Consumer complaint received 2016-01-10
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: CA
Product: Bank account or service
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Account opening, closing, or management

Complaint:
this occurred about four years ago. my father was staying at the XXXX on XXXX in XXXX california. i had made one payment for him with my debit card and at the time i did so i had noticed that they were entering my credit card into a windows computer, not just sliding it in a regular credit card machine, so i was concerned that they were recording the card information. i made it clear that this was a one time charge and that they did not have my permission so make further charges to the card and i asked them to not record the card number. they agreed and assurred me that they would not make future charges to my card. several weeks later i noticed that they had charged around {$380.00} to my account without asking my permission and without even informing me ahead of time that they were doing it. i was very angry because there wasnt even enough money in my account to cover that charge, and in putting that unauthorized charge through, wells fargo had also caused a number of legitimate checks to bounce ( i believe they were XXXX checks written to book sales i frequented so it was very embarrassing ). i was very angry, i basically considered this identity theft and called wells fargo and they had me file some sort of internal appeal, which they found in their own favor without explanation and then refused to talk to me further. i think that they did this because this charge was put through by a XXXX employee who had basically done an identity theft crime and they didnt want it to be recognized as such. this was very unfair to me, how can you hold me responsible for what goes on in my bankaccount if any hotel employee who writes down my debit card number is allowed to charge things to my account without my permission? how can i possibly responsibly manage my own banking if someone is allowed to take money out of the account without my permission and without warning, and even if there isnt enough money to cover the charge? its ridiculous. in addtion wells fargo charged me {$200.00} worth of bounced check fees that they would not otherwise have gotten if they hadnt put this unauthorized charge through. 
wells fargo closed my accounts and put my name in the XXXX database, which prevents me from ever doing XXXX in america again. i went to several other banks and i was indeed blackballed from any sort of XXXX in america. 
a year or so later my father died and i tried to get a bank account again. i talked to XXXX XXXX in the XXXX wells fargo office and he called wells fargo corporate offices and they told him they would give me an account if i just gave them {$380.00}. my brother gave wells fargo {$380.00} and wells fargo went through the motions of pretending to open up an account for me, filling out paperwork and assigning an account number to me. in the following week though, the account never opened up. i went back to the wells fargo office and they told me they were not really going to open an account for me, that they had just said that so i would give them {$380.00}. THEY HAD JUST LIED IN ORDER TO GET {$380.00} FROM ME. I was very angry at this deception and demanded the {$380.00} back. they refused to give me my money back. wells fargo is truly sleazy bank by the way dont mail anything to the address i give below i dont live there anymore, thanks to wells fargo i went from making {$80000.00} a year to being homeless. its ridiculous how there is no regulation at all of crooked banks like wells fargo

Company public response: Company chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation