denied, Chase returned $1,700 in wire transfers.
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Also Read: A US Bank is Now Freezing Some Retiree Accounts
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