Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Alabama Restaurant Owners Claim Wells Fargo Won’t Fix Issue That Cost Workers $30K In Tips

An Alabama restaurant has plastered signs around a Mobile neighborhood accusing Wells Fargo of being run by liars, after the bank reportedly cost employees of the establishment tens of thousands of dollars in tips and refused to remedy the situation.

AL.com reports that in an attempt to make others aware of what he claims is “corporate bullying,” a local business owner hung signs declaring “Wells Fargo: LIARS” on several establishments in the Mobile area.

The man says the signs were created after the bank refused to fix a mistake in its system that cost his employees $29,400 in tips.

The issue began four years ago, when the man and his brother – who own several businesses in the area – moved their credit card processing system to Wells Fargo.

The man claims that during the transfer process Wells Fargo incorrectly entered the business into the system as retail, rather than tip service.

As a result, the tips customers left on their credit card bills were not going to the business’ servers.

“By the time they caught the mistake, it had accumulated to a large sum,” the man tells WPMI. “After going back and forth with the bank for a while, they essentially told us that nothing was ever going to happen.”

The business owner says the company has only received about $600 of the $29,400 it’s owed.

But the owners’ issues with the bank don’t end there, AL.com reports.

Last May, the two men decided to purchase another property in the area using money from an inheritance they’d received. The men say they were given cashier’s checks for more than $20,000 each from Wells Fargo and then deposited them into their accounts.

When the men withdrew the funds to complete the transaction, the checks from the bank allegedly bounced.

The owner says, in that situation, the bank made up the difference by draining the holdings in all of their accounts and issuing them credit cards that were maxed out. He says this essentially left them penniless.

According to the brothers, it took 20 days for Wells Fargo to fix the situation.

And so the men decided to voice their frustrations with the bank in a very public manner.

“We’ve gotten a lot of positive response and a lot of people got behind us on it, for sure,” he says.

A spokesperson for Wells Fargo tells AL.com that the company has repeatedly reviewed the credit card processing situation.

“We believe we have acted appropriately to resolve this situation. Wells Fargo worked with [the owners] in the spring of 2011 to resolve issues involving his credit card processing,” the spokesperson says. “While the underlying error that led to this issue was not caused by Wells Fargo, we worked diligently to assist [the owner] and his business in the resolution of this situation. We take customer privacy seriously and therefore cannot discuss further details of his account.”

‘Wells Fargo LIARS’: Fed up with service, Mobile bar owner sticks it to big bank [AL.com]


by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

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