Consumer complaint received 2016-12-12
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: UT
Product: Bank account or service
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Account opening, closing, or management

Complaint:
about two months ago I received a phone call from my bank, Wells Fargo, stating that they were going to close my accounts because they allowed someone from another country access to my online banking. I was grateful at first to get the phone call, then I inquired as to how someone could gain access to my online account. I was told that the individual was able to bypass security questions and then made up a New login which consisted of nearly XXXX characters most of which were consonant letters, clearly a fake log in. 
it certainly was not convenient to have to redo my online banking login, get new accounts, and then redo all of my automatic payments, deposits, etc. i 've been with Wells Fargo for a long time so I trusted that this would be an easy process. However, to my surprise, it was extremely difficult to get new banking information XXXX, debit cards and checking accounts. 
The process took about a week and a number of visits to the branch near our house to close the old accounts and pull up new ones. In total, Wells Fargo had encourage me to open up some other accounts that I " needed to have " and so right now I have XXXX different accounts. I do n't have a ton of money, but I always thought it was ridiculous that I needed all these different types of accounts to keep my XXXX business account and XXXX personal account open. 
For about a month everything seem to work OK and was back to normal. Then, I was on a company trip for work when I swiped my card and was told the card is no longer authorized to make purchases. I tried calling and was told the card is in active and the account had been closed. I was nervous that perhaps more fraud had been done on my account, so I called to see what I could do or figure out what was going on. To my surprise, Wells Fargo, had closed my account because they had incorrectly set up my business account. 
I asked to talk to someone who can reopen my account, and was told the only thing I could do was go to a bank. I was in a location where there was no branch to go into so I was rendered without access to my money and had no idea how to get it back or how to re open the account. 
Each XXXX XXXX Wells Fargo person I talk to apologized over and over for the error that they made, but no one was able to make any changes to give me access to my money. Instead I was told to go to a branch which was thousands of miles away from where I was. So I had no access to my money and was told that my money was shipped in a check form to the address that was not current on my file. So my money was taken from me without me knowing it until I called in, my account closed without me knowing until I called in, and my money was sent to a place that I had not had listed as my mailing address for over two years fortunately the branch where I live was more than willing to help out but even they were told over the phone from Wells Fargo corporate that there is nothing that can be done to help my situation. Luckily for me, I had some money on me to survive my trip and luckily for my wife we had some cash on hand to pay for our mortgage which was due The day they decided to close the account. 
I think that we have been more than patient with Wells Fargo and the errors that they have made to expose us to identity theft, fraud and a ridiculous amount of stress. And the branch that I have been dealing with locally has been outstanding, however, the corporate policies and corporate people that we have had to deal with has been an absolute nightmare and has caused an undescribable amount of stress and worry for our future especially in regards to I did n't being exposed identity theft. 
this is experience has made me wonder if the reports that we see about Wells Fargo gaming the system with creating new accounts for commission, doing things that take care of the profit margins of the company instead of customers.

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 monetary relief