The Bank Ate My Money and Won’t Give It Back

Whelp. It finally happened.

After three years of being a loyal customer, Wells Fargo has managed to anger me.

I mean, sure, there was the whole thing with the “our bankers are stealing your identities because of unrealistic quotas that we are forcing on them” but I was mercifully spared from that nonsense.

I enjoy the freedom of having banks almost all over the country because when I get paid while on the road, I’d rather not have to worry about whether or not I’m going to lose the check on the trek home. I find a local branch, deposit and go about my life. Or even better, mobile deposit because the less I have to interact with human beings, the better!

For everyone.

You’re welcome.

But then last night happened.

I decided to stop by the bank after work and deposit my tips from the last week. I used the drive-up ATM because A) it’s not a human and B) it was after midnight and the bank was closed.

I will go ahead and take the blame for what happened next. I pulled the cash out of my wallet and didn’t look through it before I put it in the machine. Turns out there was a movie ticket in the mix and it stuck to one of the bills.

It appeared on the screen as an unreadable check while the rest of the money was counted.

When it came time to return the rejected money/movie ticket the machine jammed up.

Seriously. The blue screen of death appeared but first this:

In an impressive show of technology- I almost immediately received an email about the ATM breaking and not being able to return my items and to give them a call at the numbers listed.

Flash forward to this morning.

I decided that common sense would be to call the branch where the ATM is located rather than calling a corporate office somewhere. Turns out getting someone on the phone is impossible. So I caved and called the corporate number that was emailed to me.

I gave the woman my information and explained the situation. She took the information and opened a claim… and then told me it would be up to 10 days before a resolution would be reached.

This is where my brain malfunctioned.

I seriously couldn’t wrap my head around why it would take that long. I asked if I could just go to the branch and get it because I would imagine because the machine broke down, someone had to physically show up and fix it and remove the items.

Nope.

I was not thrilled.

So once I got off the phone with the corporate people I called the branch again and actually got a human being, finally.

Explained the situation. Asked if I could come down and get my money.

Nope.

Because they don’t touch it. Corporate does.

I’m not pleased.

I’ve decided the best way to make up for it is for the bank to give me $250,000… because of reasons… you’ll recall why from this post from earlier.

So I’m now sitting here wondering when I will get my money back.

And my movie ticket.