Consumer complaint received 2020-08-22
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: CA
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Applying for a mortgage or refinancing an existing mortgage

Complaint:
Im having a very hard time to get the Wells Fargo ( WF ) to refinance ( refi ) my existing loan thats also finance by Wells Fargo. I have no doubts that this is caused by discrimination based on my nationality and religion. I have been a WF Business and personal customer for the past 15 years, with credit score of XXXX and never been behind in making my mortgage payments. 
I was pre-approved by the WF in XXXX of XXXX for the home purchase price of {$920000.00} by local WF home mortgage specialist XXXX XXXX. I finally found a house for {$850000.00}. I was a first time home buyer and this home was going to be a single family/primary residence. My loan was approved as a Single Family residence with the Interest Rate of 3.625 % on XX/XX/XXXX. 
A few days later Mr. XXXX XXXX contacted me and informed me that the Underwriters ( management, since loans are written internally by the WF itself ) have informed him that they could not go forward with the 3.265 % interest and it should be at least 4.5 % because my property had a 2nd guest quarter in it. I told him that the 2nd quarter was a permitted legal unit and was very common in the properties in that area. I asked him if it was possible to put down more down payment to reduce the IR, he said no because then the loan amount will drop to below {$590000.00} and that will put me in the conventional loan bracket making it hard for WF to sell it to XXXX XXXX XXXX as investors dont like these types of loans. So he recommended not increase the down payment if I wanted the best rate. Given that the contingency with the seller could not be extended anymore and Mr. XXXX had asked me this was the best WF could do and take it or try some other lender, I agreed with the new 4.5 % rate and completed the purchase on XX/XX/XXXX. 
During the Coronavirus and the drop in the prime IR, I tried contacting Mr. XXXX again in XX/XX/XXXX, using phone, email and text to see if we could re-finance for better I.R. but there was no response. I finally contacted the WF customer service and they contacted Mr. XXXX to respond. Mr. XXXX replied by saying : sorry were not able to do anything for you because we dont have any appraisal product for you. 
Not understanding what he was saying, I contacted the mortgage customer service and they asked XXXX XXXX to help me on XX/XX/XXXX. She told me that she could not understand why the rate was 4.5 % for a single family conventional loan. I commented that the original loan rep. Mr. XXXX said it was because the property had a guest quarter. She said well the loan is still a single family conventional and that she was aware what type of property we were talking about as she was looking at my file and was looking at the house too. She said : I know what it has and what it doesnt havebased on my experience it should be single family conventional loan She said she could definitely get me a better rate of around 3.2 % if I could reduce the loan amount to {$560000.00}. I immediately made a payment of {$25000.00} to my mortgage account bringing the balance to {$560000.00}. Ms. XXXX took the re-financing application on the phone on XX/XX/XXXX and uploaded required documents to my Loan-tracker page about 2 days later. 
At this point, I contacted Mr. XXXX and told him that the 4.5 % interest rate seemed pretty high to Ms. XXXX. He replied : Ms. XXXX doesnt know the situation of your property. The best rate WF currently offering you would be 4.43 %!! Let me call her and tell her this From this point on Ms. XXXX completely changed. She would not answer her phone or returning my voicemail messages. 
After noticing some 18 different requested documents except the Loan Estimate, I sent Ms. XXXX an email on XX/XX/XXXX, email address was provided to me by herself when she emailed me her contact information, asking her to trim some of the requested documents as they seem to be redundant such as multiple requests to verify Bank accounts when all my accounts are with W.F. and especially when they were not required during the original loan process and that the uploaded documents to my loantracker did not have the loan estimate as a result I could not sign the Letter of Intent to Proceed because I did not know what I was proceeding on. She never replied to my email. 
On or about XX/XX/XXXX, I logged into my loan tracker to if any changes have occurred but noticed my application had been deactivated. I finally got hold of MsXXXX XXXX with the help of a customer service rep. and she said she never got my email. I asked her to remove some duplicate documents and upload the Loan Estimate. She said she was going to email me the Loan Estimate and she did. Loan estimate was acceptable and I asked her to reactivate the application. She said it was going to take several days to reactivate the application as it must be approved by the management. 
On XXXX XXXX I received a notice from Ms. XXXX dated XX/XX/XXXX stating that As you requested, weve cancelled your loan application listed above. This was the only request that I never made and conversely I was doing everything I could to keep the application open/reactivated and finalize it but she decided to put words in my mouth in such an obvious and brazen way. 
About 2 days later application was reactivated but the Loan Estimate was substantially higher than the estimate she had just emailed me. The I.R. had gone up to 3.35 %, the Origination charges had gone up from {$640.00} to {$2000.00} and 0.125 in points or an additional {$700.00}. 
I sent her an email requesting explanation as to why the uploaded Loan Estimate was much higher than what she originally emailed me and she said she was going to correct it and upload a new Estimate. The uploaded new Estimate had reduced the Interest rate from 3.35 % to 3.25 % but had left the origination  Charges and the {$700.00} in points unchanged. 
Meanwhile I had uploaded all the requested documents except signing the Intent to Proceed Letter as I did not know what the Loan Estimate was going to be. 
On XX/XX/XXXX Ms. XXXX in her email recommended closing this application and opening a new application because only then she could get me better rates. We set up a time for Friday XX/XX/XXXX at XXXXXXXX XXXX  for her to take a new application on the phone but she never called and later in her email said she did not see the a.m. and thought I was talking about XXXX p.m. which wouldve been too late for her on the east coast. 
She called me on XX/XX/XXXX about XXXX XXXX pacific time instead and said the time for this application is up. the time is up, the time is up she said. I commented that even if we assume 30-days is the time limit we still had XXXX more days. She thought a little bit and said yes you right. I asked to speak with her supervisor and she put me in touch with XXXX XXXX XXXX who turned out to be just another customer service rep. and went ahead to deactivate the application again. 
Mr. XXXX called me on XX/XX/XXXX and said : hey, what can I do for you! ( on a recorded line ) I explained the situation and he asked me to email him the copy of Ms. XXXX estimate and said hell look into it and email me a new Estimate Loan. 
On XX/XX/XXXX I received a new Estimated Loan and the only difference was the .125 point charge of {$700.00} had been removed but Origination Charges had increased by about {$1400.00} compared to Ms. XXXX original estimate and about {$120.00} more than the estimated loan uploaded by Ms. XXXX to my loantracker. Mr. XXXX also stated in his email : if you want to shop around with other lenders, I completely understand. Meaning take it or get lost. 
Later I spoke with XXXX XXXX, a supervisor, who agreed with me that I was being overcharged but could not do anything as to not contradict his managers and possibly lose his job. 
So as a result, Im still paying 4.5 % interest when Wells Fargos own website has the mortgage Interest rates listed as 2.875 % with APR of 2.967 % for single family residential and unable to re-finance due to lack of cooperation from the bank and their eagerness to waste time, run the clock out and then happily close the application and move on. 
Other lenders have stated that original lending banks often offer rates lower than their stated rates for their good long time customers in good standing and require minimum documents if any. 
Wells Fargo management ( disguised as underwriters ) first over-charged and then stalled my refinancing application while in the middle of various nationwide class-action law suits for same offenses, fraud, over-charging, discrimination against XXXX and XXXX, offering financial incentives to their employees to stall applications and so on. 
This XXXX profiling of mortgage applicants appears to be the policy of the Wells Fargo and implemented by their managers. Their internal audit should clearly show their executives that people with foreign names tend to pay higher rates, for example and they wait until the investigators bring it to their attention then they act like they know nothing about it.

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