Another example of abusive and unethic business practice. Yahoo news, huffpost. By laura Bassett, 2/2/10 -Several days after 21 year old Heather Lynn used her Wachovia debit card to donate $10 to Yele Haiti's earthquake fund, she noticed on her online billing statement that the bank had deducted a 3% "international service fee" from her donated amount,. Since the four major credit card companies had waived their transaction fees on donations to Haiti, Lynn says, she assumed that Wells Fargo, Wachovia's parent company, had done the same. "I called customer service to ask if they were waiving fees like Visa and Master Card had done for Haiti relief funds, but the unsympathetic CSR said NO", Lynn told Huffpost. "I just don't understand how a bank can make a profit from a tragedy, let alone get away with it". Lynn, an art major at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., immediately moved all her money to the Bank of Hampton Roads, a local community bank, and created a Facebook page to raise awareness of Wachovia's policy. This page, called "Wachovia= Fail", attracted more than 200 fans in a week, and a slew of comments from people who are angry over Wachovia's ways of business. "I was really surprised at the response, " said Lynn. "People seemed really pissed about it". Michael Losterman, a spokesman for Wells Fargo, defended the bank's response to the Haiti disaster, saying the money it donated to Haiti more than makes up for their transaction fees. "We have given $100,000 to the American Red Cross, and on January 19 we pledged an additional $250,000 to support the non profits in Florida that are mobilizing the relief efforts," Klosterman said. "We decided that donating a sum of money would be quicker and more beneficial than waiving transaction fees because the funds would get to the people quicker. It would take the equivalent of $35 million in transactions to raise the ammount of money we actually donated". Regardless, the bank may still loose some customers. Judging by the response to Lynn's "Wachovia= Fail" Facebook page, a lot of people are frustrated with the bank for reasons having nothing to do with Haiti. "I left 11 dollars in the bank", comented one angry Facebooker. "Now they want to bill me 40 bucks more for leaving it. I'm not surprised they are trying to cash in on Haiti donations. SCUM !"
A legalized version of pickpocketing. Vulture tactic used by many institutions. Result: Upset customers. And yes, this is one of the main factors contributing towards economic decline in the US.
