A Positive Wells Fargo Bank Story - It's Not All Bad
I know it's common enough to go after Wells Fargo here, and many of the complaints are certainly justified. However, I've heard terrible tales about most large bank corporations. My experiences with Wells Fargo, however, have never involved any problems. I've had a couple of mortgages through them, and have had my accounts there for over 25 years. Never any issues.
That is not to say that others have not had serious issues with that bank. My strategy has always been to keep close track of my banking experience. Now that banking is mostly online, that's even easier to do. Any time there has been any issue at all, I have followed up on it immediately, and whatever it was got resolved.
On the other hand, there are some advantages of banking with a major bank corporation. For 17 years, I have been using one of the largest Wells Fargo branch offices as my local bank. It was near our previous home, and any special needs, like notary public access and other seldom-needed banking processes were easy, since there were always several bankers on hand when you needed them.
Also, when I had to act as Trustee for my late parents' estate this year, I discovered just how competent the bankers at that branch really were. I needed to set up a trust account to process the estate's assets. It took less than an hour to get everything set up for that, and I had secure, exclusive online access to that account, as well, making lots of stuff much easier. The banker at that branch quickly and efficiently took care of everything for me, from setting up a trust, helping me acquire an EIN from the IRS for it, being available on short notice to notarize dozens of documents, etc. Now, I might have gotten similar services from a smaller bank, but it was so easy at a large branch office. When I needed to distribute funds, I could set up a wire transfer in just minutes. It was all just routine for the guy who acted as my banker there.
Now, we've moved to a new part of the Twin Cities, and that branch is a 40-minute drive away. The nearest WF branch office, which is 5-minutes away, is a very small branch. A couple of days ago, a cashier's check from one of the last bank accounts my parents had arrived in the mail, so I drove to that small branch to deposit it in the trust account. That was when I learned the value of a large banking corporation's network. I walked in, inserted the trust account's debit card at the teller's window and that branch was as big as it needed to be. I have to do another distribution that involves a wire transfer, so I asked if they could do that for me. The branch manager was summoned and she said, "No problem. When do you want to come in?" I told her and got an appointment on the spot. She'll be the banker for that transaction.
Does Wells Fargo suck? I guess it depends on what you need. If you need nationwide banking with every branch part of an integrated network, it doesn't suck too much. My parents banked with a local small bank system in California. Dealing with them during the management of their estate has been very, very difficult. I've gotten it done, but they do not have the broad capabilities that a major bank like Wells Fargo does. The hassles, particularly when working with them from a remote location, have been huge. Some have even required intervention by the estate's attorney, and even a court order, in one case.
So, there's something to be said on both sides, both for and against major bank corporations. I'm not a fan boi for big banking, but I can see how their reach can be very useful at times.
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I guess I'm just saying that there are times when dealing with a large organization can have its benefits. I know that I never thought I'd need any of those services until this year.
At this point, almost all of the transactions of dealing with my late parents' estate are wrapped up. There are a couple still remaining, but they don't involve particularly large sums. I've been triaging all of this, starting with the largest and moving down the line.
I'm done with the need for the trust's attorney now, which is good. We developed a good relationship during all of this, and I've been doing most of the grunt work with his guidance. Keeping his billable hours to a minimum has been a major goal. He started out being skeptical about my ability to work through some knotty issues, but ended up congratulating me for managing a lot of things he would normally have to do.
We wrapped up the entire, complicated estate process in just 6 months, which he said was a record in his experience. Unlike him, I was able to deal directly with a lot of people and organizations, through active participation in communications and a little corner-cutting. From completing the sale of their farm property, which was in escrow when they died, to short-cutting the process with their bank accounts, I was able to expedite people's actions through effective communications. It has been very, very complex and nerve-wracking, to say the least.
My parents were 96 when they died, and the family trust was only set up in 2016. By then, my father was not nearly as sharp as he was in previous years, so he neglected some things he should have done. One of those was not actually putting their bank accounts in trust, even though they were all identified in the trust documents. The attorney told me that was going to lead to a lengthy probate period. I said, "Hmm...let me look into that."
So, I did some research, and found an old court case that was a perfect match for the situation. It was resolved by a successful pleading in probate court that led to the court ruling that the accounts be put in trust. Additional research showed that that old case had led to a precedent and established a pleading process with the name of that case that had been used in some later cases. So, I forwarded the information to my attorney, with citations. He said, "Damn! Do you want a job doing research for me?" I laughed, but he filed a pleading based on and named after that obscure precedent, using one of the successful pleadings I discovered. It worked, and a court order was issued, following a brief hearing with no opposition, requiring the banks to put the accounts in trust after the fact. The assets have been delivered so I can distribute them now. The attorney forwarded a communication from the judge, congratulating him on a "perfect filing."
Maybe I missed my calling. 
