I received the notice above in my email inbox two days ago. Wow! That deal looks almost too good to be true!
It was. When I examined the terms, I discovered that the bank had made a teeny mistake. It didn’t take a deposit of just 25 dollars to earn the $525 bonus. It required a deposit of 25 THOUSAND dollars.
Details, details.
That’s a three decimal point error. It doesn’t exactly engender trust in the bank’s staff, its management, or it quality control procedures, does it?
Wells Fargo has a notable dossier on Ethics Alarms, notably here, but also here, here and most recently here. And the hits just keep on coming: this was an item from yesterday: Wells Fargo Accused of Draining Customers’ Accounts Without Notice or Authorization in ‘Blatant Disregard’ of Consumer Loan Protections: Class-Action Lawsuit.
Yeah yeah, anyone can make a typo (don’t I know it!) but a bank’s business is getting numbers right. I would think that especially after its terrible publicity over the past several years, Wells Fargo would check and triple check a mailing that goes out to all of its depositors to make absolutely certain no unnerving mistakes are in the copy.
I would think that, and apparently I would be wrong.
Being a helpful, responsible customer, I sent a screen shot of the botched email to my banker at the local branch. I got no reply; I also never received any error acknowledgment from the bank.
They probably are still sending that promotion out.
Ethics Alarms 
Jack,
…just don’t expect Truth – or even truth. W/F is a bank, after all.
Banks are businesses; businesses have marketers; marketers have ad agencies; ad agencies dance on the edge.
Responsible businesses also have a C-suite, corporate communications departments and legal departments who can tell the marketers to not be idiots.
My older sister (not the one you met, Jack), due to a process of buyouts of the progressively larger banks for which she worked as a lead programmer, ended up working for Wells Fargo. She retired several years ago, and was the go-to on some of the legacy software stuff they still used. That’s not my world, but suffice to say that metaphorcally speaking, she could make a screwdriver pound nails and convince a hammer to turn slothead, Phillips and Torx screws. She was damned good at it.
When she retired, they offered her part time work at a ridiculous hourly rate. I told her she was nuts not to do it. God love her, she declined. She’d had enough.
In the post on the fake accounts scandal, you said you were getting out of Wells Fargo. Did you change your mind?
No, I was vetoed. Grace handled all the banking. But I stopped her from flying ambiguous flags…
That’s interesting. I got an offer a couple months ago from Fifth Third Bank — set up a checking account and use direct deposit to deposit $2k into it — we’ll give you $600.
I did and they did. Very smooth, very professional. Of course, I have to pay taxes on that $600, but I knew that going in. I like that deal better than Wells Fargo’s.
Better than $500 for depositing $25???????
I got your offer and it was legitimate! Key Bank opened a new branch near me. Had to keep at least $50 in the bank for at least 6 months and they gave me $500.
I set a reminder in my phone for 6 months later, went in, and closed the account.
So i guess it isn’t too good to be true. But it was probably a one time only new branch thing.