Wells Fargo may take advantage of consumers through unfair overdraft policies, according to class action lawsuits.
Unfair overdraft fees: Overview
Overdraft fees are charged as a part of overdraft protection programs offered through banks and credit unions such as Wells Fargo. In return for allowing transactions to “overdraft” their account, consumers pay their bank an overdraft fee. This fee may put their account further in the negative but allows consumers to use their bank account despite having a negative balance. Consumers can only be charged overdraft fees if they have opted into their bank’s overdraft protection program.
Several banks and credit unions face legal action as a result of allegedly unfair overdraft fee practices. Some banks have been accused of charging multiple overdraft fees on a single transaction due to subsequent attempts to clear a transaction. Others have been accused of reordering transactions in order to maximize the number of fees charged during transaction processing. Oftentimes, consumers say that they were not given all the necessary information about a bank’s overdraft policies when opting into overdraft protection. This may result in surprise overdraft fees.
In the face of customer scrutiny, big banks such as Wells Fargo are reducing or entirely eliminating their overdraft fees. However, this does not change the fact that consumers may have fallen victim to banks’ unfair overdraft fees in the past. Consumers may still have a legal claim against Wells Fargo.
Wells Fargo overdraft class action lawsuit
Unfortunately, Wells Fargo may have a history of taking advantage of customers through unfair bank fees.
In 2010, Wells Fargo was ordered to pay $203 million in a class action verdict. The verdict was reached in a class action lawsuit claiming that the bank misled customers about overdraft fees. Plaintiffs in the case accused the company of reordering transactions in order to charge overdraft fees on multiple transactions.
In 2017, one Wells Fargo customer took legal action against the bank for its allegedly predatory overdraft fee policies. The plaintiff in the case says that he was charged multiple overdraft fees on transactions despite never opting into Wells Fargo’s overdraft protection program.
The source of this issue was an Uber transaction, the plaintiff contends. According to the class action lawsuit, Wells Fargo should have treated his Uber ride as a one-time transaction and not authorized it based on insufficient funds. Instead, Wells Fargo allegedly took advantage of the situation by authorizing the transaction. This allowed the bank to charge multiple overdraft fees on other transactions known at the time of authorization, the Wells Fargo customer claims. According to the Wells Fargo class action lawsuit, these fees violated the bank’s account agreements.
In 2021, Wells Fargo agreed to pay over $10 million to put these allegations to rest. Although Wells Fargo resolved this class action lawsuit, consumers could still take action against the company for other unfair overdraft fees.
Join a Wells Fargo overdraft fees class action lawsuit investigation
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I’m not sure if this is in the same category as the others but Wells Fargo and I have an interesting history. I’m currently unsure as to how I can even check if the first part of this is even what was happening, so if someone knows the answer to this, please enlighten me. But I opened an account with them following the sale of my grandmother’s home following her passing. so I received quite a large amount of money for that and I used that to open a checking and savings account ; putting a portion of the full amount ~$10k in my checking and the rest in savings. I also opted out of (or thought I opted out of) their Overdraft Protection with my understanding that if my funds depleted in the checking to the point of requiring Overdraft Protection, it would then pull the money from my savings or that my purchases would be declined. Now the next part is what I’m still unclear of and not sure of is this. I continued to make purchases not realizing that I was dipping into savings until after the fact and would then put money from the savings into the checking. Does anyone know if them using my savings money also incurred an overdraft fee. I no longer even have the account open anymore but that’s due to the other half of my experience with Wells Fargo. Otherwise I would go back online and check. But unfortunately, this next thing happened. Now I’m not stupid, not am I genius. but I am definitely too trusting. An old neighbor needed my help in cashing a check from an escrow or an inheritance and he explained to me because he had just opened his Wells Fargo account, it wasn’t able to be cashed for the large amount that it was for. So I went into the bank with him to potentially help him cash it because he showed me the check and it was the understanding that I was going to cash it but would only give him the funds once they cleared and the money posted to my account. When we went in to the branch, the teller said that he could try to cash the check with the check needing to be endorsed and then written over to me for deposit. But he then said most of the time those deposits will be rejected off the bat by Wells Fargo due to it being a third party. So he said that he wouldn’t be able to do it himself as his manager wouldn’t likely approve it. But he said that if I were to use the atm outside, it would be able to be (or at least attempt to) initiate the transfer. So after following the advice of the teller, I deposited the check into the atm and then said that I would withdraw a little bit, (a small fraction of the total amount) and just deduct it from the amount id have to give him once the check deposited into my account. Then I waited until the check would deposit, and if it didn’t we’d know it wasn’t possible and he’d have to contact the sending bank for another check. So a few days passed and I noticed that the check had actually posted into my account. Taking that as indication that everything was legit and I went down that morning and withdrew the amount he was entitled to , minus what he had already been given by me that first day. Everything was fine because the bank wouldn’t have deposited the money without first verifying the transfer with the originating bank. It’s always been my experience with check deposits and transfers that the money wouldn’t be allowed to post to a bank account without the verification process occurring. So about two weeks later, I am severely taken off guard to see that my savings account suddenly had about $10k missing from it. And after going down to the bank, I learned that the check was being considered a fraudulent check and the deduction was a charge back to the originating bank. now by this time, my neighbor claimed that it was a mistake by them and then he would contact the other bank for me to get me the money back. Unfortunately this happened the day before I had a planned vacation with my boyfriend to Vegas. And I was then left without any means of rectifying this situation as the neighbor then went MIA once we were out of the state and the whole experienced actually resulted in me and my boyfriend being stranded in Vegas for 3 weeks because the money I had set aside for the trip was what was taken by Wells Fargo and when I did get back home it was then the holiday season and getting anyone to return my calls was difficult and it wasn’t until after new year that I got a fraud representative to initiate a claim under the term “Research Claim”, with the woman on the phone assuring me that they would likely be able to get me the funds after 1o days. And it aunt until almost a month later that I learned any news on the case and it was them rejecting my claim. So not having any help from them, I then went and filed a police report and was assigned an investigating officer, who did great as far as I could see with tracking the neighbor down, who was in fact in jail when she was given everything. Unfortunately, once I learned anything new on the case, the neighbor was released and she had to track him down. Which she apparently did, but the city prosecutor decided to not take the case to court and everything is now back to square one and I don’t know what to do, because its incredibly unjust and I am without the last bit of my inheritance because an evil, manipulative jerk of a neighbor found a way to rob me and get away with it. If anyone knows of a way to at least get some of my money back, or to get justice for this welcome to do so. But I’m out options now. needless to say, I will not be banking with Wells Fargo ever again due to the number of missteps and overall terrible experience at all levels of their company.