One-click credit cards now available from Wells Fargo (apparently)

I visited my local Wells Fargo branch at the beginning of September to open a new checking account. I also requested a check card (of course). Apparently, the banker missed the “send check card” button on his screen and instead clicked the “open a new credit card account” button, instead. And so, a few days later, I got what I thought was my new check card, and didn’t notice what really happened until after I got an extra statement this month.

(Wells Fargo credit cards, by the way, look exactly like Wells Fargo check cards, and do not say “credit” anywhere on them. Maybe this is because they hope you will forget, or that you will reach for the wrong card when making a purchase. The check cards do say “check card” on them, but it is not the kind of thing you would notice if you are expecting a card, anyway.)

There was no immediate harm done, since I had not incurred a finance charge, but I was pretty shocked to see a credit card statement when I never even applied for a card. I would have thought Wells Fargo would have wanted at least a peek at my creditworthiness before giving me an $11,000 line of credit.

Apparently not. After I called Wells Fargo to complaint, the banker who opened my account called me and told me that because I was pre-approved (I assume my pre-approval notice was contained in one of the many junk mail enveloped I get every other day), Wells Fargo did not require any formal application. Or any information at all, really. One click and they opened an account and sent me a card.

The downside is, I assume, that I will now have a note of this credit card account on my credit report. Since I will have closed the account less than two months after I opened it, this will reflect negatively on my credit score. I imagine it will be rather difficult to get the account removed from my credit report, even though my banker “accidentally” opened it without my permission or knowledge. But I will try.

The moral? If you want to make sure nothing similar happens to you, read every piece of mail carefully. If it really is so easy to start a line of credit that a banker can do it by accident with one missed click, you never know when you might end up in finance charge hell.

[photo: Chance Agrella]