It has happened again. A Cuban-American resident of South Florida is searching for answers after Wells Fargo blocked their bank account without warning.
The affected individual, identified as José Antonio Orta, reported in statements to Telemundo 51 that he found out on January 29 when, while attempting to make a payment, he was informed that the card was blocked and had been canceled.
When he went to the bank branch for explanations, they told him that they needed documentation.
"I took them, and it's absurd because they have had that documentation for a very long time. Moreover, it's documentation that doesn't expire. Once you become a citizen, you cease to be a citizen only when you die," said Orta, who is a U.S. citizen.
The decision to block the account left José Antonio Orta perplexed, as he believes the bank had other alternatives to verify his history.
"If it was to check a transaction, looking at my account would have been enough. They didn't have to block me. Who better than them to know what I buy, spend, or what I do with my account?" he questions.
The Cuban claims that he never received any notification from the bank and that it was he who had to make multiple calls to find out about the situation.
The suspension of your account lasted for 17 days, affecting your scheduled payments.
"I need to see what will happen now with American Express, with FPL, with all the accounts scheduled to automatically debit from my bank account, which couldn’t do anything because my account was blocked," he concluded.
This episode is part of a series of measures that Wells Fargo has implemented in recent months, which have affected customers from sanctioned countries, such as Cuba.
The issue dates back to December 2023, when the first cases began to come to light.
Since then, there has been a persistent demand for answers from the banking institution, but to date, the company has declined to comment on the number of affected customers and the length of this review process.
The company justifies the review as a necessary measure to comply with regulations from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which requires financial institutions to verify the immigration status of clients from countries under economic sanctions, such as Cuba.
The response from Wells Fargo
In response to the growing concern and dissatisfaction of affected clients, the banking institution issued a statement.
"While we do not disclose details about specific banking relationships, we can share that our bankers do everything possible to assist affected clients and minimize their inconvenience. We are committed to providing transparency in our process and clear communication to our clients. In this case, once we received all the required documentation, we resolved the matter for our client," they stated.
Financial institutions, including Wells Fargo, typically have established protocols for notifying their clients when it is necessary to update documents. Usually, these notices are sent by mail or electronically, and a period of approximately 30 days is granted to comply with the requirements.
However, these recent cases have highlighted the need for clients to stay alert to any official communication from the bank.
As more cases emerge and uncertainty grows, many Cuban-American clients in the United States are wondering if their accounts might be at risk, and are demanding greater clarity from Wells Fargo regarding these procedures.
At the beginning of December 2023, it was reported that two Cuban-Americans who own the bar Cubata, located in Little Havana, had been unable to pay their employees and suppliers because Wells Fargo had frozen their bank accounts.
During those same days, the case of a Wells Fargo branch in Hialeah emerged, which unexpectedly froze the accounts of a Cuban permanent resident in the U.S. since the 1990s and his wife, a citizen originally from the United States.
Filed under:
