WFA monthly statements put it all out there for thieves

An older relative asked me a good question this weekend, “Why doesn’t Wells Fargo Advisors redact part of the customer account # on their monthly account statements which are mailed out, like credit card companies do?” I asked to see one of his statements and it’s all there.

Customer’s full 8- digit Account Number
Customer’s full name and address
Customer’s full email address on file with the bank
And of course, how much money they have

Sensitive customer info ripe for the picking by our printers, anyone in our mail room, anyone at USPS, anyone stealing mail from mailboxes.

Wells Fargo is required by law to protect our customer sensitive information and yet they are lazy in the d-mbest ways. I realize customers can choose not to get paper copies, and yet many people want hard copies to protect themselves should their bank get hacked.

Why not simply redact part of the account number?

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I'll bet the full account number is in the micr encoding on the invoice payment stub even if deleted from the billing statement or the payment stub.

With the exception of a small group running fairly sophisticated proprietary trading scams, WFA is operating as if it’s 1995.

pi-s on going statementless.

If they ain't giving me a break on anything, they WILL be spending the the money on paper statements that I will toss monthly.

the trick is to never use wells fargo advisors. their only goal is to make money by 'churning' your account.

What they really need to do is provide surrogate account nums with no validity in transaction networks (NACH, FiServ…).

Your older relatives head will explode when he finds out that all his vital information is in India and Philippines. Two of the most scammiest countries in the world. Im sure all those scam calls are just a coincidence tho...

Remember all it takes is for one disgruntled I&P employee to get all our info in the black market...

One can complain and b@tch on a public forum about this or one can put it into the suggestion box.

OP here
I stand partially corrected. I checked my own credit card statements:

My 2 WFC cards: say “for account ending in 1234 at the top, but give full account # on payment stub, so that’s d-mb.

Target card: same as above.

———-

Chase AMZN card gives full account # on top and payment stub.

BAC card: same as above

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Capitol One is my only card that gives “for account ending in 1234” on both the statement and the paystub.

I agree, unfortunately, that our customers should go paperless to protect themselves. On the other hand, customers should not need to protect themselves from the carelessness of their own financial institutions. Additionally, many of our seniors feel more comfortable with the hard copies and/or have trouble with technology.

It’s 2024. Banks and credit card companies could so easily redact the first four numbers to protect their customers’ sensitive information. No excuses.

CC statements have full number on the payment slip at the bottom. If anyone has concerns about their account numbers, go paperless or get a PO Box.

I have credit cards at 4 different banks and all of them show the full card number.

You need to compare this to a bank account instead. All statements show the full account number as well. And it's not just WF.

Maybe it's time to talk them into paperless statements.

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WFA monthly statements put it all out there for thieves

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