Wells Fargo Keeps Hanging Up On Your Deaf Grandmother

R

RichardDeaf

New Member
Joined
Sep 16, 2006
Messages
707
Reaction score
0
Consumerist - Wells Fargo Keeps Hanging Up On Your Deaf Grandmother - Banks

Rachel's 86-year-old grandmother was a loyal Wells Fargo customer for more than thirty years. She's been forced to take her business to a new bank because Wells Fargo representatives refuse to talk to her.

See, she became profoundly deaf about twenty years ago, and makes her phone calls through a TTY relay service. A few weeks ago, Wells Fargo customer service reps abruptly stopped accepting relay calls, claiming it was a new fraud prevention policy.

First, a bit of background information on the equipment Rachel refers to in her e-mail. A TTY (also known as a TDD or text telephone) is a device that people with hearing or speech disabilities use to communicate over standard phone lines. They haven't changed much since the 1980s, but are still in common use. It has a keyboard, a small screen, and sometimes a printer. TTY machine users can call each other, or they can dial in to tax-funded relay services, where a hearing person acts as an intermediary between the parties. (I worked as a relay operator for a while after college. I spent a lot of time getting paid to listen to AOL and Dell's hold music and be yelled at, and the net effect was that I became a consumer advocate.)

For deaf people with good speech skills, or who lose their hearing later in life like Rachel's grandmother, there's a different kind of relay call, which is called voice carry-over, or VCO. The relay operator transcribes one end of the conversation, and then the caller just speaks directly to the other party. Many people who only make this type of call have a specialized VCO phone, which has a screen but no keyboard.

That's the background. Here's Rachel's story.
hought I'd drop you a line about a little problem my grandmother is having with her Wells Fargo. My grandmother is 86 years old and became profoundly Deaf about 20 or so years ago. She uses a special kind of TTY machine specifically for people in her situation - she can speak clearly, but she just can't hear over the phone. It's called Voice-Carry- Over service. She's been calling Wells Fargo this way since she first got her machine. She's had an account with them for over 30 years.

Just in the past two weeks or so, however, she can no longer speak to a banking representative. They give this long-winded speech about how they can no longer accept 'third-party' relay calls (which, you know, all relay calls are third party, since there is an operator acting as a translator, hence the point of the whole service). They want her to use the Internet (she doesn't have a computer) or go to a banking center (which would require her to schedule a ride with the disabled transport service in her city) or they want to transfer her to a TTY line, just to check her account balance.

The last option may sound (sort of) reasonable, with one glaring problem - my grandmother doesn't have a normal TTY machine. She has a VCO machine. It doesn't have a keyboard. She can't type to a TTY operator, she can only speak on the phone. Connecting to a TTY line would be utterly pointless. That's why she uses the relay service to handle these calls for her.

It seems to me the Americans with Disabilities Act requires equal treatment under the law. If a person like me can call a regular banking rep and get my account information, she has the right to do the same, relay service or no relay service. She doesn't have this problem with anybody else - she can call Social Security, her pharmacist, her doctor, etc, and they can all accept relay calls without batting an eye. I was confused as to why Wells Fargo felt they were an exception to this rule.

When I called to get some clarification, the rep I talked to cited problems with fraud. I feel bad that Wells Fargo is unable to secure their accounts against fraudulent calls (something we should all be worried about if we have an account there?), but that seems like an internal problem rather than something my grandmother should have to deal with. She can prove her identity five ways from Sunday - no sweat. She's been calling her bank for nearly 20 years using the relay service and never had even a hint that her account was in any way compromised.

The Wells Fargo reps keep hanging up on her and she finds this all very upsetting. She just needs to know about her accounts, but apparently, Wells Fargo doesn't feel that's a service it needs to offer to its disabled customers. I'm going to go help her close her account there this weekend and see if we can get her set up somewhere else. It's something neither of us want to deal with, but we're at our wits' end. Anyway, I just thought I'd send this out as a warning to all your readers out there. Don't bother opening account if you can't hear on the phone - they clearly don't want your business.
Click to expand...

The only type of relay fraud that I know of is Nigerian scammers using Web-based relay systems to call and steal from American businesses. This was a serious problem starting six or seven years ago, so why the sudden policy change now? And why should a ban on relay calls due to Nigerian fraudsters affect old ladies with long-standing accounts whose voices you can hear on the phone?

One nifty alternate option for current VCO users is Captioned Telephone, which uses speech recognition technology instead of slow and error-prone humans with keyboards. Or people could keep using the technology they're comfortable with, and Wells Fargo could just stop being such jerks about it.
Click to expand...
 
I am a wells fargo customer for more than 10 years. Customer service was great years ago, but now I had a trouble with customer representative who refuses to take any calls from me. I was so angry and frustrated. I had my dad calling WF for me to activate my checking card. RME
 
Oddball said:
I am a wells fargo customer for more than 10 years. Customer service was great years ago, but now I had a trouble with customer representative who refuses to take any calls from me. I was so angry and frustrated. I had my dad calling WF for me to activate my checking card. RME
Click to expand...

wow. thats sad.
 
Yes, very sad, indeed. I hope WF will wake up one day soon. I was told to use TTY..I was like what? I told the manager that I don't use TTY anymore.. she did not care and insisted me to use TTY due to ADA laws. I told her that videophone and relay services are under ADA law as well. STUPID FUCKER!:roll:
 
Wells Fargo is the worst bank in the world. My brother, and friends banked at WF, and had bad experiences with the customer service. Seriously. Avoid Wells Fargo at all costs.
 
they have no prolem with me after i fuss them out for been rude with me

neverless many deaf say wf is getting better in alaska
 
gusse what

i have to call well fargo co and frist person name man talk to me his name is matt and everything i gave him to make sure i am real me then he say he can not accpet thrid person realy call i was very mad it was never happen then i told her she broke ada law then she tranfer me to susan brewer then that perosn say she did follow well fargo law and she say she give three option " go person to bank , go to atm machine , or use tdd and i use hovrs relay" now i am going to file complaint .
 
Actually, this is just one of the many, many incidents they've had with the deaf customers. Yep, just google it up and you'll be appalled!
 
Banjo said:
Actually, this is just one of the many, many incidents they've had with the deaf customers. Yep, just google it up and you'll be appalled!
Click to expand...

Just googled this and found out that NAD is suing the bank. I thought about opening an account but I'm glad I didn't.
 
I guess they just don't want to upgrade their communications equipment....
 
I had to activate my Visa card with WF recently, and I had no issues with them while using relay. This was back in May, though. *shrugs* I don't really like to use the phone to talk to hearing people in general anyway, I just hate using the phone. I prefer to communicate via email with hearing people and their businesses or practices or whatever. With Deaf people I do not mind using VP. I don't know why, but using relay over an landline phone makes me feel stressed. I don't even like to use relay to talk to my grandmother, I prefer to use email with her. There's no anxiety for me with email.
 
We all deserve equal treatment. Also want banks to protect our assets. They don't have to take on risk for us because of our deafness. Banks are not the government. Scammers and security issues are becoming very sophisticated. I don't pretend to understand security. Just have to find another way...life as a deafie.
Change bank if like. Or go in person.
Yeah WF likes to say they are protecting us...but they are just concerned with thier own convenience.
pain in the ass bank but they are not the government. they don't have to take risk for us.
Life as a deafie. shrugs*.
Don't expect much from society and you will not be disappointed.
 
Cowpuppy said:
We all deserve equal treatment. Also want banks to protect our assets. They don't have to take on risk for us because of our deafness. Banks are not the government. Scammers and security issues are becoming very sophisticated. I don't pretend to understand security. Just have to find another way...life as a deafie.
Change bank if like. Or go in person.
Yeah WF likes to say they are protecting us...but they are just concerned with thier own convenience.
pain in the ass bank but they are not the government. they don't have to take risk for us.
Life as a deafie. shrugs*.
Don't expect much from society and you will not be disappointed.
Click to expand...

I understand that when you face frustration everyday it is easy to give up. And I also understand that we have to choose our battles carefully, but it makes me very sad to see people give up their rights. I encourage you to keep speaking out against wrong-doing. The progress that has been made so far in deaf rights has only happened because some very brave people did not give up and called out injustices! It doesn't mean you have to be angry all the time, but do not accept being devalued. It's never OK.
 
posts from hell said:
How do they need to upgrade??? They're not accepting VRS calls.
Click to expand...

At the time of that post, I was meaning they should go from using the now outdated TTY and get a VP. Can't they get a VP as readily as they were able to get a TTY?
 
Tousi said:
At the time of that post, I was meaning they should go from using the now outdated TTY and get a VP. Can't they get a VP as readily as they were able to get a TTY?
Click to expand...

Ohh ohh.. Now i see.

The main issue of this complaint is me at home calling Wells Fargo via VP. Or even relay via TTY. Nope. We MUST use TTY to call them directly. They think that Relay Agents has the potential of stealing our personal information.

However, you bring up a good point. Why not Wells Fargo bring into an actual VP department for ASL users. That would be a nice response to the whole situation.
 
posts from hell said:
Ohh ohh.. Now i see.

The main issue of this complaint is me at home calling Wells Fargo via VP. Or even relay via TTY. Nope. We MUST use TTY to call them directly. They think that Relay Agents has the potential of stealing our personal information.

However, you bring up a good point. Why not Wells Fargo bring into an actual VP department for ASL users. That would be a nice response to the whole situation.
Click to expand...

As to your first paragraph, I think Nigeria comes to mind for them, no?
 
That's why I believe in death penalty for Nigerian scammers. ;-)

It looks like WF doesn't understand that YOU can detect the scam by the way the "scammer" talks - the scammer often use canned messages and if WF detects the pattern, can just hang up.

There is NO difference between live person or an interpreter speaking for you. Ask simple questions and if they cannot answer, assume they're scammers and say no. Hang up.
 
Back
Top