Consumer complaint received 2018-08-11
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: CT
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Domestic (US) money transfer
Issue: Fraud or scam

Complaint:
On XX/XX/2018 I was defrauded by 3 impersonators in " the Grandma Scam '' and was asked to submit bail {$6300.00} to an account held by Wells Fargo Bank. In one of my many follow-up steps I contacted Wells Fargo with the name of the president of the Bondsman company ( to whom I sent the wired money ), the number of his bank account and the wire routing number. The first call to Wells Fargo -- about their having an account used for fraud/embezzlement/ identity theft -- got the answer " if YOU don't have an account here, we can't help you. '' A second call to Wells Fargo, also customer service, resulted in her telling me 5-6 times we can't tell you who owns that account!! I wasn't asking that but I kept telling her I was reporting illegal activity using their account. I wanted to know what precautions they took to verify the identity of someone opening a Wells Fargo account. Above all, I wanted Wells Fargo to pursue the fraudulent activity. The only answer was we'll follow the bank protocol. 

The Name of the account owner, according to the fraudulent Bondsman, was XXXX XXXX. And his account was XXXX and the routing number was XXXX. I had my broker sell {$6300.00} from my stock portfolio and wire it to the Wells Fargo Bank. I had previously asked the Bondsman on the phone for the bank 's address but he just said it was a XXXX branch. 

The scam had 3 actors. The first was " my son '' -- though the call began with " Grandma? '' Since I'd been pressing my son to phone on family business and since he is also the father of baby, I thought at first he was returning my call and and pretending, as he frequently does, that the baby wants to talk to me. The rest of the call related to his car crash, his injuries, the charges for XXXX, the need for bail and asked me -- when I inquired why haven't you called you wife -- he said I want to explain it to her myself and they allowed me only one call. I thought he knew as a retiree I could easily handle the paper work and make bail fast. 

The second actor, " the attorney for my son '' identified himself as XXXX XXXX, the court-appointed lawyer at XXXX County Courthouse in XXXX, NJ, phoning from his cell phone XXXX. The bondsman at XXXX County Courthouse was XXXX XXXX, XXXX, of XXXX and Sons, one of many bond-serving companies that serve the Courthouse on a rotating schedule.He was not the one receiving the money as the account was in the name of president of his company. 

I phoned back both of these numbers -- lawyer and bondsman -- several times in the day and in the case of my " Son '' and his " lawyer '' I captured -- and saved the phone calls on the monitor of my " Caption Call '' phone. I know that my phone delete saved calls after a while -- but am too tech-phobic to fiddle around and see if there is a " save permanently '' option. There are just erase options that I see. 

My interactions ranged with the identity thieves ran from probably XXXX XXXX to around XXXX XXXX. In that interval, my husband arrived and we discussed driving to XXXX to pick up my son when the money cleared and when he was released. A last phone call from the lawyer came and I asked what the address in XXXX was so we could plan XXXXhe drive -- the street and number didn't exist, then I asked why his phone was a XXXX area code. Meanwhile my husband called XXXX Country Courthouse and we determined it was a scam. We phoned my broker first who stopped the wire transfer, so I lost no money. 

But a crime was committed. I filed charges with local police, spoke with my Attorney General 's office, filed in both a phone call and online with the FTC, in that case and in this, bringing charges against WELLS FARGO for harboring illegal activity through their bank account number XXXX.

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