Wells Fargo is stupid
3 Mar 2006
Today’s mail contained a new debit card from my bank, Wells Fargo. It was sent to an address that I moved from a year ago. Imagine my surprise when I checked the expiration date on the old card and found my old card doesn’t expire for another two years. Mildly alarmed that Wells Fargo was sending a card I didn’t order and don’t need to an address at which I no longer reside, I called Wells Fargo.
Nothing nefarious is going on. They simply had the old address somewhere deep in the bowels of their CRM system and although all their other correspondance comes to the new address, some quirk caused the debit card to go elsewhere. I suppose it could have been worse. They could have mis-delivered some token that would give a random stranger complete access to all my money. Oh, that’s right, they did.
On to the next question. Why did they send the card when I didn’t order it and apparently don’t need it? It’s for my protection and convenience. A review of my account has determined that my account usage might put me at a high risk of fraud, so to protect me, they’ve changed my card number.
I appreciate the thought, but perhaps they should have asked me first? There’s a few recurring charges tied to that account, and now none of them work. I’ve got to track down each one and update the account information.
I’m one of the more security conscious customers that Wells Fargo has. I use different passwords for everything. I only store my card number with companies I trust. I review my account several times a week looking for suspicious activity. If there was a fraudulant charge, I’d know about it before Wells Fargo would. But Wells Fargo decided that they needed to protect me from myself. I’m a high-value customer with lots of online activity, so I must have made a mistake somewhere and to keep me from shooting myself in the foot, they’re going to take action.
As a customer with lots of activity, it’s particularly inconvenient for me to deal with a random, unplanned card number change. Who made this sofrt of decision? Someone didn’t think through the implications of the change they were making. Hey, Wells Fargo, don’t do this again.