Long story up ahead!
My contractor has been working on my property and it came time to for an inspection with 212 Loans to make a draw for funds. The procedure is they have the contractor fill out 2 forms, they send an inspector to make sure the work is done (to some standard, I would guess), approve it, send me the money, and I send it to my contractor. Their default procedure is to wire transfer funds but since my bank, Wells Fargo, charges $15 to receive wires, I asked if they can send me a cheque image instead so I can mobile-deposit it. After they sent me the image, they mailed the cheque right away. When it came time to mobile deposit the $15k, the Wells Fargo app told me that there's a $10k limit for mobile deposits ($20k per 30 days), so I could not mobile-deposit it. I called Wells Fargo, talked to a couple different agents, and the conclusion was that it is impossible to raise the limit. The 212 people told me they wouldn't stop the payment, so I'm thinking I'd just have to wait for it to arrive and physically deposit it.
Meanwhile, I decided to open an account at ETRADE Bank, where their mobile deposit limit is $99k and don't charge for incoming wires (I think). I thought it would be a quick and easy procedure, as it was with all my other ETRADE accounts, but it was anything but easy. First, business applications don't have online forms, so I had to fill out their PDF and fax it to them. After faxing and waiting 4 days, they replied to tell me what to change, so I did and faxed it in again. After 2 days and hearing nothing, I contacted them and they told me to upload it on my existing account and it'd get in the queue faster. I finally got assigned a particular person from the New Accounts department who would help me get things together so Operations department would open my account. She helped me get a couple more pieces of information that they wanted over the phone and I had to wait for it to get reviewed. Finally, just before midnight 2 days ago, I got an email saying that my account was opened, with an account number and all. I called ETRADE to get my online access set up. The agent told me I had to make a new login, so I did, but kept getting an error upon login, so the agent submitted the request to the Research & Resolutions department to fix and it was supposed to take 24 hours. I checked again 12 hours later and they found my request, but wouldn't touch it because I had to wait for the agent I talked to to follow up. Another 12 hours later, I called to see if I could get it fixed because it'd probably be when that agent works. They told me that they won't touch it either because the R&R dept was supposed to take care of it and they'd call me during their hours, which was business days during business hours (M-F 08-17 ET). 12 hours later, I called and asked to talked to R&R. The R&R agent, told me that I needed it linked, and within 2 minutes, he got my new account linked to my existing login. It was that simple and I didn't need a new login, after all.
Meanwhile, 1 week after 212 Loans sent the $15k cheque, my contractor was bugging me about getting paid so I started bugging 212 to stop payment and just wire me the money, even though it'd cost me an incoming wire fee. They did, but I felt a little uneasy because I sent them wire instructions, asked them to call me to verify, couldn't reach anyone in the office even though they said they'd tell me when they've sent the funds, and only found out when I logged in to my account to find that their wire arrived to me. They could have been a victim of wire fraud, but not my problem, right?
After receiving the funds from 212, I went to Wells Fargo to wire the funds to my contractor. It was after the day's cutoff, so I wanted to queue it to go out the next day. The banker told me that I'd have to come back to do it on Wednesday to request the wire, otherwise it would "drop off" the system due to staying open too long. I went the following Wednesday to request the wire out and the banker (different one) said it'd go out the same day because it was before the cutoff. I informed my contractor of the status and he kept checking it the whole day, the whole next day, and finally, middle of the day Friday, he received the funds. Who would have guessed Wells Fargo takes 2 additional business days to wire out after charging $30? I'm definitely going to be using my new ETRADE to transact, even though it was a headache to get the account opened. Also, the cheque that 212 mailed me finally arrived.
So as you can see, nothing is easy and things took way longer than I think was necessary. The only advice is that if you're using Wells Fargo, don't expect your outgoing wire transfers to happen in a timely fashion. I'm just happy that I got my contractor paid, even though it was 2 weeks late. Here is the timeline of events so you can see how long it took:
12/10 Inspection and draw documents filled out, signed, sent. I don't know when inspection happened.
12/13 Got $15k cheque image from 212 Loans, couldn't mobile deposit. 212 mailed/postmarked the cheque same-day. Faxed application to ETRADE.
12/17 Faxed updated application to ETRADE.
12/19 Uploaded updated application to ETRADE.
12/20 Contractor bugging me about getting paid, so I went to bug 212. Got assigned a real person for ETRADE application. Contractor said he's 70+% done.
12/21 212 wired me the funds. Wells Fargo told me to come back on 12/26 to request wire out.
12/26 Went to Wells Fargo, requested wire out, was told it goes out same day. ETRADE account officially opened near midnight, requested help to log in to account.
12/28 WF wire finally went out, contractor confirmed receipt. New ETRADE account linked to existing online login. Cheque from 212 arrived.
Also, I was calling/chatting/emailing someone every day (sometimes multiple times a day) to check status or get things moving forward.
