Consumer complaint received 2021-07-15
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: CA
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Managing an account
Sub-issue: Banking errors

Complaint:
On XX/XX/XXXX, I deposited a check at a Wells Fargo ATM in XXXX, California into my checking account. The check, drawn from XXXX XXXX  ( XXXX ) in XXXX, was in the amount of {$200000.00}. The check was made by a brokerage firm and represented proceeds from a stock sale. 

The ATM deposit receipt included two contradictory notices about the availability of funds from the check. 

The first notice on the receipt stated : DEPOSIT AVAILABILITY : {$200000.00} will be available on Tuesday, XX/XX/XXXX. 

The second notice on the receipt stated that [ the check ] requires further review. We will notify you by mail if a hold is placed. Confirm your deposit availability on XX/XX/XXXX through online banking or by calling us. 

As instructed by the second notice, I confirmed my deposit availability online the next day, XX/XX/XXXX. 

When I did so, I was delighted to see that the funds were available. Reasonably and justifiably relying on the banks representations that the funds were available, I made several large payments against those funds. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, however, I was shocked to see that Wells Fargo had reversed the funds availability, placed a 7 day hold on the check, and declared the account overdrawn by almost {$47000.00}! As a result, I was charged hundreds of dollars in fees by Wells Fargo. 

I spent a number of hours over the course of the next week on the phone with both Wells Fargo and XXXX trying to remedy the situation. What I was told by a Wells Fargo banker was that the check, on XX/XX/XXXX or XXXX, had initially pinged back as good from XXXX, thus resulting in the funds being made available on the XXXX. But then at some point on XX/XX/XXXX or the XXXX, XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX ( XXXX ) alerted Wells Fargo that a stop payment had been placed on the check. ( Wells Fargo alerted me of that fact on the XXXX see copy of alert attached. ) I immediately called both the brokerage firm, as well as their bank XXXX, and both assured me there was no stop payment placed. And indeed there was no stop payment placed, as evidenced by the fact that the check did eventually clear ( again XXXX without incident, upon the expiration of the hold on XX/XX/XXXX. 

XXXX clearly made an error, but Wells Fargo did also, by employing automatic systems which make funds available immediately upon getting a check is good ping from the payors bank, without waiting for XXXX to do its job. If Wells Fargo was going to make such a drastic decision as reversing a funds availability determination based on an EWS alert, even if the alert was in error, then Wells Fargos systems should have been set up to automatically place a hold no matter what even if the check pings back as good until XXXX is allowed to do its job. In not so doing, Wells Fargo failed to exercise customary and ordinary care in clearing funds. 

I reached out to Wells Fargo to address the matter, and although they admitted the error in their response letter to me, they steadfastly refused to do anything about it. They refused to refund most of the hundreds of dollars in fees they charged me for their own error. They even failed to provide assurances that they would look into the issue to see if their faulty processes could be improved with better controls or policies. ( A copy of Wells Fargos response letter is attached. ) By not even bothering to look into the issue, potentially thousands or tens of thousands of Wells Fargo customers are in danger of being harmed in the same way as I was.

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