Consumer complaint received 2017-03-07
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: FL
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Other mortgage
Issue: Loan servicing, payments, escrow account

Complaint:
We closed a Home Equity Loan with Wells Fargo in XX/XX/2016. The loan has a fixed rate and a fixed payment for each month. Since we began making payments on this loan, we 've been paying more than the minimum due, and have requested that the overage be applied to the principal balance on the loan. Every month, the payments are not applied as requested, and Wells has instead used the overage to reduce the following month 's payment, which is not what we 've requested. As a result, the principal balance is not paying down as we intend, and Wells is charging us more interest than they should since they 're not reducing our principal balance. I call Wells Fargo every month about this issue, and they continuously instruct me to call my payment in and let them know that we want the overage applied to principal, which is exactly what I do every month. In spite of this, Wells continues to mis-apply our payments and over charge the interest on the loan. I have escalated this issue to their " executive area '' and just received the response that they 've analyzed my account ( for the third time ) and believe that they have applied the payment correctly. They then instructed me to call my payment in each month and tell them that we want the overage applied to principal - which is still what I 've done every month! I asked Wells to look at my payment history, take all of the overages paid to date and apply those against the principal as I 've been requesting every month. I also asked to have the interest re-calculated based on the lower, and corrected, principal balance. They have refused and said that they applied the payments correctly. I 'm attaching two analyses that I 've requested, one in XXXX and one in XXXX, that show all of the payments along with numerous reversals and mis-applications. There 's even a paragraph in the cover letter that states that they 've applied the overage against the following payment, rather than to principal, which is completely against our instructions. This is extremely frustrating in that I spend hours on the phone each month to first make the payment and instruct them how to apply it, and then as follow up to try to get them to correct it which they do n't. If they handle all of their Home Equity loans in the same manner, they may be charging consumers millions in extra interest every month, despite their wishes. Almost every time I 've called Wells to complain and have the correction made, the individual on the line has said that these accounts are causing problems and that they 're trying to correct their systems to handle the payments correctly. I feel as though this program is a sham as Wells is not allowing me to pay down my principal, despite the fact that the loan agreement clearly states that I can do so without penalty, and they are also charging me a greater amount of interest than they should because the balance is not being paid down.

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