Being bilingual can be a big plus, especially in South Florida. But one Miami man says his use of both English and Spanish led to a mistake that got his bank account frozen.
And when he couldn’t convince his bank to quickly fix the problem he turned to the NBC 6 Responds team.
Peter Fernandez says the confusion all started over his name. He’s used the name Peter as he built his 40-year musical career. His legal name is Pedro Fernandez.
"My teachers in elementary school started calling me Peter right off the bat and it stuck so when I started to apply for bank accounts and stuff like that, I filled it out Peter Fernandez," said Fernandez.
And for more than 20 years he says he’s signed his name as both Peter and Pedro and never thought twice about it, until a phone call a few weeks ago.
"One of my tenants says I couldn’t deposit your rent check Mr. Fernandez because they said your account was frozen. I said, 'what'?!"
Frozen apparently because of a fraud alert on his bank account. He believes it was triggered when he wrote a check to himself payabale to Pedro Fernandez and deposited it into his Wells Fargo account that is under Peter Fernandez.
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He figured since his bankers knew him well, too, a trip to local branches and phone calls could easily clear up the misunderstanding over his name.
"I mean for somebody not to know Peter and Pedro is the same thing in South Florida, it’s somebody that doesn’t get out much," Fernandez said. "You’re living under a rock."
But he says his bigger frustration was not being able to fix the problem despite numerous calls and visits to local bank branches. Not knowing what else to do, he called NBC 6 Responds. We reached out to Wells Fargo.
"Anytime you get your account frozen and you can’t get access to your funds and your money that never feels good in the short run," says Wells Fargo Vice-President Christopher Catania.
Catania said he couldn’t comment on the specifics of this case but explained that their security measures and fraud department have been put in place to protect their customers from fast moving fraudsters.
"When I tell you they act quick, I’ve seen situations to where within thirty-minute time frames they’ll go to multiple banks trying to do the same exact fraud that occurred in the first instance, they move quickly,” said Catania.
Turns out, thieves aren’t the only ones who move quickly. A day after we reached out to Wells Fargo, the bank fixed Peter’s problems.
"They expedited the thing and instead of taking two weeks it took one," said Fernandez.
Peter says the freeze on his account caused him an unnecessary headache but now he’s relieved it didn’t all end on a sour note.
Wells Fargo says the best way to prevent something like this is making sure checks are written to your legal name and that you inform your financial institution of any nicknames and aliases.
