Consumer complaint received 2022-02-07
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: AZ
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Problem caused by your funds being low
Sub-issue: Overdrafts and overdraft fees

Complaint:
I have banked with Wells Fargo for a number of years in good standing and have two checking accounts with them, one account has direct deposit. When the ATM card for the account with direct deposit expired several years ago I requested another. They said they would send it but never did. I didn't worry too much about it until the first time I was hit with overdraft fees on my second account, since I no longer had access to my direct deposit account I had to transfer funds from the direct deposit account account to the account with the ATM card. I continued to request cards at the branches but the tellers can't do that anymore, you have to make an appointment and schedule to see a banker or spend hours on the phone waiting on hold to speak to a banker. I gave up numerous times because of the amount of time it takes. Anyway, although I requested to link the two accounts they say that isn't possible because both are checking accounts and it wouldn't matter anyway because if they were linked I would still encounter a fee every time they covered a transaction. 

So here is my complaint, Wells Fargo will allow you to go overdraft using your ATM card and charge you a {$35.00} fee for the privilege. They will process a check or recurring payment and charge you {$35.00} fee each time. Since they have refused to provide me with overdraft protection by linking my accounts and they have refused to send me a replacement card saying it is lost in the mail or they have no record of the requests for one, and I can't access my money they are essentially holding my money hostage, even though I have enough money to cover any transactions I am forced to go online and complete a no cost transfer of funds from one account to another and if I don't do it in time they can hit me with lots of fees. 

This is incredibly unfair, I was charged {$140.00} just in XX/XX/2022 for overdraft fees when I have had more than enough money to cover any charges I have made. I can make a free transfer of funds from one account to another but if they were to do it, there is a fee for that, I can't set up an automatic transfer to cover such a situation. if they cover the overdraft I get hit with a fee each time. So on two occasions the weekend left my one account somewhat depleted so on Monday morning when they processed transactions they hit me twice for being overdraft as they processed the weekend charges. 

For example : If I have 2 recurring payments lets say XXXX for XXXX a month and XXXX for XXXX a month and Wells Fargo allows me to buy groceries through the debit card machine on Sunday for XXXX and but I only have XXXX available in checking how is it fair that they can process a XXXX fee to cover my XXXX cents in groceries, another XXXX fee to cover my automatic XXXX XXXX payment, and yet another XXXX fee to cover my recurring XXXX payment of {$15.00}? Yes, I went overdraft a nickel but they are charging me {$100.00} for it, they are stealing from me! They chose to cover the recurring payments but for the sake of argument lets say it is still my fault I went over XXXX, There is no way the fees reflect the cost of doing business. What am I getting as a customer when they tie my hands and hit me with unlimited fees? They should include that in their commercials " At Wells Fargo, we charge you unlimited banking fees and make it impossible to speak to a representative ".

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