Comments on: Wells Fargo “closed” my PMA account

By: tracey davis

tracey davis — Fri, 22 May 2009 01:07:09 +0000

my grandfather started me an account that i wasnt supposed to touch until i gradutated well i went there a few days after graduation and they said it went dormant do to no activity well dont people put money in the bank to accure. well we didnt know it had to be m3ssed and my car is gone/ but in accualiuty who are u to just give peoples stuff/

By: Nicky

Nicky — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 15:48:31 +0000

I selected not to receive checks when I applied for the account, anyway here we are 2 days after I posted and I have access to my checking account, I’m impressed with their customer service, all questions I ever had were answered either on the same day or next day by email, so I guess I’ll post back here about April 2010, but I’ll be reading for sure, great blog you have here, thanks.

By: indexfundfan

indexfundfan — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:22:36 +0000

Nicky, if I remember correctly, the CSR told me last year that ACH or even billpay doesn’t count. Not sure if this has changed.

Now I make a deposit with the teller in the branch once in a while.

PS. The routing number is on your check.

By: Nicky

Nicky — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:14:15 +0000

I guess I could ACH a small deposit once in a while, does anyone know from the routing #?

Thanks.

By: indexfundfan

indexfundfan — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:01:33 +0000

Thanks Nicky. That’s good info to know! Maybe the trick is to change the phone number once every 11 months (swap between home phone / office phone / cell phone). LOL.

By: Nicky

Nicky — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 06:03:32 +0000

Sent them an email, here is their response:

I have reviewed your account and found that your account is in an inactive status. I have forwarded your information to update the status of your account. Please allow three business days for this change to take effect. Once your account is in active status, your online access may be restored by signing on to your secure online banking session at wellsfargo.com, selecting the “Add Accounts” link under Account Information on the Account Services page.

You can prevent your account from becoming inactive by making a deposit or withdrawal, or by contacting us to make a recorded change such as address or phone number. Deposit accounts are considered inactive when there has been no activity or contact for the following periods:

* 11 months for Checking accounts
* 23 months for Savings, Market Rate, and Remittance accounts (except Texas, which is 11 months)
* 23 months for Certificate of Deposit (CD) accounts from the date of last customer activity or the first renewal date (except Texas, which is 11 months)

By: indexfundfan

indexfundfan — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 15:41:20 +0000

Nicky, you can try calling them first. I think last year, the 2nd CSR I spoke to on the phone agreed to send a request to have the account re-activated.

By: Nicky

Nicky — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 15:34:03 +0000

I posted August 9th, 2008 that my only transaction with the checking account was in March of 2008, so here we are in April 09 and today I log in and my checking account is gone, In NYC so no branches, I wonder if going to Wachovia would do the trick???

By: Pat

Pat — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 06:36:53 +0000

I had the same problem but with my checking account…my job requires a lot of traveling and i have been out of the country for 2 yrs. I was doing my transactions online. But two weeks back, when i tried to login to my account. It said I don’t have any accounts online. I thought it was a glitch in the web site. I tried logging in the next day but the same thing happened. I called the customer care and they it was dormant…Now when i had opened the acct in WF, the banker told me that the account would become dormant only if it were inactive. They never ever said that inactivity includes online transactions. Why are these bankers not clear on the terms and tell the customers the terms clearly. It becomes so frustrating.

By: indexfundfan

indexfundfan — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 16:34:41 +0000

I don’t think Billpay is what’s causing the PMA checking account to be flagged as dormant. Rather, billpay requires a funding account, and if the funding account becomes dormant, billpay triggers an email to be sent to the client. This is actually good because then you will at least get notice that the account is dormant and take appropriate actions.

By: Nicky

Nicky — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 05:45:43 +0000

I opened my account in Feb, have only had 1 transaction, that was a debit card purchase in March nothing since then, I’m in NYC so no branches here, I love this account, I’ve made good use of the free trades, I’ve used half of mine up already, I don’t care that they don’t have streaming quotes, I get my quotes from Scottrade, I transfered everything from Scottrade to Wellstrade, but thankfully I can still log into my Scottrade account, even though it’s at a $0 balance, I hope Wells Fargo doesn’t close my checking account, I don’t believe I signed up for billpay, I never even ordered checks, all I care about is the brokerage account, I don’t even know my PIN # to my card, I made a purchase using the credit option, rather then entering a PIN, lets see what happen come 2/09, One thing that I dislike is that it will not let you set stop limit sell orders for stocks under $5, besides that this is the perfect account, already saved $350 in commissions for the year and counting.

By: jd

jd — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 20:28:22 +0000

How interesting! I got the exact same message you did with the same date etc. I never use my PMA checking account as there is no WF in my state, although I have on occasion ACH’d money to the account.

I called them yesterday, got a very nice ‘banker’ CSR who said he would reactivate the account, said it would take a few days to show up online and was very nice. I also told the CSR that I do not remember ever signing up for billpay as I knew I would not use the account for that purpose and asked him to cancel the billpay. I did receive a message today cancelling the billpay. Hopefully, that did not cancel the whole account. I guess we’ll see if it does show up in a few days. As I don’t believe in check cards, I will not use my card (where ever it may be), so what I’ll probably do is write myself a check every month or so for $1.00.

By: indexfundfan

indexfundfan — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 20:07:15 +0000

Updated 8/6/08. Account is re-activated.

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 18:24:40 +0000

Yes I actually looked into TradeKing a while a go. According to them they started implementing specific trade under “MaxIt” a few month ago. However it does not show up on their default page. See my post to ask this question in their forums (scroll to the last post for information from TradeKing staff):

http://community.tradeking.com/forum/topics/324/forum_posts

The process seems rather convoluted and at the end of the year I’m not sure how well the tax information is prepared if you start doing specific lots. According to everything I’ve read Fidelity has the best system however their trades are more expensive ($10.95 for $50,000+ account or $8 if you have $1mil)

I hope the Wells Fargo thing gets resolved because you can’t beat free trades. I’m on the East Coast and there aren’t any branches near me. If it’s not resolved I may just go with Fidelity for the superior service since I trade once a month tops

By: indexfundfan

indexfundfan — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 20:15:57 +0000

dimension, thanks for your comments. Actually if this does not work out, I am looking at TradeKing which I believe provide specific tax lot tracking. Also, they give a sign-up bonus and/or will reimburse your transfer out fees from Wells Fargo (taxable account only). Their trading fee is $4.95.

By: dimension

dimension — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 17:58:48 +0000

i have a pma account too and i worry now if i will run into the same problem.
however, what i wanted to say is WF has the worst trading platform and execution efficiency i have ever seen. u have to load a couple pages in order to check your share price, see charts, and make transactions. i told WF the problems and they said they were going to re-design a month ago but i still see nothing. i guess if nothing changes within this year, i will use other service at the next tax year.

By: indexfundfan

indexfundfan — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 14:46:00 +0000

Updated on 8/25/08.

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 00:56:28 +0000

I wonder what types of transactions are sufficient to keep the account open. For example, would it be sufficient to make a small transfer from brokerage to checking (then back to brokerage)?

Also, I wonder if this is somehow related to BillPay. I haven’t touched my PMA checking account since it was opened over a year ago, and it hasn’t been closed yet. I don’t use BillPay, and it seems that most of the people getting their account closed have been using BillPay.

By: indexfundfan

indexfundfan — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 18:58:14 +0000

Yucks.

I hope my account will be re-activated tomorrow.

By: thad

thad — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 18:02:44 +0000

Yes, I have (3) transactions EVERY month, but they don’t count as “external” activity, maybe because they are all electronic, with no action required on my part? If you use the bill-payer, and log on each month to enter the payment, that might be sufficient, but if its an auto-payment that is the exact same every month, maybe not. Either way, I think it’s a bit of a crock – I don’t know why they can’t count accessing the account online as activity – I do that every month to download the electronic statements, and it’s easy enough for them to verify.