Consumer complaint received 2018-07-31
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: NE
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 currently have a checking account with Wells Fargo. When I make debit purchases, the funds are immediately taken from my checking account and are detailed on my " pending '' or " authorized '' transactions. The money in every single way, is taken from my account and is allocated towards a specific purchase for a specific price, and at a specific time. This money is no longer available to me and i can not access it. Wells Fargo has taken the money from my account and put it towards a purchase. ( sorry if i'm repeating - i'm livid right now. ) I follow my bank account like a hawk and write down every penny spend into my ledger. This ledger gives me the exact amount of money that is in my account at any given moment. This is a scenario that is very similar to mine, for examples sake. On Friday i started out with {$420.00} in my checking account. I made 3 purchases to the same company, one right after the other. ( one for XXXX, XXXX, and XXXX ). Those funds were removed from my bank account immediately and were now inaccessible to me, which is exactly how it is supposed to be. Leaving my account at {$400.00} available to for my use. I paid some bills ( XXXX, XXXX, XXXX, and XXXX ) over the next few days, in which the amounts are taken from my availale balance immediately as well. Leaving me at XXXX at XXXX Monday morning. I have the Overdraft Rewind feature which covers any overdraft fee you may get, as long as a direct deposit will be going into your account by XXXX the next business day. I get paid on Tuesday ( XXXX ), so on Monday i made a couple purchases that left me at XXXX in my account. When my direct deposit goes in Tuesday morning ( before XXXX, which it always does ) my account balance will be XXXX. 
BUT INSTEAD - Wells fargo hits me with 3 overdraft fees saying that the purchases i made on Friday ( you know, the ones for XXXX, XXXX, and XXXX ) didn't POST to my account until Sunday. which resulted in an 3 overdraft fees. Please oh please explain to me where the money went that was allocated towards these purchases?! was it put back into my bank account without my knowledge?! No of course not. They took the funds from my bank account to pay for my purchase, immediately. which means since those funds were taken from me, I have no control over them anymore. I authorized a payment on a specific date and time, when there were funds in my bank account. wells fargo made these funds inaccessible to me. they say that it all depends on when the merchant pulls the funds, etc. well if it depended on that, shouldn't the funds be in my available balance until that time?! No. wells fargo already had them. I am furious right now because they are trying to charge me XXXX in overdraft fees, and this isn't my first go around with them. 
One huge difference for my personal/actual scenario is that I made 2 purchases to the same merchant, the same day, roughly the same time. they were both taken from my available balance immediately as noted before, however one payment posted that day, and the other didn't post til 3 days later, which resulted in one of the 3 overdraft fees. Mind you - the payment that received the overdraft fee, was made 2 hours BEFORE the payment that posted the same days as purchase. explain to me how that works! I will be looking into legal council for this matter because it is effecting my credit rating with the credit bureaus since i cant make payments on my credit accounts because wells fargo keeps messing with my money, it is keeping me up at night stressing about if i am going to have enough money to pay for the roof over not just my head, but the heads of my XXXX young daughters, and also because it is a terrible practice for any bank to perform. Wells fargo should know that because the did lose a lawsuit in XX/XX/XXXX for this exact reason ; and had to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to consumers that they scammed over.

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