Don’t Chase People Away with Thoughtless Service!

By Cecilia Sepp, CAE, ACNP

More from the Culture Wars but this time about banking. 

As I mentioned in my July 24, 2025 message, the trend continues across the world: don’t actually offer support when members or customers need it. This time I have an example from the world of banking – a crucial service in a world of people on the move who need online support to make things happen. 

Like some of my colleagues, I attended the ASAE 2025 Annual Conference in Los Angeles, CA earlier this month. I made all my plans well in advance and all the travel went smoothly; Delta knows how to communicate with and support their customers. 

While the ground transportation at LAX (the Los Angeles Airport) is a nightmare, I did get to my hotel. The rest of the trip, ground transportation worked smoothly. 

If I could only say the same thing for Wells Fargo Bank. 

As I was prepping for my trip to the ASAE conference, I was paying bills. I noticed a charge on my credit card that I didn’t recognize. I called customer service and had to talk to two people to get the question answered and the problem resolved. It turned out I made an error – it wasn’t fraud – but I asked for a new business credit card anyway. 

The customer service representative positively stated I would be able to access my account by Saturday (this was Thursday). I said, “great, I’ll check next week when I get back.” I headed off to the conference the next day. 

When I got to Los Angeles, I had to use most of my cash to pay the taxi driver from LAX to the hotel. He said his credit machine wasn’t working. 

At the hotel on Friday evening, I decided to use the ATM to get some more cash. I inserted my card, entered the code and . . . was DECLINED. What?!? This had never happened to me before in my life. How strange I thought. I checked the back of the card; it is August and the card expired in July. 

I thought that was strange since I didn’t get a new ATM card before the expiration date. I called the next day only to be told this: 

“We didn’t issue a new card because we decided to cancel your ATM card because you haven’t used it for 9 months.” What?!?

I ordered a new card (I’m still waiting for it at this writing) and was ignored by the customer service representative because he was too busy reading disclaimers and covering his ass. 

His excuse for this action by Wells Fargo? “We did it to protect you.” 

Funny. I think if you were protecting me, you would have told me and given me advance notice that you were “protecting” me. In associations, we give our members a lot of notice when important things are happening like dues increases. I set aside my frustration and fortunately did not need any extra cash the rest of the trip. 

When I got home, I figured all’s well that ends well as the Bard says. I received my new business card and went online to activate it. The activation site worked fine. I decided to sign into my account and as the Bard also says: therein lies a tale. The screen said “your online credentials have been deactivated.” What?!? Why? And again, no notification of any kind. 

After talking to someone in customer service (I use the term loosely), I was told it was because I had reported suspicious activity on my account. I pointed out that the previous representative the week before had noted in my file that it was my mistake and he told me everything was fine. She even commented, “Oh yeah, I see a note here in your file stating that.” I asked, “Then why did you turn off my access?” Her response? “We did it to protect you.” 

Do you see a pattern here? 

There is more to the story but let’s leave it at this: after talking to 4 people and filing an official complaint with Wells Fargo, I finally got my account access back and renewed my commitment to find a new bank if I can. 

Between my husband and I, we have two checking accounts, a savings account, two credit cards, and a safety deposit box at the bank. That is a total of 5 accounts. We also have been consistent customers for a number of years. You would think that would incentivize them to communicate better about account changes and access issues, especially since they always have the time to send me messages pushing me to buy new products or services. 

The moral of the story is this: don’t use an excuse like “we are protecting you” when what you are really doing is abdicating responsibility to provide the customer or member service that people need in a world of online services and interactions. Take responsibility for mistakes and make amends; don’t lecture the customer or member and make them talk to four different people only not to get the issue resolved. 

There may not be a lot of options in the world at this time, but there are options. People will walk away from your organization if you waste their time and raise their frustration level.