24.5K views
New Reviewer
91 comments

Well I would just like to let you know what is really going on with Woodforest National Bank from the inside. I am still employed with Woodforest, so this is the entire truth. I am looking for work elsewhere because I truly can't believe the things that are going on. This bank preys on low-income customers. My stomach turns when I am there because even though I need this job, I hate to see what we are doing to people. They intentionally post transactions so that they can charge you more fees. They train us to tell you how to use privilege pay but forbid us from telling you to use it in one lump sum. They want to collect as many fees as possible. Until recently they charged a continuous overdraft fee but the federal government made them stop, thank God. They use to be able to charge you as many overdraft fees as they wanted but the government just made them limit that to 3 overdrafts a day. They are not making money so they have now changed the Totally Free Checking to Woodforest Checking and are charging 5.95 a month if you don't keep a minimum balance of 100.00 and a direct deposit. They are not grandfathering the old Totally Free accounts and people are closing their accounts like flies. The funny thing is that they called this account totally free, but charge customers 12.00 for a debit card fee. Who does that? Truth be told, if you are a Second Chance customer, you are allowed to cheat the system which I feel is wrong. You can open an account and order checks. You can write checks to anyone you want without money and we will decline the check. But that company is now cheated out of their merchandise because we don't pursue any legal actions for you writing bad checks. We are use to unethical customers so as long as you pay the fees, the company is happy. You can do this over and over; this makes you a good customer to Woodforest as long as you pay us the fees. Also after 30 days, we allow you to overdraft your account anywhere from 100.00 to 500.00 (privilege pay). You can overdraft and never pay. Then you can come back and pay 70% and we will reopen you a new account over and over. This whole process is ludicrous.

The employees are also treated horribly. It is also mandatory to open a Woodforest Checking account. If you qualify for second chance as an employee, you are required to pay a 9.00 set up fee and 9.95 a month with direct deposit and 7.95 without direct deposit. You are strongly urged to set up your direct deposit to your WNB account. You are required to pay for your 7 shirts (0ver 150.00) and for your name tag (5.00). If you are a manager and you break your business cellular phone, they take 100.00 out of your bank account to replace it. It is mandatory that you have that bank cellular phone as a manager. Worst case, you are a manager with a Second Chance checking (no direct deposit), that looses your cellular phone, and you have to replace your shirts due to a Laundromat incident. You are responsible for paying a total of 525.00 that year.

You have to work every holiday, 7 days a week. If you are part-time, you don't receive any sick time or vacation, so there is no break for you. If you are a manager, you are expected to work as much as possible. You can't pay your employees overtime. They strongly recommend your part time work 25 hours or less and you're full time 32 hours or less. Assistant managers are no longer salary so you cannot work them over 40 hours. That means if you have a small branch of only 3 employees (because the regional makes you have a very small staff to save money), as a manager you work a minimum of 60 hours. Retail bankers do not receive any incentive unless they win a contest. Your goals are set too high, so most managers don't receive incentive as well. If you make one mistake on a signature card, you lose your incentive for the month if you have a low volume branch. Your employees quit often because they are over worked and feel bad about never making goal. The managers have to have their cellular phones at all times and their employees called them between 1 and 20 times a day. You have to stop what you're doing to help and even go back to the branch to help. Managers are responsible for all the maintenance on the ATM and any other device in the branch. If you need your drawers fixed, it comes off your profit. If you get a raise (which never happens in Virginia if you are a manager and rarely if you are an employee), it comes off of your profit. If you travel to a meeting, it comes off of your profit even though it is mandatory that you attend or you may be fired. All employees are responsible for cleaning the branch, there is no cleaning company. There is no courier to pick up the work; the employees have to physically run the work through a scanner that often breaks. If you don't scan an item correctly, don't scan it every two hours, or you don't click the word final run at the end of the day, you may not get your incentive as a manager unless you have a high volume branch.

This is a normal day for a manager:

Morning - Do cash balancing which could take up to 30 minutes or more if you are off by one cent. Pull a minimum of 30 reports, check your accounts from the day before, check your accounts from 10 days ago, check your accounts from 30 days ago and initial everyone on paper and in the system for some. Pull your overdrafts and make a decision to pay, pull your negative accounts, pull your Campaign calls and call them all. Pull your exceptions (errors from the previous 2 days) and if any are wrong (no incentive for the month) and fix any errors which means calling customers back in to resolve them after you just opened their new accounts. That brings a good first impression. If you have a high volume branch you may have 10 accounts from the day before, hundreds of negative accounts, and thousands of campaign calls. After you call all of them you have to document this on one of the many reporting tools they have. Only managers can call the next day, 10 day, and 30 day call backs. Pull your charge offs and email that, check your timesheets (managers) (weekly). Do any maintenance on accounts from the previous day (closures, debit cards, check orders, name changes, address changes etc.) and do not get a debit card or check order wrong (no incentive for that month). Check your emails and respond to the ones that you need to. Calculate your projection for the next month, calculate every account for every day for the next month, do your expenses with receipts (better not be more than 75.00), this is done monthly. Buy in your bag and have a second person count it with you (this must be done for all employees every morning). Pull out your monetary instruments, start up Western Union and start up the work scanner. Deposit the monetary from your night deposit box. Oh yeah and there are at least 5-10 logs to note everything that you have just done. Too people have to feel out each section of each log. This all should be done by the time you open; most managers have to do this in 30 minutes to an hour. I may have forgot a few things, but this is just the morning...lol

During the day - teller, open accounts (30 minute disclosures), western union, cash advance, answer phones, balance atm, and run work every 2 hours. Oh yeah can't forget the many training cbt's, weekly updates (which you are quizzed on), and weekly quizzes. This has to be done on a time schedule.

Closing- Close the branch, check the night drop, close down western union, and close out the cash advance machine. Balance the vault, balance the drawers, and put up the money (all done under dual control which is a minimum of two people). If you are off by one cent you have to find it which may take a while. Check all accounts, scan the signature cards, and count every overdraft decision. Run all the work through the scanner. Take out trash, clean the branch, sign the logs (2 people), and document doing a few of these things online. I did not include a few things but you get the idea. Imagine doing all of this everyday with no raise. And if you make too many errors that affect customers, don't get customer's to sign up for online services, or don't make your account goal, as a manager you don't get incentive.

The regional manager, Ross Folkenroth is racist and since he is in the good old boy network, no one will do anything about it. I have been with this company since they came to VA and we have had over 50 managers and hundreds of employees. There are only 5 original managers left in the state and I don't know many original employees because they have fired them all. This man's turnover is astronomical. He is intimidated by blacks and he treats them like slaves. I have been informed by many employees that he is racist and shortly after they are terminated. As far as I am aware, there is not one black Officer in the entire company. They only hire black managers and employees to work in black areas. I know so many people that have complained about him that it is just crazy that he still works for this company. He has never made his account goal, his profit projection, or his charity goal. How does he still have a job. So if this company supported a diverse environment for employees, free of discrimination, they would have fired him long ago. Apparently they don't care. Anytime your turnover is almost 100% and you don't perform, how can you still be employed? I know black managers and employees that they have fired for waving their debit card fee which should be free. The manager emails the regional and asks them to waive the fee. They never do it. So when the employee waives the fee, they fire them. This is a total set-up. They have fired many managers for mistreatment of their employees. What Ross does is call the employees and ask them questions about their managers. Of course employees don't always like their boss, they are the people telling them what to do. Then he fires the manager because he hates managers that stand up to him. You probably think I am black because of all that I am saying, the funny thing is that I'm white. I just hate to see discrimination against anyone.

For those of you that have been wronged by this company, I suggest that you get an attorney. They are getting away with unethical and just dreadful practices. Do you know that every week they send us a pre-typed letter to send to our Congressman asking him to side with us on the fee changes. How are you trying to force your political views on your employees. Your manager makes you feel like you are not a team player if you don't send in this letter to your congressman. I wonder if Ross is putting pressure on the managers to do this, but this has to be unethical to mix politics with business. I don't want to feel like I will lose my job if I am not against the new federal laws to protect consumers. We should not charge these kinds of fees and I am happy the government is on our side. The government wants these predatory practices to stop, good job Obama.

The only professionals on the leadership team is the Executive Vice President and the CEO. They are great people, profit driven, but good people. Every time they come to Virginia I am impressed. If they are representation of how it is in Texas, well I wish Virginia was like the real Woodforest, I might just stay.

Location: Norfolk, Virginia

Do You Have Something To Say ?
Write a review

Comments

chat-icon

Please avoid publishing any personal information and promotional content

You will be automatically registered on our site. Username and password will be sent to you via email.
Post Comment
Guest

Deceptive overdraft practices. I'm sure they are getting sued again and will have to pay out millions to customers and The FEDS again.

They are structuring their posting purposely to charge OD fees. Closing my account permanently after several years and suing

Guest

Wow I feel so sad for this employee ! I k ow this bank sucks itโ€™s corporate America at its best !!! I have friends who also work for this bank and hear the horror storyโ€™s from them also , they ever try and change any of my *** and they are done there are to many other banks out there that would gladly take my money!!!

Guest

This would explain why I canโ€™t get the money back from a fraudulent transaction I would never do business with this bank they have bank tellers doing fraud and the company knows about it and so do the fraud department

Guest

I just left the Woodforest Bank, located in Walmart at the Robert Smalls Pkwy Beaufort, SC location. When I arrived I handed the teller a Woodforest Bank check to cash along with my Federal Government issued ID.

The teller, later requested I provide my driver license citing, the Federal Government issued ID was not acceptable for of identification. Since when has a government issued ID not acceptable to cash a check? I have visited this branch many times for the same reason, and have always provided my government issued identification and at no time in the past was it never accepted.

When I requested to be assisted by someone who might be more familiar with their Standard Operating Procedures, she identified herself as the project manager for that Branch. I HIGHLY recommend Woodforest train or retrain their Projects Managers.

Guest

The comment made by Woodforest is a joke... What kind of Customer Service is this?

This comment is extremely unprofessional and super defensive. Woodforest, did your legal department approve this response?

Guest

I went to the branch in Gurnee Illinois (Walmart). Manager lady was very rude.

Big attitude problem. Don't remember the name but started with S. Worst experience.

She is the assistant manager so thought would be well trained on how to deal with customers. I will never be banking with Woodforest bank anymore.

Guest

If you know all this & know beforehand why did u go to work for them.

Guest

Everyone knows this bank is a joke. No one has any experience at any other bank. All income is from fees and they have already been fined in excess of 75 million dollars for predatory practices.

Guest

Yes is the most unethical bank. Did you see their review on wallehub?

I think they has employees review it. I do not have a second chance account. I had to pay overdraft fees for fraudulent transactions. They knew they were fraud.

They credited my account. I have yet to see a bank charge you overdraft fees for fraud. When I called the attorney general. They told me they stay in trouble with them.

They look for any reason to charge a fee. That is how they make their money. I have never seen anything like this place. You never see the same person working at my branch.

It is in Virginia. I guess it is because of what the other poster said.

I heard the manager call a black person the N word. It is just pathetic!!!

Guest

I had fraud on my Paypal account. They charged me $29.00 each for thirteen transactions.

They refuse to credit me. Who do I need to contact? The attorney general? I'm in Virginia.

I do not have a second chance account. mawefef

Guest

I fully believe I was not hired because of age discrimination. Wish I could sue them.

Guest

I haven't had any problems here in ohio

Guest

About accurate

Guest

kudos for you for being honest. we have been with woodforest for over five years, we have had so many things done incorrectly it is pathetic.

when I confront them on an issue they have the most ridiculous answers it is laughable. I would like to report them for some practices but do not know who to call.

if I call the 800 number, they are no help at all. they do prey on the weak and that to me is sinful.

thanks for being honest, good luck finding a new job.

Guest

This bank is a piece of ***. They should be arrested they are criminals

Guest

I don't know what city you work in but I have none of your complaints valid pertaining to the one I bank at in Fayetteville North Carolina. It's located in the Walmart and yes, they work alot of hours. But they all seem happy to be working at the bank, the 2 managers were promoted from within.

Guest

I love how their system gets compromised every few months and they blame the merchants.. Idiots don't understand how hackers work and don't want their customers thinking its their fault so they say the merchant had a security breach..Their system is a target for hackers and they need to let customers know about their weak network security.

Guest

I am and always will be a loyal customer of woodforest. I love this bank and couldnt ask for a better one.

The employees are wonderful at the branch I go to. They get to know their customers and appreciate us. Everyone in this world can not like everyone or every business there has to b some conflict its healthy. But dont bash cause all banks do the stuff u claim here its a bank.

I by choice in search of a good bank with people oriented employees have searched for years switching bank after bank even working for banks trying to find a good one after finding wnb I stopped cause I finally after years of searching found a bank that was great and worth it and cared about their customers. So wnb isnt the issue.

Maybe the problem is you. Try changing you not saying ur a bad person or employee but more commonly than not the one with the issue is the issue

Guest
reply icon Replying to comment of Guest-994897

Me too love this bank

Guest

I would like to talk to you. I have just been terminated from woodforest and I've never even been written up at my previous jobs.

This company is the absolute worst! A pit full of vicious vipers.

View more comments (71)

Woodforest National Bank Reviews

  1. 179 reviews
  2. 46 reviews
  3. 24 reviews
  4. 21 reviews
  5. 23 reviews
Woodforest National Bank reviews