Consumer complaint received 2023-11-26
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: OH
Product: Credit card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem when making payments
Sub-issue: You never received your bill or did not know a payment was due

Complaint:
Dear CFPB, My name is XXXX XXXX. I am writing to express my overwhelming frustration with Wells Fargo bank and ask for your assistance solving a simple problem that I have been unable to get handled in the past XXXX MONTHS. I am hoping you will be able to get me in touch with someone at that incompetent bank who can actually help. I have been writing, calling, and my son ( POA ) even visited branches to deal with to no avail for the past XXXX months. We are both at our wits end with this bank and this situation. 

Earlier this year, I was displaced from my home due to a fire. I am currently living in temporary accommodations while I try to get my life back in order. I do not have regular access to my mail or my possessions. I do not have a permanent address. Caring for my wife XXXX has also been taking up a lot of my time. She hasnt been right since she caught a severe case of XXXX a couple years ago, when she survived several cardiac arrests and several months in the ICU at XXXX XXXX XXXX In short, my life is a mess right now and Wells Fargo just insists on making it messier. 

XXXX of the few things I had in my possession after the fire was my XXXX visa credit card. I used it to pay for some expenses. If I had known then what I knew now Id have thrown the card back into the flames. Wells Fargo is so incompetent it seems malicious. 

This spring, Wells Fargo bought my credit card account from XXXX bank and sent me this card to replace it. My old card was cancelled and I lost my online bank access with XXXX. In that way, I am the definition of an unintentional Wells Fargo customer. I did not ask to be a customer of this bank. I kind of feel like XXXX of those fake account holders Wells Fargo fraudulently opened a few years back. 

In any case, I didnt have much with me after the fire. What is left of my possessions are in storage with XXXX somewhere. I am still looking for a new place to live now. 

I just noticed a missed payment reported on my credit card account this month from Wells Fargo ; I have a credit monitoring service which emails me about these things, which is more than I can say of Wells Fargo by the way. I cant get them to do anything! This payments problem is so unnecessary and recurring and time consuming and it is all their fault. I have asked them for almost XXXX months to let me register for online banking. I have explained my situation to phone reps more times than I can count. I named my son POA on the account and sent them another letter to help deal with this, and he cant get it fixed either. I dont know what else I can do at this point but ask for your intervention. Ive been very nice and patient but this bank is so incompetent I dont know what more I can do. 

When Wells Fargo bought my credit card account this spring, they cut my access to XXXX online card management portal. I have not been able to register for online banking since because they have an incorrect phone number on file. There are XXXX phone numbers on my account. XXXX of them are valid. XXXX of them is a work cell phone I had when I was an employee at XXXX XXXX XXXX, so I havent had that number in years. When I go to register for Wells Fargo online banking, they INSIST on texting a validation code to that XXXX invalid phone number. Therefore, I have not been able to enroll in online banking with Wells Fargo since they bought the account. 

I have called. I have written. I have called again. I have named my son POA so he can represent me in a Wells Fargo branch with regards to this issue ( he lives in California, where there are branches ). No matter what we do, we can not get Wells Fargo to fix this stupid problem. I can not get online banking setup because they will not remove the invalid phone number ( XXXX ) or send the verification code to XXXX of the other phone numbers on the account or an email or ANYTHING else. And since I am displaced, I dont have an address, so I cant reliably get mail. I have no idea what the status of my account is. I have to deal with so many other things and yet here I am XXXX months later and I still havent been able to setup autopay or online banking like a normal person. I have charged some expenses to the account in the wake of the fire, but I cant review them or pay them in a reasonable way because Wells Fargo is making it unreasonably difficult to do so. I am sure I owe Wells Fargo something, but I have no way to tell what it is. 

I live in XXXX, XXXX. Ive lived here since before they bought my account and I live here now, albeit in a hotel. There are no Wells Fargo branches in the state. I do not have a Wells Fargo checking or savings account. Yet I have been informed multiple times by multiple people that the only way to have my identity verified outside of sending a text to that number I dont have is to show up in branch and present my ID. 

I have been assured that this invalid phone number had been removed from my account several times after spending cumulative hours in phone trees transferred from department to department and yet it is still an issue today. I am at my wits end here. 

In summary, what I need your help with is : XXXX. Well Fargo needs to remove the invalid phone number ( XXXX ) from my account and finally allow me to register for online banking and auto-pay. 
XXXX. Wells Fargo needs to waive any interest and penalties charged to my account- they only exist because Wells Fargo has been unable to solve this problem for nearly 6 months time. 

XXXX. Wells Fargo needs to retract the negative report on my credit about late payments. 
Again, these payments are only late because I dont have an address, I cant get my mail, and I cant register for online banking or autopay because of XXXX XXXX XXXX incompetence handling a situation that they caused by acquiring my paid-on-time account. 

I encourage anyone at the bank to pull up my phone call records and listen to the HOURS of time my son and I have spent trying to have this issue resolved, starting in XXXX and now here we are in the end of XXXX. 

I dont know what more I can say : Wells Fargo XXXX impossible to deal with and is incompetent beyond all measure. I now have a bank I never wanted to be a customer of ruining my credit because of their own internal process failures. 

How hard is is to change a phone number? I. XXXX dont understand. 

If they cant do something so simple, why were they allowed to buy my account in the first place? 

Please. Someone. Help. 

XXXX XXXX XXXX

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