I have worked for Wells Fargo for a year, have banked with Wells Fargo for 6 years, and my parents have banked with them for 7 both for their personal and business banking. I will admit that there are times when I am frustrated with them, but overall I think that these reviews are unfair. If you look at the reviews for all the banks listed on this site, none of them get many positive reviews. I think the only one with more than 2 positive comments is WaMu. WaMu may have provided excellent customer service to 3+ customers, but they were also one of the largest contributors to our sub prime mortgage crisis that almost caused our banks to collapse. Wells Fargo has been the only AAA rated bank for close to a year now, one of the only banks not taking handouts from our government, and one of the only banks to actually turn a profit. Despite any complaint I've ever had about them I was both proud and relieved to work and bank with them during last years financial crisis.
As far as most of the complaints on this site are concerned, they seem to mostly stem from consumers who are unwilling to take responsibility for their own actions. Yes, Wells Fargo charges steep overdraft fees, but ultimately I don't think that is very harsh when you consider that you are essentially taking a loan against the bank without having ever been approved to borrow money every time you use money that you don't have and Wells covers it. There are also NUMEROUS ways to provide overdraft protection to your account to prevent these fees. If you refuse to keep track of your spending or use overdraft protection, that is your own fault. Customers also seem to get frustrated with the kinds of overdraft protection that we offer, but they are all pretty standard. Overdraft protection DOES NOT mean that the bank will front you unlimited money so you can spend irresponsibly. You have to have some kind of net somewhere to draw from if you put your account into the negative. As long as you are only spending what you have, you will be fine.
As far as holding checks is concerned, customers don't seem to realize that this is for their OWN PROTECTION. You may think that the person you found on Craigslist to sell your boat to seemed like a bang-up individual, but checks do get returned more often than you would think. Even checks from well-known companies can come back due to error that the bank had NO control over. I have seen state checks be returned. Say you have a $5000 check that is deposited and comes back unpaid. The money comes out of your account, if you have already had a chance to spend that money, your account is now $5000 in the negative. How much more frustrating would that be? You always have the option of having those holds taken off early. I always make it a point to personally call on every check I place a hold on and manually release the hold when the funds have been collected from the maker bank. It usually takes about 2 days. You always have the option of requesting this! If your checks are being held because of your banking history, can you really blame us for being extra careful when you've had umpteen overdrafts in the last two days and told us you got the check from some dude from the internet that you've never met in person?
Finally, I do apologize for any bad customer service experiences. That is completely inexcusable. However, not all Wells Fargo's are like this. I go above and beyond to help my customers. Like calling to have the holds released on checks (do you know how time consuming that is?), I know all my customers by name, I personally follow up with them to make sure things are going smoothly for them, and I am as friendly as I can be. And I'm just a teller! You have no idea how rude people can be to us! At work today someone told me to f**** myself, another asked me to come home and shower with him, someone grabbed my ass, another asked if he could put post-it notes on my chest, someone yesterday threw his wallet at me, I was called a b**** and a dirty slut. This is in 2 days! It's unbelievable!