Consumer complaint received 2019-10-08
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: MA
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Fees or interest
Sub-issue: Charged too much interest

Complaint:
On XX/XX/XXXX I was told by a Wells Fargo banker that I had perfect credit and thus qualified for their Visa Signature card. He explained that this was an extremely difficult card to qualify for and had a 0 % interest rate as long as I made the minimum monthly payments. This same banker also told me that I needed to open three accounts with him to avoid monthly service fees, so I opened the credit card account. He asked me to electronically sign on the penpad in agreement to his verbal description without showing me the agreement on his monitor which turned out to be quite different.

Turns out the banker ( name not provided by WF, they said I'd need a subpoena ) had lied in order to open the extra account, likely influenced by Wells Fargo 's " employee sales goal program '' craze that was controversially implemented at that time. Three years later, my financial situation shifted and I set my account to auto-pay the minimum to keep the interest rate at zero until my income resumed. The 0 % interest had actually applied only the first 12 months, regardless of paymen
t plan, and so my balance began to rise, compound, and rise faster.

I have filed six complaints with Wells Fargo ; they " misplaced '' two of them, and took over a month to " investigate '' each one, with the time lengthening with each complaint. They also transferred my phone calls from office to office and " dropped '' my call without a return number so I would have to re-explain my whole story to the next customer service representative. It is clear they were retaliating and stalling to build more interest as the months wore on. 

I have XXXX and I'm on the spectrum, so I don't do well with battling bureaucracy and it escalated to the point that I began having panic attacks on the phone with customer service and even when attempting to log online to pay my bill. I called their XXXX comment line listed on Wells Fargo 's Accessibility webpage to ask for XXXX accommodation, but it turned out to be a bogus number, directing me to the executive office who admitted they didn't have an ADA hotline. 

Each letter I got from Wells Fargo in response to the complaints I filed were filled with condescending reassurances about Wells Fargo " building better every day '' and " appreciate the opportunity to serve your financial needs ''. They also say that they need time to review my complaint and I should expect a response in a month ( including time for mail delivery, which is their sole method of complaint correspondence ). The most recent letter I received was regarding a complaint filed XX/XX/XXXX and they said I can expect a response by XX/XX/XXXX. That is three entire months of interest they are charging me while they " consider '' refunding my interest. 

Their solution to my request for XXXX accommodation was a rather insulting letter exalting their conformity to the ADA and suggesting that I can receive assistance by walking into any Wells Fargo branch office. First, there aren't any Wells Fargo offices in Massachusetts and barely any in all of XXXX XXXX. Second, telling someone with social XXXX to walk into a bank who has caused him to suffer XXXX XXXX when confronted with financial stress shows a shameful misunderstanding of my request from my six complaints. In mid-XX/XX/XXXX this year, one of the Wells Fargo customer service representatives agreed to reimburse me for costs in hiring a third-party XXXX advocate, but they later denied the conversation when I asked for it in writing, and told me I'd need a subpoena to access their phone recording for " quality assurance ''. The guarantee I finally got in writing was very different from the one we had made over the phone from which I hired a XXXX advocate that Wells Fargo will probably refuse to reimburse me for.

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