Banks are a pretty stressful environment to be in as they have so many rules and are strict about following them, the contracts are confusing and your life kind of depends on them in certain situations.
This couple experienced it firsthand when they wanted to open a bank account and there was some kind of miscommunication on the bank’s end, but they weren’t very helpful at sorting it out. The bank also started avoiding their calls by bringing up rules that didn’t really matter previously, so the husband had to become a bit more creative and finally got what they both wanted.
More info: Reddit
A man shared the time he had to pretend to be his wife because the bank was trying to take her money when she didn't do anything wrong
Image credits: frankieleon (not the actual image)
It happened 15 years ago when the OP's wife wanted to open a checking account after having one closed because of insufficient funds
Image credits: u/ThrowOhWaitNo
The Original Poster (OP), or ThrowOhWaitNo as he is known on Reddit, told a story that took place 15 years ago when he and his wife were young and were not very smart with their finances as they'd had their checks rejected because they didn’t have enough money in their accounts, so they had them closed.
They were offered a way of fixing their checking account history by a large bank that the OP calls Fells Wargo in the story. It was called a rehab account, which meant they would pay an additional $10/month fee and it would have restricted funds, but if they followed the rules, they could have a regular checking account after a year.
Image credits: u/ThrowOhWaitNo
She believed she would have to open a rehab account, which was more restrictive, but she would be upgraded to a regular one after a year
Image credits: u/ThrowOhWaitNo
The husband used the opportunity to fix his checking history, but the wife lived without a checking account for a few years and decided she wanted to apply again. So the OP took her to the Fells Wargo bank to get her started with the rehab account, but the manager told them she could have the regular one right away.
It surprised the couple and they were trying to make sure if there wasn’t a mistake, but the manager reassured them everything was fine and took an initial cash deposit of $500 and the only thing left was to wait for the ATM card to come in the mail.
The manager at the bank assured the woman she could open up a regular one right away, so she agreed
Image credits: u/ThrowOhWaitNo
After a week, when she had to call the bank to activate her ATM card, she found out the account was closed because of her bad checking history
Image credits: u/ThrowOhWaitNo
After a week, the ATM card came and to activate it, the wife had to call the bank. Instead of having the card activated, the bank consultant told her that the account was closed altogether because they had determined that her checking history was too bad to have a regular account and they couldn't change it over the phone, so she would need to come back to the bank.
This was quite frustrating as the couple had specifically asked for the rehab account and the manager was the one who convinced them to open a regular one, but they had now turned around and closed it.
On top of not informing her about it, the bank also refused to cover those checks, even though there was money in that closed bank account
Image credits: u/ThrowOhWaitNo
Image credits: Sascha Kohlman (not the actual image)
The wife didn’t have experience dealing with banks, so the OP asked her to put the consultant on speaker to ask some questions. Firstly, he wanted to know if the bank would pay the outstanding checks and refund the rest.
The bank refused to do that, even though there was enough money in the account to pay the people those checks were written for. The OP started asking more uncomfortable questions, such as why they were forced to open this account when they should have had the rehab one, and why the bank didn't notify their clients their account was closed.
After a bit of arguing, the consultant hung up and after calling another time, they refused to talk to anyone other than the account owner
Image credits: u/ThrowOhWaitNo
The bank consultant didn’t have any answers to that and wanted to put the blame on the couple for not doing anything wrong. They were so flustered that they just straight up hung up.
The couple called back and this time, before the consultant hung up again, they said that they wouldn’t talk to anyone who was not the owner of the account, meaning the husband couldn’t talk in place of his wife or even be the mediator to help her understand what was going on.
The wife didn't have experience talking to banks, so she wasn't able to demand that the bank give her money back
Image credits: u/ThrowOhWaitNo
Knowing that, the OP decided to pretend to be his wife as he knew everything about the account and was determined to set the record straight
Image credits: u/ThrowOhWaitNo
The husband had a stupidly genius idea. He decided to just pretend to be his wife as he knew everything about her situation and the account and had the experience of dealing with banks, knowing they couldn’t just take the money in the account when the owner didn’t do anything wrong.
When the consultant picked up the phone and the OP introduced himself as his wife, he heard a long pause and the person on the other side was in disbelief. When the OP answered every safety question correctly, they still didn’t believe him because he clearly had a man’s voice and the name on the account was a woman's.
Eventually he was successful because there was nothing preventing him from getting what he required
Image credits: u/ThrowOhWaitNo
Image credits: U.S. Department of Agriculture (not the actual image)
The OP quickly caught onto that and started accusing the bank of being discriminatory and closing the account just because he was a man. This conversation probably confused the consultant and made them suspicious, so the OP was referred to a manager.
The manager eventually agreed to pay the 3 checks from the funds in the account because the name on the account demanded it, but the OP felt that they still didn’t want to do it, even though there was money on the account and it was closed because of the bank’s mistake.
In response to this story, people shared their own stories of dealing with banks and their stupid rules that had no logic to them. We would like to know if you liked how the husband handled the situation and if you have any similar stories, tell us about them in the comments!
The incident is not an isolated one and people in the comments shared their own experiences of having to deal with stupid bank rules
