Consumer complaint received 2020-12-22
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: KY
Product: Debt collection
Sub-product: Credit card debt
Issue: Attempts to collect debt not owed
Sub-issue: Debt was result of identity theft

Complaint:
In XX/XX/XXXX a Wells Fargo account was opened in my name through identity theft. They sent a check that was fraudulently cashed XX/XX/XXXX. I found out about this account when my credit took a hit in XX/XX/XXXX. I had been a victim of identity theft and several creditors had allowed credit to be used in my name. My XXXX XXXX, XXXX, XXXX XXXX, XXXX, XXXX XXXX, XXXX, and XXXX XXXX XXXX account had all been used through Identity theft. All of the creditors I listed above aside from Wells Fargo have found all charges to be directly due to identity theft. I pleaded to Wells Fargo in XX/XX/XXXX to shut the account down immediately, yet they allowed it to stay open until XX/XX/XXXX. There have been several recorded phone calls them stating a phone number of which I could not identity was used to open the account. They also stated the voice used to open the account and the voice requesting the account to be shut down did not match. They were provided a police report, bank statements, a letter from the bank manager where this check was cashed stating that the account had been shut down due to fraudulent activity, and documentation of other creditors removing charges due to identity theft. Wells Fargo has contradicted themselves repeatedly. They stated from XXXX that they did in fact have a copy of my police report. Then in XXXX they claimed they had never received it. They have marked me as delinquent on the account even though the account was under investigation and they WOULD NOT take payment from me to save my credit while it was under investigation. Their mediation team would not establish payments to fix my credit because XXXX XXXX in the mediation department thought the account was fraudulent and they could not settle the account through mediation. Even though a department in Wells Fargo would not take payment, found the account to be fraudulent, the Fraud team will not keep the account removed from my credit report. After almost a year of fighting these fraudulent charges Wells Fargo marked the account as fraudulent due to identity theft, set the balance to zero, and closed the account. Several days later after they finally fixed their error they repost the balance and all derogatory remarks. They claim they have proof through voice recognition yet they are requiring a subpoena to share these recording even though they originally said the voices were not a match for opening the account and reporting the account as fraudulent. These phone call recordings is a two way street if they truly have copies of all the phone calls then there is recordings with them lying about having my police report, lying about the voices not matching, lying that they couldnt take payments, and lying that my credit wouldnt be effected while under investigation. The mediation team at Wells Fargo paid for credit monitoring serves for identity theft and a {$270.00} check as payment for my time. Yet they refuse to remove the fraudulent account from my credit report?

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 non-monetary relief