Consumer complaint received 2018-01-13
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: NY
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: Store credit card
Issue: Fees or interest
Sub-issue: Unexpected increase in interest rate

Complaint:
Good morning, yesterday, XX/XX/XXXX, I received a new credit card statement from Wells Fargo regarding my XXXX XXXX XXXX  card.Upon looking at it, I was charged {$830.00} in interest. The problem with that was that I was receiving emails from Wells Fargo stating that I had until XX/XX/XXXX to pay off my remaining balance in full before I would start getting charged interest. The first email came on XX/XX/XXXX, at XXXX XXXX ; and I received a second onXX/XX/XXXX at XXXX XXXX, which was hours before Wells Fargo sent me that statement with the interest charge. I have attached both emails as .txt documents below.

I then questioned Wells Fargo via message center on their website and I received a response from someone named XXXX and part of her response was : " You have two promotion on this account with no interest if paid if full that ends on separate dates. The first purchase made on XX/XX/XXXX expired on XX/XX/XXXX and the second purchase made on XX/XX/XXXX expires on XX/XX/XXXX. '' I was never informed of a promotion that ends on XX/XX/XXXX, since I have set up my Wells Fargo account to automatically send payments on certain dates to avoid late fees. Those two initial reminders form Wells Fargo about interest fees certainly did n't mention anything about XX/XX/XXXX. I again contacted XXXX via the message center and asked why I was being charged something I was never informed about when they did n't hesitate to remind me twice about interest before, and I was willing to pay off the remainder of my balance minus the interest fee, which was {$300.00} right then and there if the fee was waived. She replied there was nothing she could do and I then sent a response saying to cancel my card, I would like to speak to a manager, and that this practice is deceptive because it charges on a fee that was never mentioned before. I never received a reply after that, so I am assuming that they have closed the complaint. I have also attached those conversations below.

The real problem about this is that I was systematically trying to pay off my debts to raise my credit score because I am trying to buy a home. My balance for this Wells Fargo card before the interest fee was {$300.00}, which I was planning to pay off on a weekly basis until XX/XX/XXXX, which is what I was told by Wells Fargo was the deadline to pay in full without interest fees. In fact, I had a payment scheduled on XX/XX/XXXX that cleared for {$100.00} to get the balance down to {$200.00} and I would pay off the rest the next two weeks. It is unfair to be charged {$830.00} in interest unknowingly for a {$300.00} balance all because the credit card company was informing me of a date later down the line. Having a balance of {$1100.00} is a big difference than having no balance at all when it comes to paying off bills, and that charge is really going to set me back.

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