Consumer complaint received 2023-12-24
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: ID
Product: Payday loan, title loan, personal loan, or advance loan
Sub-product: Installment loan
Issue: Problem when making payments

Complaint:
I was buying a hot tub. The hot tub dealer indicated that they had 1 year free credit options, through Wells Fargo. I thought that was a good deal since I knew I would be able to pay off the full amount in a year without incurring any interest. So, I bought the hot tub for XXXX from the dealer by enrolling in the wells fargo loan program, on-site with the dealer. This was in XXXX. The hot tub got delivered and everything seemed great. I enrolled in on-line banking with Wells Fargo because I wanted to watch the loan closely. I knew of Wells Fargo 's past history of abuse and I did not want it to happen to me. In fact, it had already happened to me in XXXX when they tricked me into opening up unnecessary accounts just so I could get a debit card and then they claimed it would not cost me anything but then they drained my account dry through fees that were undisclosed. They paid me back my money when I threatened to sue them but then I learned it was their pattern of practice when they got in trouble in XXXX or whatever. Anyway, I was watching the loan closely and I saw that it claimed a payment was due. I assumed it was a mistake because it was supposed to be an interest free loan for a year and I just had to pay it all back within a year and it would cost me nothing. However, sometime around the 60 day mark, I got a default notice in the mail, claiming I was in default. I called the phone number in bewilderment. They then explained that even though it was an interest free credit extension, I had to pay a monthly fee of like {$70.00} in order to keep it from going into default. I was angry because no one had told me that during the purchase process. The person on the line seemed uninterested in that or uninterested in trying to confirm if there had been an error made by the dealer in failing to explain the terms. I did not want there to be a big problem that could impact my credit or cause me to have to pay a bunch of interest. So, I asked to be able to pay the two payments and get out of default and just pay the rest of $ 270 monthly payments going forward. They said they could let me do that. So, I just dropped the issue and made the payments, since it was not worth my time to fight with them about the misrepresentations. Had they just been honest with me upfront, I probably still would have accepted the same credit and bought the hot tub with it. But it made me mad that they misled me, purposefully or accidentally. I assumed it was accidental. However, reading all the enforcement orders by the CFPB regarding how these finance companies mislead people, I thought it was worth submitting this complaint, even if way after the fact. Thanks for reviewing this and all your hard work in these areas holding these greedy companies accountable for misleading people.

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