FYI if you are doing the open a new account might want to read this... [www.usatoday.com]
This can be taken both ways.... they want to see how new accounts are treated or? They need so many new accounts open?

Since some of the snowflakes seem offended by the word "warning" (written in a normal font with no caps or exclamation points) in the original thread title, I have removed it. I replaced it with a new title which I'm sure that some people will complain about also. Have fun!

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/11/2016 03:33PM by Sybil2.

You've got me all nervous now! I'm a brand new MS and was called a couple of days ago by the MSC to do this particular shop. I agreed and the woman seemed so relieved. She practically begged me to recruit all my friends and family as it is a "huge project".

My hope is that this project is for the purpose of monitoring and stopping this activity. I was told that if I keep the account open past 30 days I would be eligible for a second shop. My guess is that it will be a credit card shop and I'm definitely not interested in that.

@MrsJennyK, personally I would not perform these shops but I had already refused all the pleading phone calls from the MSC because giving up my SS# and opening a new bank account is worth A LOT more than $40 to me. Other MSCs have shops to open a new bank account that pay $100 - $200.

Maybe you should talk to your financial adviser/accountant/etc. to get better informed about the situation. Do NOT base your financial matters on posts from a public forum or scheduler with a large MSC.

"5,300 Wells Fargo employees fired over 2 million phony accounts"

I am now wondering if some of the phony accounts were actually mystery shops requiring shoppers to temporarily open new accounts which contributed to the fraud. Things that make you go hmmm.

Has corporate America gone insane? I am now constantly being pressured by store clerks to please complete the online survey on my receipt, "It would mean so much to me." So let's make the store employees hire the survey takers, and not have to pay anyone for service evaluation? And those "Win $1,000 for taking an online survey!" Yeah right, if you are the owners cousin... Remember the McDonald's Monopoly scam?

[lubbockonline.com]

I just talked to my husband about this and he was like, "hell no. Cancel the shop immediately." I don't want to hurt my chances of getting work from this company in the future but my husband was uncomfortable with this to begin with (like Sybil said - running my SS for $40 and having to keep an account open, potentially with fees). So now I need to cancel and I don't quite know how. I suppose there are instructions on the MSC's site or in the confirmation email I got. This makes my stomach hurt.

You just tell them the truth in the most polite way manner and as soon as possible. Explain that your husband is against it and you should have discussed it with him before accepting the shop; tell them that since it affects your family and possibly his credit and finances, you cannot complete the shop. It's not like you are "flaking" on them and just not doing the shop, you are giving them advance notice, and with perfectly valid reasons. Then sign up with more companies and don't sweat it if you don't get more shops with this particular MSC. There are plenty more MSCs out there.

Hit "reply" and change the beginning of the subject line to URGENT!!!!

A lot of times confirmation emails state to not use the reply function, but I don't know any schedulers who have had a problem with it and I have done this 100s of times when I needed to discuss something important with the scheduler such as guidelines, etc.

@MrsJennyK, we need to be careful to not mention the MSC because the client is being discussed. I have received phone calls directly from the MSC, not the third party scheduling company that this MSC sometimes uses. I'm not sure if you accepted this shop directly through the MSC or the outside scheduling company. Either way, I would call the MSC directly. I am sure they are already being slammed with phone calls. Do NOT try to resolve this through email since this MSC is notorious for not using email as a reliable form of communication.

It is my belief that the MSC should NOT hold it against any shoppers who decide to cancel their Wells Fargo shops. It is not the shoppers fault nor is it the MSC's fault that all this is going down.

Sybil, I definitely won't mention the MSC. I was called directly by the MSC to schedule this shop. I sent them an email but I will call and ask for the person who scheduled me. The schedulers must be freaking out because I'm sure I'm not the only one calling!

@JASFLALMT wrote:

You just tell them the truth in the most polite way manner and as soon as possible. Explain that your husband is against it and you should have discussed it with him before accepting the shop; tell them that since it affects your family and possibly his credit and finances, you cannot complete the shop. It's not like you are "flaking" on them and just not doing the shop, you are giving them advance notice, and with perfectly valid reasons.

This is a national and probably international news story. That should be reason enough. I don't think you need to play the "my husband is against it" role.

First, I tend to agree that $40 to open and hold open account with potential fees for a few months is not really reasonable under the best of circumstances. I do have accounts with this bank already and they were offering an opportunity to add additional relationships, which would not have incurred fee for me, but still for $40 I was not interested in the hoops to jump through.

Second, the shops are only relatively recent. The court proceedings and fines are from prosecutions that would have started a significant amount of time--likely years--ago. The cancellation of shops may be due to cost cutting at WF, though even a sizable fine such as that should not be particularly detrimental to WF. Generally contracts are broken by mutual consent or in bankruptcy. WF is certainly not going to be in bankruptcy.

@MrsJennyK wrote:

Sybil, I definitely won't mention the MSC. I was called directly by the MSC to schedule this shop. I sent them an email but I will call and ask for the person who scheduled me. The schedulers must be freaking out because I'm sure I'm not the only one calling!

Many of the schedulers for this MSC work part-time hours so I would just ask for the Team # that is handling this project. Don't waste your time asking for a specific person. Many of them do not even know all the other schedulers or you will be put on hold for a long time or they will "take a message" that never gets to that person so you stay in limbo.

I agree with your husband to get this taken care of ASAP especially since today is Friday and this MSC is not open on the weekends (most of the time.)

I was going to write to say something similar to Flash. That is, the behavior was likely going on for years, as has the investigation. Not to mention that it takes a long time for companies and the government to negotiate settlement terms. It is highly unlikely that the recent shop activity would have been part of what was going on previously.

In fact, the current set of shops are likely watched very closely to make sure no one is doing anything like the behavior that brought about the current state of affairs. It may even be that WF offered to the Federal government to do the mystery shopping as part of a new monitoring process.

I did open one of these accounts in June. I agree that $40 is not enough, BUT the bank branch recently opened a block from my home. I needed to open a new account with direct deposit to share with my son. I had almost opened the account two months earlier but put it off ...... for no reason other than busy with other things. When I saw the shops, I figured I would grab $40 for what I was going to do anyway. I will probably open a second account but not right now. If the MSC bonuses the shops, it might make me open the account sooner rather than later.

I opened this account not planning to keep it open the minimum time and close it - I opened it as an account I will keep and use. There are no bank fees if you have direct deposit, regardless of how small the direct deposit is. and there is no minimum balance, so the direct deposit can immediately be spent or transferred out. I can view my statements and transactions online so I can keep a daily tab on my accounts. There is a 90-day grace period before the fees start, giving you 90 days to either get a direct deposit or close the account without fees. I got a free chipped debit card, enabling me to do the "chip mystery shops" with another MSC (although the amount I will use it is limited because I do not trust debit cards, ANY debit cards). I got a no-yearly fee, high points American Express credit card.

I agree with Flash. The problems that are now being reported are based on the suffering of past depositors and past actions. With people fired and a massive investigation, I don't see a risk for those who have opened accounts within the past few months or who open them in the future. As a current bank customer, I am no more worried than I am about the accounts I currently hold with Chase and Woodforest or with my credit union.

Everyone should go with their gut feeling. If you are not comfortable with the shop, cancel. I personally would not. I am not concerned with having performed the shop and I will probably do another one. Actually, please cancel. The MSC is already a little desperate because they need a lot of shoppers - cancel and help make them more desperate so they'll offer me more money. If they offer me a bunch more money, I'll immediately do another shop. Shoot, I might open two more accounts.

Just to clarify what the offer was and how the fees relate to it... For $40 you had to open a checking or savings account and keep it open for 30 days. The fees on that account don't start until 60 days after the account is open. So as long as you closed the account between day 31 and day 59, you would not incur a fee. (These are the terms for branches in California. The terms to avoid fees may be different in other states. Or in CA, in Northern Cal versus So Cal.)

I know about the fee structure because I have been a WF customer for 20+ years and because I read the shop requirements before turning down the project.

They also have a Home Equity loan project. Since I declined to do the checking account project, I didn't bother to read the details for the HE project so I can't speak to the details on that project.

But I really feel the new projects will be so closely watched that this is probably the safest time to open a new account at WF.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/09/2016 03:37PM by junk1958.

I have had several accounts with Wells Fargo for years. None of the things detailed in the reports has happened to me. Like others have said, this problem has been going on for years and is now being eliminated, presumably. Honestly, if you look at the history of most major banks, you will find some type of similar bad behavior. I generally don't like account opening shops because of all the hoops and the need to track the accounts closely to avoid fees, but I would do a shop if I wanted to keep the account, even at Wells Fargo.

I have my home loan with them opened 15 years ago. Banks go through this, and it doesn't happen over night.
My take listening to the news is the false charges they made to customers, charging for services that don't exsist, 10.00 here 15.00 there for years.
The sad thing is, now so many will be out of work through no fault of their own. Personally, I always had a bad feeling about these jobs, and never did them, 40.00 just not enough. I never had false charges on my account, but I would be leary taking these jobs, as the lawsuit is the largest in history. Just my observation, this MSC will not be out of business (retraction), but will suffer a big loss..

@Irene_L.A. wrote:

Just my observation, this MSC should be worried, they may be out of business.....

Irene_L.A., there is no need to pull a "Chicken Little." This client is not the only major client for this large MSC which has several divisions besides MS'ing. The MSC who handled the McDonald's account is still up and running.

@Irene_L.A. wrote:

I will no longer be on the site, but (again), thanks for answering, as this was important to me.

BTW, welcome back. I guess you just took a vacation from "the site" instead of actually leaving it.

I spoke to a scheduler who was very nice said she understood. She told me that the client is being hypervigilant (which I don't doubt) because of the situation but wasn't trying to change my mind. She said that if I reconsidered she would reassign it for me. I feel very positive about the interaction. In the same call we talked about another shop I was interested in and she asked me to send her some information so that I would be able to self-assign that particular type of shop. So all-in-all I don't think this will hurt me with this company.

@Sybil2 wrote:

@Irene_L.A. wrote:

Just my observation, this MSC should be worried, they may be out of business.....

Irene_L.A., there is no need to pull a "Chicken Little." This client is not the only major client for this large MSC which has several divisions besides MS'ing. The MSC who handled the McDonald's account is still up and running.

Sorry, what's a "Chicken little"?

Chicken Little said the sky was falling because an acorn fell from a tree and hit him in the head. It applies to wildly speculating a MSC could fail over issues with one client.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/09/2016 04:39PM by LisaSTL.

@Irene_L.A. wrote:

Sorry, what's a "Chicken little"?

I'm surprised a woman of advanced life experience has never heard the story of Chicken Little and the phrase "the sky is falling."

"Chicken Little Syndrome
Every time someone believes the hype behind an apocalyptic theory that will end the world, and the hysteria that ensues. It is an old cumulative tale about a chicken (or a hare in an early version) who believes the world is coming to an end. The phrase "The sky is falling" has passed into the English language as a common idiom indicating a hysterical or mistaken belief that disaster is imminent."

@Sybil2 wrote:

@Irene_L.A. wrote:

Sorry, what's a "Chicken little"?

I'm surprised a woman of advanced life experience has never heard the story of Chicken Little and the phrase "the sky is falling."

"Chicken Little Syndrome
Every time someone believes the hype behind an apocalyptic theory that will end the world, and the hysteria that ensues. It is an old cumulative tale about a chicken (or a hare in an early version) who believes the world is coming to an end. The phrase "The sky is falling" has passed into the English language as a common idiom indicating a hysterical or mistaken belief that disaster is imminent."

o.k. Chicken little isn't in my mind and I don't think the world is falling, just that (maybe) the MSC I was familiar with may be in a bit of trouble......having owed a business for years (when married), this kind of thing has effects and many will be leary of doing this account, that;s all!!! Wasn't it you that started this thread saying "Warning" No reply needed.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/09/2016 04:56PM by Irene_L.A..

The argument is such a presumption is premature and unwarranted. The client doesn't appear to be going out of business and even if they were, the MSC has many large clients. It might be different if the MSC in question were a mom and pop outfit with only one major client. Even then the smaller MSCs tend to operate with little overhead so while a potential loss could create problems it wouldn't necessarily put them out of business.

I didn't mean they would go out of business, they will take a loss, this is a large account, that's all, no business
is happy when they lose even if overhead is low. Certainly not their fault. We don't know everything, and there is always so much more than we hear on the news. Question is, do you think they will give up this account?
Time spent trying to get shopper to do it without a bonus makes me wonder. Wells Fargo may pull account.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/09/2016 05:03PM by Irene_L.A..

There is already a thread on this.....perhaps this can be added to it.

@Irene_L.A. wrote:

I didn't mean they would go out of business, they will take a loss, this is a large account, that's all, no business is happy when they lose even if overhead is low.

@Irene_L.A., then why did you say the following?

@Irene_L.A. wrote:

Just my observation, this MSC should be worried, they may be out of business.....

Perfect example of the Chicken Little Syndrome.

I thought you were leaving this forum for good, for the third time. Why come back after only a week?