Consumer complaint received 2023-08-29
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: CA
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Domestic (US) money transfer
Issue: Fraud or scam

Complaint:
I was defrauded via XXXX on the Wells Fargo app by a sophisticated Wells Fargo impersonator. On XX/XX/23, I received a call from the official Wells Fargo number ( XXXX ) claiming to be the bank 's Fraud Prevention department. After first being taken through a sophisticated, convincing mimicry of the usual Wells Fargo personal verification process, I was told hat someone named XXXX XXXX was attempting to transfer money from my account using XXXX ( which is built into the Wells Fargo mobile app ), and it seemed suspicious to them so they wanted to flag it for me. I confirmed I had no idea who that was, and they said they believe she created a mirror account to mine on XXXX to commit this fraud, and that they were going to briefly put a freeze on my account to try to stop her from moving the funds, and that XXXX could take it from here. The caller then transferred me to " XXXX XXXX XXXX fraud prevention department, who said to cancel XXXX 's attempted transfers of {$990.00} and {$470.00} from my account, I would need to send the following cancellation codes via XXXX ( on the Wells Fargo app ) to their cancelation department ( which came up under the name " XXXX XXXX, who I was told was the department manager ) : XXXX and XXXX. I got the following confirmation codes from XXXX for the two inputs : XXXX and XXXX. After that, I was told not to touch my account for 72 hours while they made sure it was secure again and tried to trace the source of the fraud. I asked for the name of who I was speaking to and was told XXXX XXXX, employee ID : XXXX, and was given the case # XXXX and told to expect a call to confirm the issue had been resolved. When I didn't receive a call for a few days, on XX/XX/23, I called the same Wells Fargo number ( XXXX ) back and asked to speak to Fraud Prevention for a status update on my case. I was then told that the first call was in fact a fraud, and the cancelation codes I was told to input actually transferred {$380.00} and {$610.00} from my account to the scam artists. I was shocked, because at every step of the initial call I asked for verification, contact info, any details I could think of, taking notes on all of it - and again, they had called me from the official Wells Fargo # and took me through their usual check-in process, etc. The real Wells Fargo told me they would open a case for me ( one for each of the 2 transfers ), investigate, and get back to me within 10 business days to set up a follow-up, more in-depth call to go over the details of what happened and discuss next steps to pursue reimbursement. I pointed out that I no longer trusted calls from the Wells Fargo official number now, and they said I would receive a message about scheduling up a follow up call via the messenger on the Wells Fargo app. I never received such outreach. Instead, I got a letter postmarked XX/XX/23 - not even a single business day later - that they had automatically closed my cases without attempting to help at all. I called Wells Fargo and demanded to know why they were leaving me high and dry, reminding them it was through their phone # and service that this fraud happened, and was brushed off and told they would not assist me further in getting the {$990.00} stolen from me via their phone number and app back.

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