Consumer complaint received 2023-03-11
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: UT
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Struggling to pay your bill
Sub-issue: Credit card company won't work with you while you're going through financial hardship

Complaint:
I have been a Wells Fargo customer for many years. I accepted a credit card from them several years ago. They continually increased my credit limit to the extent that I can not possibly continue to pay the card and afford everyday living expenses. After consulting a consumer banking expert, I learned that the limit Wells Fargo allowed was far in excess of what should have been allowed for someone of my income level. My limit was in the {$10000.00} range for a long time and I needed additional credit to pay for college tuition and afford to take care of my toddler. Wells granted me a limit of {$16000.00}. Many months later, I surpassed that limit and was allowed to run the balance up to nearly {$26000.00} without any discussion about increasing my limit. My assumption was that if they were willing to increase my limit, then I must be able to afford the new debt because I know banks are required to have the best interest of their clients in mind. On XX/XX/XXXX I met with my Wells Fargo Branch team to discuss the situation and brought my consumer banking expert. They did not have the authority to propose any solutions so they got their complaint desk on the phone. The lady on the phone essentially told me I was completely responsible because I got my statements and should have known better. At this point, my banking expert asked the person on the phone if she or anyone else at Wells Fargo took the time to underwrite the additional credit. She responded that as long as clients continue to make at least the minimum payment, Wells Fargo assumes they can handle the credit. To put this in perspective, my Adjusted Gross Income in XXXX, the year that would have been used to review my credit worthiness, was just over {$19000.00}. We asked the complaint line person how they could underwrite giving me up to nearly {$26000.00} ( 160 % of the assigned limit ) in unsecured revolving credit with an AGI of {$19000.00}. The answer was the same as above, if you pay on time, they give you more. I am willing to accept some responsibility for using the additional money, but I also feel like I was allowed to put myself in this position with Wells Fargo as my partner in the situation. Several communications have taken place on the phone and responses by letter since that time where the same point that, " Wells Fargo provides your account with a baseline level of credit to be utilized. As a customer who continuously makes on-time payments, Wells Fargo believes that the customer is reputable for the funds. '' My Consumer Banking Expert finds this statement incredulous. Finally, after several conversations with various complaint personnel at XXXX, I sent a certified letter to the complaint department and copied ( also certified ) XXXX XXXX ( XXXX of XXXX ) and XXXX XXXX, ( XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX ) further formalizing my complaint and asking for them to properly propose some way we can resolve this issue so that I can pay a fair amount of the debt, but also having WFC acknowledge their failure with some sort of accommodation. I gave them until XX/XX/XXXX to satisfy my request for a meaningful dialogue on how we can settle this dispute. I am under tremendous financial pressure as I have spent my daughter 's entire college savings of $ XXXX and most of my disposable monthly income trying to reduce this debt. Essentially, in trying to pay down the Wells Fargo debt, I still owe my young daughter the money I used to pay down the card. There should be some compassion by a large financial institution for a customer trying to do the right thing and pay the debt, but there seems to be no willingness by Wells Fargo to help in any way. Many people would just establish a bank account elsewhere and stop paying the card balance and let them charge it off and have their credit score suffer for 3 years. It seems that my unwillingness to completely default, gains no favor with this large and insensitive institution. Lastly, my consumer banking expert advises me that these " credit models '' they have developed are supposed to take into account all compliance issues including fairness to the customer, and burying a customer in debt is NOT serving the customer and is not in Compliance with banking Consumer Compliance laws. Their credit models need to be fully investigated because if they are not sufficiently measuring capacity to afford debt, how could they also be sufficiently checking for other consumer compliance issues such as ECOA violations, etc.? My consumer banking expert advised me that this issue would be of interest to XXXX XXXX XXXX and his senior staff as it involves apparent lack of proper credit model development and validation and could have further implications for Consumer Compliance violations at Wells Fargo Corporation.

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