About a year ago, I walked into my local Wells Fargo branch, where I have several personal and business accounts. I had several transactions to take care of and I asked the banker to be quick because I had an international flight to catch.
Despite my request, the banker launched into a sales pitch for a new credit card offer. The offer was clearly outrageous - 5% cash back on all purchases forever - so naturally I questioned her about the "all" and "forever" claims. She went back and forth with me, assuring me over and over that it was indeed all purchase categories and no time limit. It was very specific, too, for example I'd say "Are you telling me that if I spend $100 on Amazon.com I will receive $5 back?", and she'd say yes, and then I'd say "And you are telling me it doesn't expire after 6 months or something?", and she'd say no. This went on for about 15 minutes, during which I repeatedly stated that I simply do not believe the offer and need to see it in writing before I consent to anything and begged her to move on because I didn't want to miss my flight. Only after I threatened to leave, my banker agreed to move on, confirming (per my request) that she would not open the card but would instead have the credit card company send me a detailed offer letter. She then appeared to take care of my other transactions as there was a lot of typing and comments about screens taking a while to load.
A week later I came back from my trip to find the new credit card in my mail - along with a standard CC disclosure which predictably spelled out cash back terms nowhere near what my banker had claimed - and to add insult to injury, not a single one of my other transactions were actually done, including one that resulted in me not having access to my money during the trip. (If it weren't for my husband's cards, I would have been in real trouble).
Needless to say I was quite upset by it all, so I drove to the bank to complain in person. I spoke to the assistant manager who performed the expected customer service dance act. Per my request, he promised a follow up via a phone call or a letter where someone would tell me what specific measures they took to discipline the banker and/or to prevent this from happening in the future. I've never heard from them again.
(Quick research suggests that bank employees are commonly required to sign up a certain number of people to hit their performance targets, so there is clearly a conflict of interest as far as my complaint is concerned, after all, the bank is not going to punish an employee for doing as they are told).
My question is, what meaningful action can I take? In my opinion, this banker is not someone who should have access to other people's money, and I am not happy about Wells Fargo's laissez-faire attitude towards what I perceive to be outright fraud. If a regular person did this to me I could file a police report, but if it's my banker, it's just a customer service issue? Tell me it ain't so.