I wasn’t sure where to post this, but I’m pretty pissed, so I guess the Pit.
I’ve been using Wells Fargo’s “Bill Pay” service for a number of years. It is pretty convenient, allowing you to make payments via the Wells Fargo web site. Many of the standard payments to credit card companies, etc., are made electronically, and are almost immediate, so it’s convenient. Other payments, to the gardner for example, are made by a computer generated check that’s mailed out to the person.
I sent a friend a check a few weeks ago using this service, and he never got it. (More likely he thought it was junk mail and tossed it out - they do look a bit like junk mail.) He called to ask (again) for his money. I looked at my account statement, and the money had been debited from my account 3 days after I had requested they send the check.
But he never cashed the check. No one ever cashed the check. I’m now in the middle of an e-mail correspondence with the Bank - they gave me back the money right away, and cancelled the check. But it turns out that that’s the policy - the fuckers charge your account as soon as the check is sent, and hold the money until it’s cashed! What the fucking fuck kind of deal is that!? What if I never found out the check was lost - they hold the money forever? Who gets the interest for the 2 weeks they held the money before I realized the check was lost?
I don’t know what fees you might have to pay for this service, but my credit union offers bank draft withdrawls. They debit my account, print out a draft on their account with a major bank, and then I can use that draft as a cashier’s check or money order for paying my own bills. One of the perks of this for the credit union is that they do get to use the interest generated from that money during the delay you mentioned.
But I love it, because, if the draft does go awry, within a period of time (I think it’s the 90 days that the draft is good for.) and hasn’t been cashed, they’ll refund to me the whole value of the draft back to my account.
Now, if Wells Fargo charges fees for their service, in addition to the benefit of using your money for interest purposes then I’d be behind your outrage 100%. But that’s not an assumption I’m willing to make. Most of the Bill Pay services I know are fee-less so I’d have to hear confirmation that Wells Fargo’s is different in that manner.
I’ve been using electronic bill payment through Citibank for a long time (10-15 years) and that’s always been the arrangement; the money is gone from my account as soon as I make the payment, although it might take the recipient a while to cash the check.
They save a ton of money by having people use Bill Pay. The vast majority of the payments are electronic, and cost them virutually nothing to process - much cheaper than processing a check mailed to the company. That’s why they are pushing the service so hard - every time someone uses the Bill Pay service instead of writing a check out by hand, they save money.
It’s not a bank draft or cashier’s check - it’s just a regular check.
Interest for a couple weeks (or up to 90 days - a full calendar quarter!) is money that should be mine (and which I thought WAS mine). Multiplied by everyone that uses the service it’s a whole lot of money. In my opinion, they should debit the account when the check is cashed - as has been the practice as long as I’ve been writing checks! I’m not sure how it would occur to anyone that it should be different.
The problem with waiting until the check is cashed is that while you (generic you) might have the cash at the time you process the payment, there is nothing that would stop you from withdrawing that money before the check is received. Then there are fees to the receiver of the check, and fees to you when Wells Fargo bounces the check.
Wells Fargo uses a 3rd party (Checkfree) for their Bill Pay. I worked for them (Checkfree) while I was an undergrad. We had to have banking compliance testing from the Federal Reserve to be part of their ACH banking structure.
One thing that is required from the Federal Reserve is that the money deducted from your account must be place in a NON interest bearing account until the check is cashed by the receiver. So, nobody is making any interest on your money. Not sure if Wells Fargo puts that information in their terms & conditions, but a quick call to Bill Pay customer service can serve as the cite if you need one.
In the future, you can click on the payment and check to see if the check has been cashed or not. Some banks give instant access to the information, others do a quick inquiry and send you an email within a few hours with the check status.
I didn’t know that. I guess I’m a little less outraged. I had always assumed a Bill Pay check was the same as a regular check, and was shocked that my money was gone when the check hadn’t been cashed.
That’s the way all electronic bil-pay services work. The thing is, the paper check they send to your friend is not drawn off of your account but off of the bank’s own account. They move the money from your account to their account electronically to cover this check 3 days after they send it.
On editing: Sleeps With Butterflies explained it much better.
Yep, I had no idea either and was very “oh yeah?” when they taught us. I think the info they provide to customers is pretty lacking. They put this stuff in a long and legaleze “Terms and conditions.” Not everybody is going to sit and read all of those. I think they could present some of these things in an FAQ that would benefit customers who’d like to know a little bit more.
You did touch on MY biggest pet peeve with them. They need to make the envelopes look like something other than junk mail so people don’t throw them away!
You’re a little less outraged? I think that your outrage is entirely misplaced. It sounds like Wells Fargo did nothing wrong here; they cut and mailed the check and then promptly returned the funds to you when your idiot friend threw away or misplaced the letter containing the check.
Also chiming in to say there’s no great reason for outrage if the money is gone but the check hasn’t cleared. My credit union works the same way. In fact several times, payments have gotten lost, and I’ve gotten emails from the bank saying “hasn’t been cashed, want us to cancel it?” and once or twice I’ve gotten “it’s been forever, we’re cancelling it and replacing your money”.
Sleeps With Butterflies: you’ve educated me too. I assumed the money would be in some sort of income-generating account while floating.
Your point about better labelling of the envelopes is a good one. Though it’d be interesting to see how they might so label the envelopes w/o making them targets for theft; “Wells-Fargo Bill-Payment Department” or some such would seem to say “CONTAINS A CHECK YOU CAN STEAL AND CASH”. Minor vent about WF, related to labelling of envelopes: We have our mortgage with WF, and we have a HELOC with our credit union. Periodically we’ll get solicitation letters from a variety of mortgage companies, who want us to refi with them, and they say “important information about your mortgage!”. We’ve learned to recognize those and toss them. But when we get a letter like that from WF, we can’t ignore it, it might be something pertaining to the real mortgage (it never is; it’s a suggestion that we open a home equity loan with them instead). Grrr.
Dude. Your first mistake was banking with Wells Fargo. You’ve been here long enough to log 1400+ posts and you haven’t picked up from the Font of Doper Wisdom that WF is the very devil himself? Regardless of your problems with electronic bill pay, close that account post haste and get your money parked with a credit union.
That’s been my experience as well. My water bill is paid with a paper check, and the money isn’t deducted until my town cashes it. Meanwhile, credit cards, mortgages, and others that do accept electronic payment generally get deducted within a day or two of my payment date.
