Consumer complaint received 2020-02-17
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: ME
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Problem with a lender or other company charging your account
Sub-issue: Transaction was not authorized

Complaint:
On XX/XX/XXXX of XXXX at XXXX XXXX Eastern time, I called Wells Fargo -- replying to a " please contact us there may be something wrong '' type of email from them. The representative I talked to said they had detected what they thought may be fraud on our checking account, and asked if my husband or I had authorized charges to " XXXX XXXX   XXXX '' over the past few days. We both said no, neither of us had made charges. While on the phone, I pulled up our WF account online & looked at the statement from the past few days. No, we hadn't made those charges. The charges I could see from the statement she referred to were as follows : XX/XX/XXXX {$490.00}, XX/XX/XXXX {$44.00}, XX/XX/XXXX {$44.00}, XX/XX/XXXX {$110.00}. There was a total of {$700.00} that I saw there, and we read them back. The representative asked if I wanted to dispute those charges and I replied yes, of course I would like to dispute those charges. It took her a little while to input information ( or at least that's what I assumed was going on ), and then she said there were other charges in the past from what looked like the same company, and were all of those authorized. There was a total of something like a thousand dollars, she said -- I don't recall the exact amount. I said no, neither my husband or I remember making those purchases. She said she would dispute those, also, and then explained that it would take 10 days for Wells Fargo to resolve the matter and that we would receive a letter in the mail regarding the resolution. We didn't receive a letter from Wells Fargo, nor an email, text, message on our online account, etc. On XX/XX/XXXX, however, a deposit was made to our account in the amount of {$350.00} from Wells Fargo. No explanation -- just a deposit to our account. On XX/XX/XXXX, my husband XXXX called Wells Fargo to inquire what the status of our claim was. The representative told him that WF had made their determination and sent us a letter, and that we should have a deposit to our account. XXXX told her we didn't receive any letter with a determination, explanation, etc. She said yes, a letter was sent and we should receive it. She said she couldn't give additional information. We never did receive a letter from WF. 

Still waiting on a letter from Wells Fargo, on XX/XX/XXXX I personally contacted XXXX XXXX XXXX   and was on the phone to a representative named XXXX for approximately 30 minutes explaining there had been false charges made on my bank card. It appears XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX is some sort of vitamin company that only sells to wholesale accounts. I asked the representative to pull up the charges that had been made to our account & the representative said she couldn't do that, as she would need our wholesale account number. I told her I didn't know the account number because the charges weren't actually from me, but I could give her the dates and amounts. She said she couldn't pull up the purchases/orders even with the transaction number I gave her from my bank statement. After consulting her accounting department, XXXX came back and advised that my bank would have to contact their accounting department, as the transactions couldn't be accessed otherwise. I told her I thought my bank probably had already done that and she said no, it didn't appear that they had. 

I then talked to a XXXX  state trooper, where we live, and filed a police report. The police report number is # XXXX. 

So, after waiting another week and a half, on XX/XX/XXXX, I called Wells Fargo 's Claim Department to ask about the status of our dispute. The representative was very short with me, said we wouldn't be getting any of the XXXX fraudulent charges on our account refunded, as there had been a charge in XXXX (? ) of XXXX and that since we didn't report that charge, they would only reimburse charges within 60 days of that one. We wouldn't get any of the charges from XXXX reimbursed -- even though the charges we reported were the ones from XXXX -- Wells Fargo pulled up the old charges, otherwise we wouldn't have known about them and as follows, wouldn't have disputed them. I asked the representative how could that be -- that we had only seen the XXXX charges & weren't even going to report the charges from months earlier, as we hadn't even seen them and they were relatively small/easy to miss as we were moving across country at the time they were charged. Again, the representative told me a letter with the official decision and explanation had been mailed to us. I asked her to repeat the mailing address, and it was correct. I again told her we had not received a letter, a call, a message, etc. She curtly insisted that we had received a letter, but finally said she would have another letter sent out to us. 

Today is XX/XX/XXXX, and we still haven't received any sort of letter, message, etc from Wells Fargo, nor have we received any additional compensation or explanation. And further, Wells Fargo added three more of the XXXX XXXX XXXX charges to the " dispute '' ... but the three charges they added to it weren't even on our account statement or even *made* when we talked to Wells Fargo on the morning of XX/XX/XXXX ; they posted to our account on the XXXX of XXXX. These charges are : XXXX {$65.00}, XXXX {$60.00}, XXXX {$67.00}. We couldn't have possibly disputed those charges, as they weren't even posted to our account, online, etc when we spoke to XXXX XXXX on XX/XX/XXXX at XXXX XXXX Eastern Time. However, when I try to dispute those three charges, Wells Fargo won't allow me to & states those charges are bundled in with the dispute we had made on XX/XX/XXXX. This isn't even possible. 

According to Wells Fargo 's website, they have a zero liability policy for charges to a debit card. It states : Zero Liability protection Wells Fargo ATM, Credit and Debit Cards, and Wells Fargo EasyPay Cards come with Zero Liability protection at no additional cost to you. If your card or card number is ever lost, stolen, or used without your authorization, you will be reimbursed for any promptly reported unauthorized card transactions. 

The charges that were made to our account in XXXX of XXXX were promptly reported. We saw them, talked to Wells Fargo about them, disputed them. Wells Fargo then pulled up the older charges, asking if we'd like to add a dispute for those. They brought up those charges -- not us. So, the charges made in XXXX were promptly reported -- yet we have not been reimbursed for those unauthorized card transactions. 
After Wells Fargo searched through our history of transactions, they eventually put together 25 charges from XXXXXXXX XXXX  XXXX totaling {$2400.00} according to the dispute list they have on our online account. They reimbursed us for {$350.00} from??? Which transactions? When?? We have no idea, as we still haven't received any correspondence from the bank, no information on how to dispute whatever their decision was that led them to settle on {$350.00} out of {$2400.00}, etc. 

For years we have trusted this bank to hold our life savings. We trust them to make sound decisions with our finances, protect what we entrust with them and to provide ongoing communicate regarding the state of our hard-earned assets. It seems unethical for them to withhold communication regarding the status of our dispute. Wells Fargo has failed or refused to send out a letter, or any type of correspondence whatsoever -- in a timely manner or otherwise -- to advise us of their decisions, explanations and actions made with our account. 

Ideally, we would like our account to have been protected from all of the unauthorized charges. However, if Wells Fargo refuses to cover the older charges that we didn't see and wouldn't have reported, fair enough, then we would like to at the very least be covered for the charges we called and reported from the end of XXXX -- the {$700.00}, as well as the {$190.00} of charges that were posted to our account on XX/XX/XXXX -- the day after the dispute was filed.

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