You think that even in this day and age, anytime you're getting hit with a billion dollars in fines, you'd sit up and pay attention.

I'm not saying WF (or more importantly, their shareholders) actually cares. But you'd think that they would at that level.

A billion ain't enough.

I don't have faith in Wells Fargo ownership or leadership to ensure ethical or even legal behavior in the absence of sufficient incentives. The market as currently set up encourages large scale misbehavior and destructive abuse by Wells Fargo of its customers. The stockholders are insulated by distance from the misery their company causes, and the executives outright make out like bandits, even when they get caught.

This is ultimately a problem which can only be solved by voters and their representatives inflicting meaningful punishment.

My parents opened an account for me with a bank when I was ~6 years old in 1988 that was swallowed up by Wells Fargo in the early naughts, which I maintained until about 6 years ago. At around the time I withdrew all my money and moved it to a local CU, I was going through financial hardships, and frequently would have less than a hundred dollars to my name. I never had any problems with them until then, when they would seem to hold up smaller debits as pending, even if a deposit was made which was also held as pending, until a larger debit was made and they were able to shift the order of transactions to maximize overdraft fees.

For example, $50 balance, $25 debit, $20 debit, $100 deposit, $80 debit resulting in a logical balance of $25 would be shifted to clear as a $50 balance, $80 debit (+$30 fee), $25 debit (+$30 fee), $20 debit (+$30 fee), $100 deposit leaving a balance of -$65 and a daily fee until I could find more cash to deposit and not use my debit card.

These transactions could happen over multiple business days, which made zero sense. Even now that I have a more stable job and a comfortable pillow of cash to fall back on, my CU seems to want to dictate where that money should go, instead of me shifting it around. Just this week, I went into a branch to withdraw some cash where the teller asked if I wanted to shift some savings into a money market account, which I agreed to, but said I didn't have much time that day to discuss it. Before I could go next door and get lunch, he had moved the money and zeroed out the account, which (despite being a saving account, is where my debit purchases get withdrawn from), managed to get me two overdraft fees when I bought lunch.

I'm seriously considering purchasing another mattress to store my money. In this day and age, there is no such thing as a bank. They are all financial institutions.

And it is for reasons like you mentioned that I discourage everyone I know from using debit cards for anything.

I only use credit cards for purchases, and I control when the money moves around. And I always pay the balance every month.