Wells Fargo Freezes New Deposits in Painful Scandal

Wells Fargo froze new deposits in what seems to be one of its most painful scandals, affecting customers nationwide.

For the second time this year, Wells Fargo acknowledged that deposits were not showing up in customers’ accounts.

In an emailed statement Friday morning, a Wells Fargo representative said the issue was affecting a “limited number of customers,” and that “the vast majority” of instances had been resolved before noon, while the “few remaining” would be resolved soon.

Jeani Cortez, a single, disabled, self-employed accountant and Alaska resident, says she was supposed to have paid her rent, gas, electric and internet payments for the month by now with funds she deposited Wednesday.

She said she was told Friday by a Wells Fargo representative that she would not be able to access her deposit for another three to five business days. She’d earlier been told that Wells Fargo could send her a letter to give to her creditors; that too has not arrived.

“There is simply not enough funds (without that deposit) to cover them all,” she wrote in an email, adding: “I simply cannot live without my funds now.”

For Brent Morrison, a Texas resident and father of two, the Thursday outage was doubly painful: He was laid off less than two weeks ago.

“That money was a little bit important to me yesterday,” Morrison said in a phone interview Friday.

While the funds — approximately $2,000 — ultimately did appear in his account, Morrison said he’d also been affected by the March outage, so he is now looking to move his money to a local bank, he said.

“They lost a customer. I just have no choice,” Morrison said. “It just doesn’t make sense to continue with them. The words ‘banking’ and ‘confidence’ shouldn’t end in a question mark.”

Also Read: JPMorgan is Abruptly Closing Business Accounts in New Scandal

Wells Fargo Customers See Deposits Disappear

Wells Fargo customers have reported seeing their deposits disappear from their accounts, an occurrence of which some may have already been familiar with earlier this year.

“Amber Matherly had planned to move into her new apartment Thursday.

To do so, Matherly, a Dallas resident, had deposited a check into her Wells Fargo account the previous evening; she also expected a direct deposit to hit by the time she awoke.

But when the morning rolled around and she went to check her account, Matherly found that not only were the deposits missing, but that her entire account had been overdrawn by hundreds of dollars.

“Entirely panicked,” Matherly said, she raced to a local Tom Thumb convenience store to get a money order, and ended up having to borrow $500 from a friend to get the funds necessary to secure her new keys.

“I have never had any issues with them before, so this was shocking,” said Matherly, who said in a message to NBC News that she’s been with Wells Fargo since about 2009.”

CNBC says this week’s incident mirrored one encountered by Wells Fargo customers in March, which the company then blamed on an unspecified “technical issue.”

These painful events come after Wells Fargo agreed to pay $1 billion to settle a new class action lawsuit that accused the bank of overstating its progress in cleaning up after its 2016 fake-accounts scandal.

Other Wells Fargo Bank News

Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) banks have been quickly closing down this year with another big location scheduled to close this fall.

WFMZ News reports that Wells Fargo will close its Flourtown, Montgomery County, branch as more and more customers begin to switch to digital banking.

This is a trend we’ve seen all year as online-banking only banks attract an array of new customers primarily due to their high-yield offers.

“Wells Fargo has made the difficult decision to close the Flourtown branch on Wednesday, October 4, 2023,” according to a statement from the bank.

“Until then, customers can use each branch and bank with us as they always have.”

“This is not an easy decision or one we take lightly,” the bank said.

“Branches continue to play an important role in the way we serve our customers, and we continuously evaluate our branch network in light of changing customer needs, the increase in the use of digital banking and market factors.”

Wells Fargo has closed branches in the Lehigh Valley and nearby counties.

And in Philadelphia, Wells Fargo has closed 17% of its local bank branches since 2020.

PNC is not far behind, shuttering 15% of its branches in the Philadelphia area, per the Philadelphia Business Journal.

Bank of America has also followed suit, closing 5% of its physical locations in the region, as well.

Also Read: US Banks Are Freezing Accounts and Withdrawals in New Scandal

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