Consumer complaint received 2023-07-14
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: CA
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: CD (Certificate of Deposit)
Issue: Closing an account
Sub-issue: Fees charged for closing account

Complaint:
Hello, I have been a customer of WF Bank for decades. With CD interest rates being higher, I had to go in person to get their new rate or it would renew at THE VERY low rate of previous years. I tried going in and each time there were 15 to 20 people in line. XXXX XXXX XXXX Locations. Each branch manager confirmed they are EXTREMELY short staffed and I would have to wait ( this was also confirmed to their corporate office ). I finally called customer service to make an appt and the soonest available appt was about 30 mins away from my house and 12 hours after my window to renew was closed. There was NO appt available in my area of wells fargo within that week that I am allowed to make the changes to my CD. When I arrived at the bank, though I had an appt, there was still no one to help me. They pulled a gentleman from small business banking to help me and he was as confused as I was. He confirmed that they have been short staffed and don't have staff to help customers. They closed my account and charged me {$170.00} penalty. I was penalized because they don't have enough staff to help their customers. They gave me a week window to do this task, but didn't have any appts for their staff and their lines ( admitted themselves ) are obscene. So they are both saving money on not paying staff/overhead to run a bank, and charge customers a fee for being 12 hours late. I have been a customer for decades and NOT once have I asked them to reverse fees for anything. NEVER. I have always kept my bank accounts in clean state and didn't need overdraft fee reversals or anything else. They one time I needed them to reverse a fee, they didn't. To make matters worse, I only needed them to reverse this fee because they are properly staffed to take care of customers. It is disingenuous of wells fargo to ask me to jump thru a hoop only for ONE week and than not have enough staff to physically hold said hoop. How can i jump thru a hoop they don't have enough staff to hold up? That is where I am. Being penalized financially while they make money off me, while also saving money by not paying salaries to hire employees. Please help me get my {$170.00} penalty back because it is unfair for them to penalize me for something I couldn't do during their window. 

I tried reaching out to their social media team, and after a week they responded. They admitted that they are short staffed and the managers of branch had confirmed they are trying to hire and train staff. At first the social media response team gentleman suggested I should have gone outside my zip code. When i pointed out that I DID DO SO, and he compared the zip code of the bank I visited v. home zip code, he said the whole region is short staffed because salaries are high and training takes a while. Why am I paying a penalty for their training take a while? 

Please help. My finances as a single parent are hard enough, I don't have extra money to give to Wells Fargo because Wells Fargo failed to hire staff and train them. thank you

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