August 2009 Archives

Molly Murphy

On August 4th I posted A Wachovia Possibilities Rewards® Program Update, and a couple of you made some comments about keeping the Earn More Mall^SM site. (Special thanks to Jamison and Ryan for your respective thoughts!)

The Earn More Mall program in Wachovia Possibilities Rewards allows rewards cardholders to earn bonus points (these are in addition to the regular points you'd get) and get exclusive discounts for purchases made at participating merchants. You simply log in to the rewards web site to take advantage of these offers.

The participating stores (there are close to 500!) include online places you are likely to shop, such as Target , Macys  and iTunes. It also includes in-store offers at places like DSW , Sally Beauty , and others.

With the integration, we have reviewed the features of both the Wachovia and the Wells Fargo rewards programs to determine what will be offered on a go forward basis at Wells Fargo.

I'm happy to let you know the Earn More Mall program will continue for Wachovia card holders as it has in the past. Also, Wells Fargo was so impressed with this program we also launched an initial version of the Earn More Mall site for our Wells Fargo customers last month!

Having access to new features and programs is one of the benefits of the integration of Wells Fargo and Wachovia. For more information, visit either the Wells Fargo or Wachovia Earn More Mall sites.

And as always, please keep letting us know what you think!

Molly Murphy

En los últimos ocho meses nuestros lectores han hecho buenas preguntas y sugerencias útiles. Y estamos haciendo nuestro mejor esfuerzo por tomar sus comentarios en cuenta y brindarles información sobre la fusión tan pronto esté disponible.
Como parte de estos esfuerzos, es un placer anunciarles que acabamos de lanzar un nuevo sitio Web en español sobre la integración. Al igual que nuestro Centro de información de Wells Fargo y Wachovia original, este sitio incluye información básica sobre:

• Transacciones y servicios que pueden completar en Wells Fargo y Wachovia
• Las respuestas a preguntas frecuentes de los clientes de Wells Fargo y Wachovia
• Actualizaciones sobre nuestros esfuerzos de integración

Actualizaremos este sitio Web periódicamente para responder a los comentarios y preguntas más comunes que recibimos. Así que continúen enviando esas preguntas y sugerencias, y recuerden que ahora somos ¡un equipo, el doble de fuerte!

Over the past eight months our readers have asked great questions and made helpful suggestions. And we're doing our best to take your feedback and to get as much merger information to you all as soon as possible.

As part of those efforts, I'm happy to announce that we've just launched a new Spanish-language Integration website! Just like our original Wells Fargo-Wachovia Information Center, it includes basic information about:

• Transactions and services that can be completed in Wells Fargo and Wachovia Banks
• Wells Fargo and Wachovia customer Frequently Asked Questions
• Updates on our integration efforts

We will update this website periodically to address the most common comments and questions we receive. So please keep those questions and suggestions coming, and remember: Un equipo, el doble de fuerte!

Ann Marie Quinn

First off, a big thanks to everyone who's voted in our first official poll, as well as to those of you who've commented! As always, we really appreciate your voice and feedback here on the blog.

We've been trying our best to get you product and integration timeline information as soon as it's available. Based on your voice in the poll results, you still want more. We want to assure you that we hear you loud and clear and that we're going to step up our efforts and do everything we can to bring you even more merger information as possible.

Thanks again to all of you!

In the meantime, we thought we'd take advantage of the new feature for a slightly more lighthearted poll. As part of the integration, we've recently unveiled a new series of TV commercials called "With You When." Perhaps you've seen some of them?

Well, we wanted to give you the opportunity "speak your mind" again and vote for one of these two ads. The winner will be featured during a specific primetime network TV show — we'll announce the where and when as soon as the results are in!

So take a look at "With You When" and "Owning a Home," decide which one is your favorite, and cast your vote. And stay tuned for further integration news!

UPDATE: Hey, thank you all so much for voting and for your great comments about the commercials! (We think the kids are cute, too.) The poll is now closed, and the winner is..."With You When"! Stay tuned for the date and time of the prime time TV show when we'll be airing it. And thanks again!

Ian Matchett

Ever wish that you had a guardian angel? Someone who was looking after your best interests even if you weren't aware they existed?

I don't know if you have a guardian angel  in your life (though I sure hope you do), but I do know you have one looking out for your best interests here at Wachovia and Wells Fargo: It's a team called Customer Advocacy.

What do they do? Customer Advocacy stands up for you, the customer, and your perspective throughout all levels of our business. Right now, they're deeply immersed in determining how the integration of the two companies is affecting you and trying to find ways to make it easier and smoother.

For example, they recently discovered that upon the conversion to the Wells Fargo platform, some Wachovia customers were going to have their transfer limits reduced because their accounts would be registered as new accounts in the Wells Fargo system. The advocates raised the alarm and the product team found a solution that maintained customer's transfer limits!

We then communicated this new practice throughout the bank in an effort to improve your bank-to-bank transfer experiences as we continue to merge.

With the first state conversion planned for this November in Colorado, our Customer Advocates are busy outlining details of customer impacts. They're analyzing and documenting each experience across all internet services and channels, planning ways to reduce negative impacts and building workarounds where necessary.

And of course, once the conversion is complete, they're going to continue to fix any issues that pop up and make things work even better.

This Customer Advocacy team is growing as Wachovia and Wells Fargo integrate, collecting and analyzing customer impacts and experiences. It's just one of the ways we're working to make the integration of our two companies and your future customer experiences as good as they can be.

Isn't it nice to have a guardian angel?

Ed Terpening

All of us here at Wells Fargo and Wachovia really value your feedback. For those of us on the Social Media team, that includes making your blog and other social media experiences as engaging as possible.

Whether through content, design or features, we're constantly on the lookout for better and more effective ways that allow you to participate more by sharing your thoughts. And, we want to make it as easy as possible. That's one reason that our comment box is embedded right here in this post.

But wait, participating is getting even easier! Today we're excited to unveil a new element on the Wells Fargo-Wachovia Blog: polls! Why polls? Well, we like them because they are simple and effective ways to get your thoughts on a particular subject. Comments are a great way too (so keep them coming), but if you're busy, and want to contribute with a click of the mouse, polls are here.

Here then is our inaugural poll...and thanks in advance for voting!

Jason Menke

We continue to hear from many of you here on the Wells Fargo-Wachovia blog about mortgage-related issues — specifically about the President Obama's Making Home Affordable  Program.

In the first seven months of this year, we completed 240,000 modifications for Wells Fargo and Wachovia customers. About 20,000 of these modifications are part of the government's Home Affordable Modification Program  (HAMP), which the Treasury Department released data on  last week. The rest are proprietary modifications — like those we are doing for Wachovia Pick-a-Payment customers and others — who either don't qualify for HAMP or who may get greater benefit from a different solution.

We welcome the transparency the government is trying to create by reporting HAMP numbers, and are working hard at helping everyone understand that Home Affordable Modifications are only a part of the total picture of what we are doing to help homeowners. And given your comments and the recent HAMP news, we want to update you all on where we stand with all of our efforts to modify loans for homeowners.

First, we know there are still many of you who need help, and we plan to accelerate our use of the government's program while continuing to do other modifications and short sales to help customers avoid foreclosure. We've hired and trained about 4,000 people this year for a total of 11,500 U.S. based people helping those of you facing financial difficulties.

We're also gearing up to qualify most borrowers for a HAMP trial modification during our first point of contact. Our goal is to send eligible customers a trial modification agreement within 48 hours. During the three-month trial period, we can then work with you to collect all of the required documents to determine if your modifications can be finalized. Under the HAMP guidelines, once a homeowner is approved for a HAMP modification, they're required to make three on-time monthly payments before the modification becomes permanent.

At the end of July, the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced that Making Home Affordable will soon be available to homeowners with FHA loans.  And while we have other options we can use to help customers, we hope HAMP can be further refined to more broadly serve other customers, such as those with Wachovia pay option adjustable-rate mortgages.

We believe HAMP is an important part of the Obama administration's efforts to provide mortgage relief and stabilize the housing market. The government has asked mortgage servicers to reach the goal of 500,000 HAMP trial modifications by Nov. 1, and we're confident we'll be able to achieve our portion of that number.

As always, thank you so very much for your patience and your business. And please continue to send us your comments.

Matt Wadley

It's hard to imagine now, but when we launched the Wachovia Twitter  account last June we actually had to educate reporters about what a "tweet"  was while speaking with them about being one of the first banks to use the platform.

Initially, our plans for the account were simply to better understand how it might help us connect and engage with our customers. You see, it was our company's first real foray into the social media world (a sandbox Wells Fargo had been playing in for years already), and we thought, "What better way to get our feet wet than to join a new community?"

A little over a year later, Twitter has engrained itself into seemingly every aspect of media, business and culture. From Barack Obama  tweeting his way to the White House, to Ashton Kutcher challenging (and beating) CNN  to be the first to 1 million followers, to athletes bypassing reporters and bringing news straight to their fans, it seems like everyone (and their mother) is on Twitter.

And as we've learned with @Wachovia, it's also another way for customers to get in touch with us for a variety of topics as they relate to their relationship with our company.

Now, as we move closer to the first Wachovia-to-Wells Fargo conversions, we've decided to bring our two Twitter channels under the same roof.

Starting this week, I've handed the reigns to my colleagues who have been tweeting as@Ask_WellsFargo  for several months now. Ian (who has already made a guest appearance here on the blog) and Jay are great guys who, like me, came from Wachovia and thus are super familiar with Wachovia's legacy products and services.

So in addition to checking in with us here on the blog, make sure you are following both @Wachovia and @Ask_WellsFargo to get updates on the integration or to ask a question about your account.

We'll tweet ya later.

Matt Wadley

When Wells Fargo and Wachovia joined forces earlier this year, we touted our resulting coast-to-coast presence. Now, we're going global and crossing the Pond to the land of links golf , the Blarney Stone  and Muckanaghederdauhaulia. 

As part of our conversion, Wachovia Bank International has officially changed its name to Wells Fargo Bank International (WFBI). WFBI, a subsidiary of Wells Fargo & Company, is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland and is a European Union (EU)  bank licensed by the Irish Financial Regulator.

Comprised of 26 team members, WFBI is part of the company's European banking platform (Wells Fargo also has a branch in London), with more than 200 corporate customers and a balance sheet of approximately $15 billion.

WFBI offers banking and financial services including deposits, lending, and corporate trust services to commercial banks and corporate customers across the 30 collective EU and European Economic Area (EEA)  countries.

So, as the Irish say, Cèad Mìle Faìlte...a hundred thousand welcomes!

Molly Murphy

As we move forward with the integration, one of the biggest tasks our companies are working on is making certain Wachovia and Wells Fargo programs more similar to each other.

Well, Wachovia credit cards are doing just that. As of August 1, the Wachovia Possibilities Rewards® Program has adjusted all its point levels.

Now if you're a rewards junkie like me, you might worry that you may not be able to continue getting the rewards you want toward merchandise, travel and the like. Well, these changes do not have to do with the kind of rewards — no, we're simply adjusting the reward point and redemption calculations to be more in line with Wells Fargo credit cards.

Basically, the redemption items and your existing point balance will be divided by four, giving your existing points the same buying power. Future earning rates will also change.

Here's an example for Visa Platinum Card purchases totaling $1375:

If you're a Wachovia Possibilities Rewards® credit card customer, you should have received a letter in July detailing the changes. For more information and the full rules, take a look at the program FAQs.

As always, we appreciate your comments, so please keep letting us know what you think!