I Found a Wallet Today and Wells Fargo Wouldn't Help Me Get It Back to the Owner: What Gives?

So today I woke up and went outside (bed head fully intact) to pick up my newspaper. However, when I stepped onto my front lawn I noticed a wallet lying open there. I looked around and didn't see anybody so I went ahead and picked it up. Knowing how frantic I would be if I lost my wallet, I began looking for some way to get in touch with the owner.

Inside the wallet was some cash, a driver's license, a social security card, a Wells Fargo check card, a Saks employee ID, some various store credit cards, and the business cards of the boys Jane Doe met out at the bar last night.

Attempt #1 to return said wallet: I pop onto the Internet and go to whitepages.com. Enter Jane Doe's name. Not listed. Failure.

Attempt #2 to return said wallet: I jump in my car and drive the 10 blocks to the address on the license. I get to the apartment and look at the mail boxes. Jone Doe's box (#1) is blank. All the others have names. I ring the button for apartment #1. No answer. Damn. Failure.

Attempt #3 to return said wallet: I call Wells Fargo and explain the situation. I also explain that I understand they are not likely to be able to give me any information about Jane Doe. I ask may I please leave my contact information with you and can you call and give it to Jane Doe? No we don't do that sir, that is not our policy. Grrrr. Failure.

Attempt #4 to return said wallet: I go online and look up Saks. Thankfully there is only one in my city. I call Saks and ask for Jane Doe. I get connected to the cosmetics department:

Is Jane Doe there?
No she's not in today may I help you?
Well I have her wallet. Can someone call her with my contact information?
Sure let me take that down...

Needless to say 10 minutes later Jane Doe called and got her wallet back. It turns out she lived in an apartment next door and she lost it while chasing her dog through my yard. But what if she didn't work at Saks? Would I have had to give it to the police so it could sit in the lost and found forever? Would she have had to cancel all of her credit cards and get a new license and social security card?

It's all possible because Wells Fargo, which is a bank I am satisfied customer of, has a dumb policy in this regard. Here's just a tiny suggestion. If you want to build loyalty and have customers for life, help them get their wallet back if they lose it. That is if someone calls in and says, "I found a wallet will you please pass my contact information on to your customer?" For heaven's sake do it. I promise if I lost my wallet and you helped me get it back I would be a customer for life. This doesn't just go for Wells Fargo, all you credit card companies out there should be listening.

Say NO to the Double Ding! ATM Fees and How to Eliminate Them Without Planning Your Life Around In-Network ATMs

I hate ATM fees. I shouldn't be alone. According to an article posted on Bankrate in 2005, 96% of banks were charging non-customers fees to use their ATM and 87% of banks were charging their own customers to use someone else's network. On average banks were charging people not in their network $1.57 to use their ATMs, while peoples' own banks were charging them $1.37 to use an ATM in someone else's network. This horrific "double ding" means that if you use an ATM at a bank outside your network, the majority of the time you will pay $2.94 on average for the privledge of convenience. Let's assume you are using an ATM outside your network once a month. Over 30 years that means the banks will take $1,058 of your hard earned money. Assuming you reinvested that money at an 8% return that is $4,382 that the banks are stealing from you one withdrawal at a time.
My personal experience was worse than this. My main checking account at Wells Fargo (which I love for a whole host of reasons, ATMS not being one of them) was charging me $2.00 to use non-Wells Fargo ATMs and because I was travelling so much for work I was using them up to three times per month. I decided that there had to be a better way. When I searched around on the internet there were plenty of articles that suggested planning your visits to the ATM better to avoid the fees. That option didn't hold much appeal to me since I was frequently arriving in a new city for work and having absolutely no idea where an ATM was, let alone one from Wells Fargo.
Then I found Umbrellabank. Umbrellabank offers a checking account called virtually free checking. The account requires $100 to open, but has no minimum balance requirements thereafter. It will reimburse you for up to $6.00 in fees charged by other banks to use their ATMs each month. Umbrellabank itself charges no fees to use non-network ATMs presumably since they don't have many ATMs of their own. I opened an account and keep about $300 in there. That way, when I am traveling, I can go to any ATM and I know that Umbrellabank will reimburse me. When I am at home, I still go to my Wells Fargo ATM, but with my Umbrellabank account I don't have to pay an arm and a leg to use a non-network ATM and I don't always have to plan to be near a Wells Fargo ATM.