Working at Wells Fargo — Reviews by Employees

This company is the worst company to work for. I have been with them for 5 years and just recently been out on short term disability and my manager decided to put in all my PTO time so now I have to pay back 2 grand. On top of that she tells me she will need to fire me if I continue to be absent. I went to the hospital for a medical condition which is a severe medical condition. I had to call out since I went to the hospital and I was told by my doctor not to go back till I get my labs back. When I called her wed and told her I would know when I was coming back thursday. she responded so your just gonna come back whenever you want to? I explained my medical condition is serious and I perfer not to die at work. I find it to be very difficult to keep from being stressed while Im on short term disability since I have a manager who is constantly harrassing me but yet you call HR and all they can say and what do you want us to do?

I went on here to actually look at another company, and went to WFF to kind of check the sites validity...

First of all, I'm not a manager. I'm a Senior Credit Manager, which is 2 positions below the manager. Basically a glorified sales rep.

The job has its pros and cons.

CONS: base pay is about 38K a year, and commission is very difficult to get. the VCP system is not only unit tiered, it's based on loan volume too. Honestly, they need to cut some of the fat out of other areas of the company and start paying their sales professionals like PROFESSIONALS.

Having said that, the job is pretty fair. I work in the Gaydos Region in CA, my RM, DM, and Manager are all very bright and competent. They pay is about in par with the work, but again the need to ease up on the VCP guidelines a bit. 97% of the company is probably make base pay, just like they like it...

Benefits and 401K matching are actually very good, and overall its a good company. I think a lot of the negatives on here are probably just whiners. If you don't like it, get out. Promotion is no cake walk, but it is fair: you sell more, you get promoted. I haven't seen favoritism play too strong of a role here.

Pretty professional and fun environment.

Well, I wanted to rant but it looks like everyone has said what I was going to say. Pretty much I was lied to at the interview. All they care about is "solutions" My DM does not care how I get them either but if I do something unethical, it is my butt on the line. I have been depressed since the 1st week I was employed by Wells fargo. I just hope I find another job real soon. I am at the point of taking a huge decrease in pay if that is what it takes to get out of here!

i just left wff after being there for four years. i did not *want* to be there for four years, and had tried desperately for years to find a new job. i am, however, staying within wells fargo because it really is a great company.

first and foremost, wff is a sales oriented enviorment. too many of the college grads they grab have no idea the pressure they will put you under to sell. two and three years ago, we were able to make some fairly decent compensation, but that has changed drastically, and management has not accordingly changed our VCP plan.

the first few years of the job, i literally did cry almost every night. i had a manager that micromanaged me to a ridiculous degree. the managers are promoted NOT because they are good at managing people, but because they are good sales people and can hit numbers. this makes for all kinds of problems. it is used as a "good" thing when you first join the company because they only promote from within, and the potential for you to be a manager young in your career is high. trust me, it takes a good ten years before these guys are actually ready to manage.

the pressure to sell and be on top is enormous. you can go from hero to zero in between months, and the pressure to keep producting is insane. i really think i went numb and stopped caring- but you can only do that so much. you have to keep producing to hang onto your job... no matter how bad it is, its still a paycheck, benefits, and a 401k.

towards the end, my district was forced to work 10 hours of overtime a week. coming in on saturdays, working late nights, etc. rarely did i actually take a lunch hour. because of this, my family life suffered and i was exhausted and constantly angry at my circumstances. in sales, just because you put in more hours does NOT mean you are going to sell more loans. i was grateful for the overtime simply because i actually made a decent paycheck.

the one thing that i am having a really hard time with, now that i've left, is the enormous amount of peoples' financial lives i have negatively impacted. the really tough part is that we market to sub prime customers. most of them-- not all!-- have no idea how to handle finances and thats why they are in our pool of customers. you take someone who doesn't understand how to use money, give them a better plan (yes, sometimes our auto loans even though they increased IR actually did help with interest payback) , but the problem is these customers never stick to it. i would have repeat customers come back in and ask for "that same loan you did before-- can you do it again?" it honestly broke my heart that they were now in an impossible position with DTI's well above 50% because they went back out and rang up the credit cards.

i loved my coworkers- all of them were amazing and i will have lifelong friendships with them. 20 days of PTO straight out of college isn't bad, and the insurance and HR departments of wells are actually fantastic. they really do take care of their employees. just know if you sign up to be a CM at WFF, you're in for tears, stress beyond anything you've experianced before, a guilty conscience, and a pretty tiny paycheck. if you're still working for wff, i'm praying for you and hope you get out soon.

I have been in the banking industry for 20+ yrs and have seen drastic changes and I believe it is all because people are greedy(upper management) and need to try to make big commissions. When I started in this industry I was paid a straight salary I knew how much I would make every month and I lived accordingly. The banking industry REALLY changed when it started paying commission to its emoloyees that is when all the dishonesty started. I currently work for Wells Fargo previously Wachovia and every time I think things cannot get any worse they do. My current DM Jason Wilson is HORRIBLE and the store managers he selected are incompetent and horrible managers that cannot think for themselves. The only way I think things will get better is to not pay employees bonuses, goback to the day when people can earn an HONEST pay check and live within their means. On a side note our customers and this country would be better off if the banking industry would change the way it conducts business.

Wells Fargo Financial is garbage!!!! this job is shit... really all the managers are fucken idiots most of them dont even know anything beond WFF and have really little knowledge of the products beside what the are told by whom ever well I should they know how to read the borchers. oh and this VCP shit wow what a load of crap that is i worked for this shity company for almost a year and i never saw anyone get it. the managers will step over you and steal your deals behind your back. most of them where promoted because they may have done ok but kissed a whole lot of ass so they became a manager or a DM like the idiot I had two face dick that shake your hand and then stabe you in the back right as you walk away. Last I heard this ass is getting sued by former employees so they moved him to Vegas to get him away. The reason they want to hire only people straight out of college is because they can brain wash them that this is the best place to work and no one pays better. Yeah right!!! so these fucken dumb ass green to sales college grads come in and get bent over by these idiots and do everything they are told to do because they dont know any better. 36k a year to deal with shity managers shity DM and even SHITIER products no thank you. The last thing is the worst the products wow we are suppose to try and help people? ill refi your auto extend your term from 36 mo to 72 mo raise your rate from 5% to 16% but ill save you $100 a month! oh and the 16% is if you have a 660 fico good luck fucking your customer into that. or how about a credit card at 30% or an FHA loan that will only take 4-5 months to get done. In other words every customer get shafted when they deal with Wells Fargo Financial and eventually so will you. Oh and all these people thinking this is the greatest job and youll never leave just wait they will boot ya soon I hear they all ready closed a few branches it dont suprise me or turned into modification centers why you ask well WFF is sub prime this market is getting smaller every day. WFF has more lose profits than gain thats why you dont see the numbers anymore in the monthly news letters. by the end of this year WFF will be no more. this is a good thing to all you still working there good luck! your going to need it because no one out there knows who or what WFF is or does!!!

Oh, WFF... I gave you a good year and a half of my life...

Pay- When you first start, you truly believe the 3k bonus potential is possible. It IS possible, but barely. I know the requirements for maxing the bonus have changed since I left in February of 2008 but when I was there, the requirements were atrocious. Even in a sinking economy, to max your bonus you had to get 500k in new money, 3 RE loans, 2 auto loans and 10 other products.

One month I made 500k in new money, had 3 RE loans, 2 auto loans and 10 other products. However, one of my loans went prime, meaning I got a whopping $200 for my efforts. The base salary is just okay. 0

Respect- Oh boy. Respect at WFF is a month-to-month thing. If you're doing well, you do get some respect. However, as soon as you're doing poorly, you lose it. It doesn't matter if you were employee of the month for three months in a row, if you have a poor 4th month you lose your respect as if you never had any. It is literally shocking, the difference in treatment. -5.

Benefits- The benefits are decent. 401k and medical are great. You do get 20 days of vacation but you cannot take them. If you do somehow trick your manager into letting you take them, they still expect that you produce the way you would have had you been present the entire month. For example- if you take two weeks off in one month, you have to produce - in 2 weeks - what you should have in a month. It's hard enough to hit the monthly goals in a month. Do not have any doctor's appointments, you'll have to make that up, too. 3

Job Security- There is none. As aforementioned, the goals are very hard to hit. WFF's product has some good points but the rates are ridiculous. As the others stated, the rates on the credit cards average in the mid-20's, the auto loans at 17% and the mortgages at 8% (with 4 points, no less). The product can be sold but it is hard to sell a sub-prime loan to a prime customer. You do get threatening emails from your DM and manager all day. Every day, you will fear for your job. Even if you are successful, you know that you're one bad month away from losing your job.

I was working for the company when the economy started to sink and WFF refused to acknowledge there was a problem and refused to lower the goals and the minimums you had to do to keep your job. They chose to remain "blissfully ignorant" to it. -5

Work/Life Balance- I was lucky with this. When I left, they were only starting to require Saturdays and call nights. I worked M-Th, 9-6 and 8:30-5:00 on Fridays. Six is a little late to get off and still have time to cook dinner, see your family, exercise and have a life, but it wasn't an awful schedule. 2

Career Potential/Growth- WFF loves to tell you how easy it is to move up- hit your goals three months in a row and you will be promoted to Sr. CM. That sounds great, but there is no raise- just a higher bonus cap, and it's hard enough to hit the 3k. They don't tell you that as soon as you hit Sr. CM the heat is on you two-fold to produce. No thanks. -3

Location- No complaints here. Not the best but not the worst. 3.

Co-worker Competence- I loved my co-workers, they were fabulous. We were strongly bonded because of our awful experience at the company. I rated this as a "4" mostly because my peers were competent but my managers were either wonderful or awful (and I had a LOT of managers). 4

Work Environment- Awful. This is the company for you if you enjoy being berated. Many of us cried when we went home at night. We felt like our jobs were constantly in limbo, we were horrible at our jobs and regardless of how hard we tried, we just weren't good enough. When will WFF get the memo that breaking their employees down to nothing is not a good way to motivate them.

While working here, you do feel awful about what you're doing to your customers. Most of the time, you are not looking out for them, you're looking out for your manager's paycheck. How do you solicit a COD and a CC? Tell the customer they were approved for it, it's a "combo" product, it "comes with the loan" and if they don't want it, they should just tear it up upon receipt. How do you solicit insurance with said CCs and CODs? Tell them about the insurance, and tell them to "sign here" for it. Don't tell them it's not required and that they have the right to reject it. Additionally, don't tell them where to sign if they don't want it. When they tell you they don't want it, tell them it's free for 30 days and then they can cancel it. DO NOT let them reject ANYTHING, even if they don't want it. -5

The leads, as others mentioned, are recycled for years. Literally, as soon as you leave a message for someone named "Matt" and hang up the phone, your coworker knows which Matt you were calling and can tell you he has been unemployed for one year but refuses to put his wife on the loan. They can tell you he loves his Countrywide mortgage and their PPP is up in June. Literally, these leads have been around for years.

The training is a joke. I was never formally trained, just asked to sit with some people as they made calls, then told to make a few myself and solicit products I knew nothing about.

One thing that resounds with me is when multiple managers told me "if half of your customers don't hate you- you're doing it wrong. It doesn't matter if they hate you, as long as they signed the loan." I once got in trouble for spending 15 minutes helping a customer on their account. "Did you make a sale? No? Well then you should've told them you didn't know, sent them to corporate, and made some calls."

If you want to be a tele-marketer who is constantly told they are not a tele-marketer, this is the job for you. If you don't need respect or stability, or if you don't mind dreading coming into work every day, this is the job for you.

If you must, take the job, but look around for another one.

Hmm. What can I say that hasn't been covered in previous reviews? Not much. Working for Wells Fargo/Wachovia stinks. And no, I'm not a "low performer" or whiner. In fact, I have been extremely successful in sales for many years. I still work there because I haven't found another job. But being there is killing me a little each day and I'm seriously contemplating just quitting and dealing with the consequences. I and most of my coworkers can't take it anymore.

Micromanagement...and I mean MICROmanagement is a huge negative. District managers will look through your desk, monitor your sales calls, force you to keep Waste of Time logs...I mean calling logs... of just about everything, and want HOURLY reports. If you haven't sold something in the past hour all hell breaks loose, and you have to write an action plan as to how you are going to get the next sale.

Next they will want to monitor how many times someone uses the bathroom. Oh, and forget about seeing your family. They are now often enforcing 7:30pm call nights at will (like..."by the way, everyone is staying until 7:30pm tonight!) Imagine what it's like telling your kid you won't be picking them up, making them dinner, or even tucking them into bed. And they lie, because when you are hired, you are told the job is 8:00 am- 5:00pm with rotating Saturdays.

The products are dreadful compared to our competitors. The pressure to sell ....sorry...DUPE people into taking lousy products just so you can have a "solution" is ridiculous (like selling debit cards to the mentally challenged and online banking to 85-year olds - true stories.) Churning accounts is all part of the game, and encouraged (though how this makes money is beyond me).

If you want to be successful and happy working here, CHECK YOUR ETHICS AT THE DOOR. My favorite is the "Way to Save" account. They transfer $1 from checking to savings every time you use your debit card, under the guise that they are helping you "save" money. They pressure us to sell this account to young students and seniors on disability. Take a wild guess how much this account generates in overdraft fees! And I'm sure we all know how banks already structure deposits and withdrawals to maximize overdraft fees. And when fees happen, everything is the customer's fault so they can deny refunds!!! They hold withdrawals for 5 days, then take them out from largest to smallest (not by what date they happened), causing multiple overdrafts .....when in reality there should have been ONE. How is that fair? And we're supposed to sell this line of crap?

The folks that work with you in the branches are usually nice, well-meaning people. But the District Managers and above are absolutely awful. They only care about getting a tick mark and making themselves look good, so they can move on to another position. No one cares about employees' health, work/life balance, or the long-term effects of selling lousy products to loyal customers. No one cares about you, or me.

If you have a choice DO NOT WORK IN THE BRANCHES! If you're stuck like I am, God help you.

Working for Wells Fargo is like working for the devil. The majority of people that advance are the most unethical scumbags that sell their souls to advance. Upper management only cares about themselves and use the most disrespectful tatics in order to reach their unrealistic widget sales goals. Its like a gigantic pyrimad scheme because the widget sales goals keep getting passed down from one unecessary level of management to the next while getting inflatted along the way.

The most unethical thing I've ever scene occured while I was working there. We had a Service Manager go on medical leave to have a baby. One week before the baby was due and a few weeks after she went on leave the District Manager, Service Manager 2 and Compliance District Manger cut her medical benefits. WTF!!!!!? These were three ladies that make a lot of money and had nothing better to do but waste company time for this unecessary vindictive move. I saw them for weeks conspire together to do this.They tried to change her job title after she left on leave. The amount of stress they put on this poor girl while she was about to have a baby is unimmaginable. She called HR and they lied to her and told her that everything was corrected back to the way it was. After her leave, the Service Manager returned to her same position, worked for a few months and left the company. Months latter she received a collection bill for $30k from the hospital.

Let me say I will comment on the business not personal opinion. I can relate on a lot of the thoughts expressed on this page, but i can also say that there are some positives to the job. So I am a Financial Specialist, now a Personal Banker and the pay is good in fact above average for the same position with other banks. Respect you get depends on who you are speaking of; the managers usually respect your needs, the company and district managers are the ones who show little to no respect for a work ife balance. This job is not for everyone, personally I do not like the job. I do like the people I work with, but they understand the issues with the company. Work life balance depends on the month, and if you are reaching your goals. My district has now set up mandatory cold calling on Mon. and Wed. mornings and Wed. Nights till 7. There is word of adding more nights. The main reason I dislike the position is I am not one for cold calling, it seems to annoy clients more that it helps the company. As far as growth potential, do not expect to go very far. This is the reason I am leaving, my branch is full of people who have been here for 20 to 25 years, and this is common through the company. Location, well this depends on you as well, my travel is no huge problem, I do not hit much traffic. Co-workers easy they have been here forever, and they know the job, if I have a question it is quickly answered. Work environment, I enjoy who I work with directly, I do not like the managment style of the district and regional managers, they want numbers which is true for any sales job, however they are only trying to make a name for themselves. If you have a checking account and a savings, they want me to call you and switch your savings to a money market, this generates a "sale", it does not generate a profit for the compnay, and actually generates a dollar loss due to the added interest earned by the client, and the lack of new funds coming into the bank.

Some of the "good bankers" are very unethical, and this seems to be a trait the company looks for when promoting. I am a very ethical person and cannot nor will I put a client in a bad position. In conclusion this job is for some, and not for all, but this is in any job. It is a lot like insurance sales, get your famiy in the door open some accounts realize that the work is not for you and leave. Some do very well and can make a career out of it, but you need to make phone calls, which is not for everyone, nor is it for me. Cold calling is not a strong point for me, i do not like getting yelled at, or bothering people while they eat dinner. If you have cold calling experience and enjoy it then this job is for you and you have the abiity to make some good money. If you can handle the stress and need to get by for a few months it is not a bad experience, and you can learn some of the ways the banks will scam you, this will help you to keep more of your money and is a life lesson. Otherwise I would avoid this industry in general, it is not different anywhere BOA ,Chase, TD all the same stuff just different names.