Wells Fargo, the official banking partner of UF, was recently listed as the most-complained-about bank in Florida.
Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase ranked second and third respectively, according to a report released by Florida PIRG Education on Tuesday. The findings were based on data the organization collected since early last year.
The report compared banks by total number of complaints and by the ratio of complaints per billion dollars of deposits.
Some UF students who use Wells Fargo said they understand why the bank topped the list and have their share of complaints.
Deanna Shahnami, a 21-year-old UF journalism senior, said in her experience with Wells Fargo, she has been less than satisfied but understands why UF uses it as its banking partner.
“UF might partner with it because it’s a national bank, so it’s convenient for a student to use it in and out of state,” she said.
Jimmy Taylor, a 21-year-old UF materials science and engineering senior, agreed that Wells Fargo has been problematic, but the on-campus location has always provided excellent service.
“The general customer service is lacking at Wells Fargo as a whole, but at least the on-campus branch really seems to care about the students,” Taylor said.
William Rossi, a Wells Fargo faculty fellow and senior lecturer at UF, said it is important to remember the report doesn’t speculate on Wells Fargo nationally, and customer service in a particular region could be the issue the bank made the top of the list.
“I really think if you look at Wells Fargo nationally, they tend to have a pretty good reputation,” he said. “I think it has a lot to do with customer service, and that’s more of a location-specific issue than a national one.”
Additionally, acquiring regional banks in Florida could account for poor customer service, said Rossi.
“In reality, when it acquires an old bank, it can acquire its customer service trends,” he said.
Rachel Priester, a 22-year-old UF mechanical engineering senior, said perhaps the bank has the most complaints because it has the most customers.
“To me, that information is only valuable if you have a ratio of unhappy customers to total customers.”
A version of this story ran on page 1 on 9/19/2013 under the headline "Patrons of Wells Fargo complain"
