Consumer complaint received 2019-07-14
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: OR
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Private student loan
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer
Sub-issue: Don't agree with the fees charged

Complaint:
I have contacted Wells Fargo by telephone regarding the excessive interest and finance charges of my loans multiple times over the past few years. I have asked that my wife is on as contact as I work long hours and asked that she be permitted to discuss all pertinent details to no avail. I get the runaround everytime XXXX talk to someone from Wells Fargo. Going back to XXXX, financing {$3000.00} had a finance charge of XXXX, and capitalized interest of XXXX with an APR of 5.232 % interim and 5.5 after repayment. A federally subsidized loan at 3.370 %, estimated balance of XXXX and interest during repayment estimated at {$420.00} on a XX/XX/XXXX statement. XX/XX/XXXX statement has the loan at 6.75 %, finance charge of XXXX, financing amount {$2000.00}, capitalized interest of XXXX payments being XXXX for 47 payments. A few months later, XX/XX/XXXX XXXX the same note- has an APR of 7.25 %, finance charge of XXXX, amount financed of XXXX XXXX XXXX borrowed, XXXX capitalized interest ), bringing the total to XXXX and payments being XXXX for 47 payments. A statement from XX/XX/XXXX shows a total of XXXX principal balance. A disclosure sent XX/XX/XXXX shows the federally subsidized loan from XX/XX/XXXX at 2.470 % unpaid balance at XXXX and interest capitalization to be {$13.00} plus additional interest of {$190.00} to have a total paid of XXXX with 62 payments of {$50.00}. This is entirely confusing. Different dates, interest rates, capitalized interest number and amount of payments changing. Then we have the large amount, the {$12000.00} note taken XX/XX/XXXX. The finance charge was {$6400.00}, interest capitalization of {$3100.00} for an APY of 5 %. This is excessive charges. We have faithfully paid amounts on this loan with an auto pay after a hiccup in payments in the first few months of repayment. No notice was sent or emailed and another change of terms with an increase of payment required was demanded and resulted in a non paid full balance and a late fee assessed. My wife contacted Wells Fargo, ( who then again did not have it on file that she could discuss matters with them, so I had to again give them permission ) and was able to have the fee reversed and set up auto pay through their website. Point is, that we have paid this faithfully for almost 10 years and the charges are excessive, their lending practices difficult to follow and their communication is lacking and unclear. When we tried to resolve issues at the branch levels it was met with increased frustrations. We decided to close our checking accounts and just work on paying off the loans. I understand that I wanted to have an education and part of this is the cost of doing business and paying for that education. I also feel that there should have been caps in place for the finance charges. I haven't seen any other loans that come with an over 50 % finance charge, Interest capitalization, and interest charges on those charges.

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