Consumer complaint received 2021-04-05
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: NJ
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: International money transfer
Issue: Fraud or scam

Complaint:
I first engaged with the perceived investment brokers back in XXXX, where they set their trap in a XXXX comments section on a finance channel. There was a web of comments saying they had good results with them and that initially piqued my interest in trying the investments out. In this case, all the comments in that thread must have been fabricated by a pack of scammers, as these people didn't make me money or return my money when asked for it. I reached out to them on XXXX and they ensured me they were legit and experienced traders/brokers. A month goes by and I see numbers going up on the backend of their trading platform ( XXXX ) but unbeknownst to me, those numbers were static and fabricated ( looked to be a few XXXX in profits at the time ). As time goes on I feel it's enough of a return but when I asked for the profits to be sent to me ( with the condition that I pay their " fees '' ), it became increasingly frustrating and difficult to get anything back. I was asked to purchase almost XXXX worth of crytocurrency insurance, which didn't make a lot of sense to me. I inquired why didn't they ask me to buy insurance initially and the scammer told me " the risk is minimal starting and they can use their charts to see fluctuations '' but I smelled bs on that. Towards the end I was asked to pay upfront tax fees ( stated to be XXXX ), withdrawal fee, broker fee, and some other fee not mentioned ahead of time. I felt my XXXX and head pounding as I realized I was being taken for a spin by these professional scammers, who kept bringing up fees that nobody talked about initially. I tried to make deals with them, told them it's unethical to throw fees on people at the end of a trading process, and threatened to report them for cryptocurrency fraud. I spent weeks agonizing over lost funds ( that were my life savings and need to pay for rent/food ). What I thought was an opportunity to gain liberty was a chain of mental and financial despair. The merchants didn't help ( XXXX  and XXXX  ) as they neglected accountability for scammers using their platforms and Wells Fargo has been grossly negligent in setting up account alarms or talking to clients about " current events '' regarding fraud, scams, and deeper investigations regarding certain transactions. Wells Fargo proved to me they don't care about their clients by issuing a single statement to me saying " we have determined the transaction was authorized or that a processing error did not occur. Please consider your claim closed. '' That's the same as telling me " please consider your life closed. '' Their reputation is far below the standard and events like this are why, they deserve to be blacklisted for not looking after their clients ( who've done business with them for more than a decade ). They didn't offer any deals or extended talks with the merchants to get my money back, it is unacceptable customer service.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation