hrj | Is Wells Fargo the Slimiest Bank in Existence or Does Everybody Do This?

I just got a sales call from a Wells Fargo representative (the company that holds my mortgage and credit card account). It was a heads-up about a great new personal insurance offer they're going to be sending me in the mail -- along with a $25 gas gift card no-strings-attached just for considering the offer. But in the middle of the spiel, I start twigging on this phrase he keeps mentioning about "calling to decline the offer" and I ask straight out, "What happens if your 60-day period to respond goes by and I don't call you to decline it?" Oh, he says, then they assume that I've accepted the offered insurance policy. And -- although I couldn't quite get him to say so in as many words -- they start charging my account for it. Oh, he assured me that if the 60 days passed and they started charging me I could tell them "oh silly me, I just utterly forgot to tell you not to sign me up for this" and they'd reverse it. Yeah, right. Like that makes it better.

So, oh my friends in finance and business, how can something like this actually be legal? How can a company -- even one with whom I have an existing business relationship -- create an "opt-out" type of contract for an insurance policy where I can be considered to have become a party to a contract without actually taking positive action to enter into the contract? (Note that I'm not asking whether it's moral or ethical -- we already know the answer to that.)

And is there any governmental agency I can complain to about this? I'm not feeling sufficiently gratified by having given the sales guy an enormous piece of my mind and requested him to take official note of my feedback. (I would like to note that no four-letter words escaped my mouth even when I was asking him how he managed to sleep at night after participating in as nasty a piece of work as this policy was.) I think I even managed to get him a little uncomfortable by the end of the call, although that's probably just my imagination.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I've had similar sales calls from Bank of America. They did, however, have an internal "do not call" list; once I figured that out I was rather happier, though the accumulated irritation did send me hunting for a different credit card company.

This is a very common tactic. It is used by most Credit Card companies and many of the worst internet companies. By not saying no, you agree. Unfortunatly it is not against any rules.

When my sister and I were little, she would delight in catching our mother asleep in her recliner, whereupon she'd come up with outrageous things to ask her starting with "hey mom, can we ____" (fill in the blank with a description of whatever mischief she wanted to get into at the moment) ending with "don't answer if you mean yes". Mom, being a very deep sleeper, wouldn't answer. She outgrew this childish game. It is a pity that some businesses haven't.

It's illegal in some states and in the EU -- if your company has signed the Safe Harbor treaty (permission to sell/operate in the EU) they are required to give you Opt-In rather than assuming Opt-Out. It will be illegal in the US, I predict, within 3-4 years.

I hope so because I think this tactic is despicable.

It is, but at least we now have some protection against it. And the danger of it is what has prompted the EU and the APAC regions to regulate against it. US corporations are being to self-regulate in favor of it, and the Feds are catching up.

We don't want to look less civilized than the Europeans, after all!

1. I have long held a low opinion of Wells Fargo.

However,

2. In my experience, there's always some trigger in the fine print that functions as opting in. In the instant case, if the salesman had once gotten you to say 'yes' over the phone, or if you had received and used the "no strings attached" card, or . . .

Underhanded? Certainly. Hanging by its fingernails on the edge of legality? Almost equally certainly.

In my experience, there's always some trigger in the fine print that functions as opting in. In the instant case, if the salesman had once gotten you to say 'yes' over the phone, or if you had received and used the "no strings attached" card, or . . .

Well, I certainly said "no" a lot over the phone. And I think I may have actually already received the "offer" and thrown the "free gas" card away because the verbiage smelled like a "use this and enter a contract" offer. I specifically asked the sales guy about whether the "free" gas card came with strings attached because I was recalling the card I got (although I wasn't connecting it with this phone call, since the caller said I'd be receiving something in the future). He said, no, no strings attached, using the card wouldn't tie me into anything. Of course, in his universe, what tied me into the contract was the absence of opting out, so I suspect he was technically sincere in claiming that using the card wouldn't affect anything.

But I still find it hard to believe that this is legal.

It's legal, as Letitia said, since Opt-out is both in the phone call and somewhere on the policy they sent you. There may even be a note somewhere that says that using the gas card constitutes acceptance of the policy.

You can call the FCC. They are more likely to take bad business practices complaints of this sort. So will the Better Business Bureau. If they aren't the right place, they can tell you where to call.

If I read the regulations correctly, the FDIC will be sympathetic but can't actually do anything about that -- not only are they horrendously busy right now, but it's not actually in their domain. They may put a letter in the file.

You can also complain to the bank itself. Bank examiners will find things like this and note them in their reports, if I understand the process correctly (Letitia?).

Complaining in writing to the bank is a good idea, and (as a side benefit) might help bleed off a little more of your ire. Find the highest-ranking customer/investor relations person you can locate and send a letter explaining why this scheme is a bad idea, and why it could drive folks away from the bank. CR may not talk to the marketing folks as often as they should. Enough letters like yours can eventually persuade the bank-as-a-whole that opt-outs are bad for their image and hence bad for business. Though whether that will happen before the hoped-for regulatory change is debatable.

Wells Fargo? Hell yes.

Won't touch them with a nine foot spear, and I've worked for them.

Bastards.

I used them when I first came to California, but after a few years I got smart and moved to another bank.

Is Wells Fargo the Slimiest Bank in Existence or Does Everybody Do This?

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