Many in my neck of the woods around $70-$80. Curious if anyone has done these and are they pretty straight up or any booby traps? Thanks

They are straightforward and simple. Be sure to take 2 IDs, at least $25 (or whatever the requirement is) in cash for the opening deposit. You can't have more than a certain number of (business or personal) checking and/or savings accounts open at the same time; it was 5 accounts last time I opened one.

Be careful of opening and closing too many accounts with WF if they become your main personal bank: It may arouse suspicion, and I vaguely recall that some shoppers who did a lot of opening and closing have had holds put on the accounts they needed for their everyday use.

The maximum number of accounts you can have open is four. If you wait until the end of the month, the fees will go up, especially for harder-to-fill locations. I've opened checking accounts for $125 and savings accounts for $100. $70 and $80 are the base fees.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/07/2024 06:46AM by drdoggie00.

They're easy. $80 is low, though. In my area, the fee jumps to $120 or so later in the month.

The last one I opened was a savings account for $100.

I wonder if we're going to see even more WF complaint shops because of the latest class action suit.

THANKS to all for the feedbacks. After you opened the account - did Wells ding you for maintenances fees or whatever?

Depending upon locale, fees of $125+ can be had. Even saw them at $300 once.

@BabyBooey19 wrote:

THANKS to all for the feedbacks. After you opened the account - did Wells ding you for maintenances fees or whatever?

No monthly fees with $500 balance or direct deposit into checking. No monthly fees on savings with $300 balance or monthly transfer from checking of $25. No monthly fees during first 60 days regardless. One is only required to keep the accounts open 7 days.

No fees.. I signed up for the auto save thing where it takes $1 for each card transaction and puts it in savings, so no fee. And my MSC payments through PayPal are direct deposit in sufficient amounts to keep me free of fees in my checking accounts.

I do these sparingly because, unfortunately, WF is my primary bank, and I don't want too many closings to be a red flag.

Last one was a remote location for a good 3-figure payment. This one was a savings account, and I went with the automatic $25 monthly transfer to avoid any fees so I could keep it open in case another lucrative shop comes up.

BabyBooey19 - If you do not close the account within the initial 60-day "fee-free" grace period, you are responsible for either meeting a condition that waives the fee or paying the fee. Conditions for waiving the fee vary depending on the type of account you open, so pay close attention to them when the banker discusses them. Luckily, Wells Fargo now considers PayPal transfers to be "qualifying electronic deposits," so they will count towards meeting a monthly direct deposit minimum to bypass the monthly maintenance fee.

Even if the fee isn't waived, it could be worth it to keep the account regardless. In-person complaint shops pay $60, and you can do one every ten calendar days, so that's 3 to 4 you could do each month, depending on how the days fall. $60 x 3 or 4=$180 or $240. I'd say that'd be worth the $5, $10, or $12 fee.

Phone complaint shops pay $25 each, which would still get you a monthly profit.

Edited to add URLs for checking and savings accounts.

[www.wellsfargo.com]
[www.wellsfargo.com]

Edited one more time to add: The MSC wants you to keep the account open for at least a week for savings; it may be longer for checking. Check the guidelines for the specific amount of time. The account has to be open for at least 15 days (I think - I don't have the guidelines handy) before you can use it for a complaint shop.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/10/2024 12:44AM by drdoggie00.

i got an offer for $525 bonus for opening a savings account with WF. I could do that in addition to the shop. It's funny to read that you need $25 to open, but you have to have 25K in the account for 90 days to get the $525 bonus. I'm thinking most people who have 25K to save are not looking at WF for savings accounts. If they are already a client that is one thing, but I can't imagine someone who banks with BofA or Chase saying...hey...i got this great offer for $525...let me move my money to WF instead.

There are so many out there that are paying between 4-5% without any hoops. I had Marcus and hopped over to SOFI instead.

I just quickly did the math. If you open an account with no interest and keep $25000 in it for 90 days you are foregoing approx $312 in interest if you had it in an acct paying 5%. On top of that if you think the interest rates are going down rather than further up it might be best to lock in a year at 5%.
As for switching banks I just got a letter from Citibank where I bank. They just sent me 5 pages of rules to explain their new "simplified" banking. It seems I will have to keep a balance of $30,000 to avoid monthly fees on my checking acct. Up until now I needed a balance of $1500 for free checking. And I will need to call them on Monday to have them explain their new simplified plan to me. What seems simple to me is to just switch my account to another bank where I do not need to put in $28,500 to keep my fee waived. Hello Wells Fargo.
And if I stay with Wells perhaps they will slip up and I can do the complaint shops in person without having to make up a story.

I joined Citibank recently. There is no need to keep any balance to get free checking. All you have to do is to have at least $250 in enhanced direct deposits each month, and Paypal, Zelle, etc., work. I also got a $300 bonus for having at least $1,500 in enhanced direct deposits in the first 3 months.

@BusyBeeBuzzBuzzBuzz wrote:

I joined Citibank recently. There is no need to keep any balance to get free checking. All you have to do is to have at least $250 in enhanced direct deposits each month, and Paypal, Zelle, etc., work. I also got a $300 bonus for having at least $1,500 in enhanced direct deposits in the first 3 months.

This 5 page letter they sent says nothing about direct deposit. I have been with this bank since 1981 since I moved here but now they are pricing me out of their market. Simplified banking starts May 5 and they say they will waive the fees for three months. I will call them Monday to see if there are other ways to waive fees however I am not at all interested in moving my direct deposits to Citi in order to play their silly simplified games. There are lots of other banks around that appreciate my business.

My main bank is Chase, which I joined automatically when Chase gobbled up Washington Mutual and converted Wamu accounts to Chase accounts. Chase keeps changing the rules. I loathe to terminate my banking relationship with them because both my main personal account (really a business account that I use for personal purposes) and my MS account are with them. To keep these accounts for free, I park at least $2,000 in the main personal account and make sure I have at least $500/month in enhanced direct deposits in the MS account.

I decided to open bank accounts at Citibank to make mystery shopping there easier. Citibank has always been one of the most difficult banks to earn bonuses and it looks like it is also one of the worst in terms of free accounts. I didn't move any of my direct deposits to Citibank. Instead, I just set up automatic Zelle payments from my Fremont Bank personal checking account to meet the monthly $250 requirement. I opened a Fremont Bank account for an MS project. That project ended but I have kept that account open. I only have to park $1,500 there to avoid fees but I usually keep more in that account.

If one of my banks suddenly requires me to keep $25,000 in my account to keep it "free," I will switch, too!

I just checked out Citi's page at [www.citi.com]

I chose the Everyday Benefits tier. I'm guessing you are in the Citigold Priority tier? That says $30,000 though.

@BusyBeeBuzzBuzzBuzz wrote:

I just checked out Citi's page at [www.citi.com]

I chose the Everyday Benefits tier. I'm guessing you are in the Citigold Priority tier? That says $30,000 though.

I just called them. Evidently they are rolling out this Simplified process. It is coming to everyone. Bottom line I have to either have $30,000 or more as an average daily balance every single month to qualify or have someone venmo me $250 once a month and perhaps I can venmo it back (or zelle). I cannot guarantee 250 monthly from mystery shopping. And it seems the account resets immediately if you miss a month and will not reset back to waiving the fee until a month later. Too many games. This does not seem to work well for single people as they are encouraging "relationships" with other family members who live with you.

Yeah, Citibank really doesn't seem to be interested in single people unless they are high income or don't mind playing games. I have lots of bank accounts and am used to playing games. I'm all set now to avoid paying fees. For me, it's worth it to make shopping Citibank easier.

I have Chase as "main account" where I receive direct deposit to my checking from my main job. So I am only required to have $500 daily balance on my saving and I am good. However, any money that goes over the $500 I transfer them to Capital One Saving because they give me a much higher interest rate then any of these crappy big branches.

Most of the Big banks has been requiring direct depot or big amount of money parking in the account in order to waive the monthly fee since 2008, which is pretty bad.If you have a daily job that does Direct Deposit you are still fine...If not you are kind of screwed to be honest....

I am slowly moving most of my banking staff towards online banking now since majority of my banking need can be done via an app and ATM anyways.

As for well Fargos....I am having a heard time trusting them due to all the "fraud" news and from time to time I do kind of wonder if all these Fraud news has anything to do with Account opening SS

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/15/2024 03:47PM by kisekinecro.

I think WF's ongoing fraud woes have little to do with account-opening shops and everything to do with complaint / sales practices shops.

It's funny WF got hit with another class action lawsuit so soon after the OCC terminated a 2016 consent order. Keep those complaint / sales practices shops coming!

[newsroom.wf.com]

[www.reuters.com]

I did an in-branch unauthorized account complaint shop today. I discovered a couple of things:

Having to tell a Wells Fargo banker, "This account was opened by a Wells Fargo employee without my permission," really gets their dander up. I wanted to just look at the guy and say, "Not like there hasn't been a precedent set...."

He turned his screen towards me, and I saw the very long list of all the accounts I'd opened and closed over the years. It's unfortunate we can't have those blown away from the history. From now on, I think I'll stick with the phone complaint shops about the ATMs always being down. I feel like there are way fewer raised eyebrows there.

@drdoggie00 wrote:

I did an in-branch unauthorized account complaint shop today. I discovered a couple of things:

Having to tell a Wells Fargo banker, "This account was opened by a Wells Fargo employee without my permission," really gets their dander up. I wanted to just look at the guy and say, "Not like there hasn't been a precedent set...."

He turned his screen towards me, and I saw the very long list of all the accounts I'd opened and closed over the years. It's unfortunate we can't have those blown away from the history. From now on, I think I'll stick with the phone complaint shops about the ATMs always being down. I feel like there are way fewer raised eyebrows there.

After I did one of these, I was turned off. It felt like I was lying to get someone in trouble. They took it seriously and did everything right. It just left me feeling bad. I only do the ATM complaints where it makes me sound like I have too much time on my hands. Some bankers look at me and can't believe I made an appointment to talk about it.

I hadn't done one of these since they changed the guidelines. I don't care for the accusatory language now. At least before, it could have been just some schmoe who did it.

They hardly ever have the in-person ATM complaints here. I doubt I could do them anyway - the bankers all know me as Wendy Whiner already. -lol-

I did a phone complaint shop about the ATMs one time. The branch number they had me call was several states away. They wanted to know specifics about me (my account #, etc) on the phone and were surprised that I was calling about machines "always" being out of order when I didn't even live in state. I haven't taken another one since then.

@CorrieCJ wrote:

I did a phone complaint shop about the ATMs one time. The branch number they had me call was several states away. They wanted to know specifics about me (my account #, etc) on the phone and were surprised that I was calling about machines "always" being out of order when I didn't even live in state. I haven't taken another one since then.

This is where you say, "I was in the area visiting, and a friend was driving me around. I have no idea which branches we went to." Or, "I asked Alexa for a number for Wells Fargo, and this is what she gave me."

I think it was Sandyf who gave me those ideas. They work like a charm.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/16/2024 06:26PM by drdoggie00.

@CorrieCJ...thank you for not taking anymore. That leaves more for @drdoggie00, me and others.

@drdoggie00 wrote:

This is where you say, "I was in the area visiting, and a friend was driving me around. I have no idea which branches we went to." Or, "I asked Alexa for a number for Wells Fargo, and this is what she gave me."

I think it was Sandyf who gave me those ideas. They work like a charm.

Thanks! Great ideas... and sorry @hbbigdaddy regarding your post above...

@drdoggie00 wrote:

I did an in-branch unauthorized account complaint shop today. I discovered a couple of things:

Having to tell a Wells Fargo banker, "This account was opened by a Wells Fargo employee without my permission," really gets their dander up. I wanted to just look at the guy and say, "Not like there hasn't been a precedent set...."

He turned his screen towards me, and I saw the very long list of all the accounts I'd opened and closed over the years. It's unfortunate we can't have those blown away from the history. From now on, I think I'll stick with the phone complaint shops about the ATMs always being down. I feel like there are way fewer raised eyebrows there.

The only thing the banker is supposed to do for complaints is log them into the bank's internal system, for which they need your name and account number. They in turn are supposed to give you a complaint number. They are NOT supposed to investigate, look up the account records, balances, other accounts, etc., or try to resolve the complaint. Wells Fargo uses the personal info given (when the banker uses the correct procedure) to delete the complaint from the system, so you can do a complaint shop again

I think the records of openings and closings are required to be kept almost "forever" by federal banking law, as part of anti money laundering laws. That's one of the shortcomings of the account-opening shops: The banker can see all the openings/closings on your record if they click on a few links.