A good friend of mine has been embroiled in a battle with the Wells Fargo Bank for the past few months. He is a filmmaker, a documentarian to be specific, just to give you the back story, because filmmakers in general do not have a regular nine to five job, ergo they do not earn a regular and consistent salary. About three years ago he declared a bankruptcy to simplify dissolution of a partnership dispute. An impound account was created for disputed funds and then immediately paid and dismissed by all parties concerned.
Recently he was beginning work on some new film projects, which involved receiving grants from foreign sources, a few with which he has a long standing working relationship. When the wire transfers began to arrive at Wells Fargo, the bank made their first mistake by placing some of the funds into a closed money market account, without calling my friend to confirm or inquire about any instructions. Meanwhile, other wire transfers from other sources also began to arrive, first from France, then from China and Brazil. Richard, as most other filmmakers, is working on developing more than one project at a time.
When Richard began to inquire about confirmation of the wire transfers, Wells Fargo began their run-around. First they couldn’t confirm any transfers, then they admitted the mistake regarding the money market account, and next they say that all the money was impounded because of the three-year-old bankruptcy. This is when Richard’s attorney had to get involved, to confirm that the bankruptcy was dismissed with no further liability. A Wells Fargo Vice President and Attorney then became involved. Wells Fargo stated that they were then waiting for confirmations from the original sources and funds would soon be available.
Passing weeks and several daily conversations later, there are still no funds available. Finally, Richard learns that Wells Fargo has returned all of the funds and was in the process of asking for them again; meanwhile the service fees are rising. Now Wells Fargo begins to blame Richard for not having the funds deposited into a business account rather than a personal account.
The final straw is when Richard learns that his account is “frozen,” absolutely no funds are to be made available until further investigation. His account was being investigated for money laundering. This ordeal has become more ridiculous than any movie script. That’s it! Now Wells Fargo wasn’t even accepting Richard’s phone calls. He had no choice but to get his attorney to deal with the situation; which in my humble opinion should have occurred much earlier.
