customer

Sep 30, 2024

Run as fast as you can, the worst advisory experience I have ever witnessed.

I am not one to write negative reviews, but I can not in good conscience ignore this terrible trespass I witnessed..... please protect yourself by reading this. When my mother in law passed away a year and a half ago, it was decided that I would help take over getting my father in laws finances in order. The experience we had in trying to help our Dad with his retirement accounts at Wells Fargo were beyond horrific, and I would say classify as criminal and elder abuse. There was so many irregularities, it was just unbelievable. Where do I start? 1. He had two annuities, one of them had a death benefit of $75,000. When we inquired about this, his advisor, Chad Holtz from the Minnesota branch informed him that there was no death benefit. Then he was told it was "$5,000". This was inconsistent with what we understood to be the case and reached out to his former advisor who left Wells Fargo a year prior. We were right: it was a $75,000 benefit. How does that get overlooked? When we pushed the issue it suddenly materialized...... that was a huge red flag. 2. Both annuities were set up in Wells Fargo's name as the account holder. You are reading that correctly: Wells Fargo took my in-laws money and opened accounts with Wells Fargo as the account holder and my in-laws as "beneficiaries". This is a highly irregular practice, and I've never seen anything like it before. So when Wells Fargo dies (corporations don't die), the in-laws then receive their benefit..... but..... what happens when my in-laws die?..... There was no explanation for this, and it made getting the annuities converted to cash impossible and a truly hellish experience. There are only two possible explanations. A) It was intentional (criminal). B). someone at Wells Fargo was too incompetent to fill out the account forms correctly when establishing the account.... neither of those are acceptable reasons. 5 months later and we are still unable to covert his annuities to cash. We've had to submit the forms to surrender the annuities over 5 times, hire notaries. It's just insane. 3. Wells Fargo has been truly difficult and keeps saying "they can't help" and we "need to talk to the issuing bank". Last we checked, the statements say Wells Fargo on them and the accounts were opened through Wells Fargo. So what exactly is the role of Wells Fargo if they can't do anything? 4. In early / mid 2024 Wells Fargo had a 75 year old in poor health invested in highly volatile funds where he was earning a whopping 2% ROI. I could take him to just about any other banks and open a money market savings account during this time and gotten him 5%, fully liquid return, at zero risk. Wells Fargo decided his retirement was best in non liquid, high risk vehicles, with returns almost below inflation. What exactly is the value there? With advisory like that, who needs enemies? So it is over 5 months in, we still do not have control over his funds. We get zero help from Wells Fargo, and our plan to reinvest his funds in a treasury bond ladder now will yield 20% less. They cost my father in law a LOT of money, unnecessary stress, and had him exposed to unnecessary risk. It's the worst financial advice I've ever seen given to anyone in my life, and for 25 years I've been the custodian for a small businesses 401K for about 20 people. Shame on you Wells Fargo. To say this has been a disgusting saga would be generous.