Consumer complaint received 2020-11-09
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: MN
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem with a purchase shown on your statement
Sub-issue: Credit card company isn't resolving a dispute about a purchase on your statement

Complaint:
This complaint is intertwined with the other complaint on my account, I have tried to separate the information from Wells Fargo and XXXX to the best of my ability but there will be some " spillover '' of information. You may need to reference both complaints to fully understand. 

Wells Fargo : To whom it may concern : On XX/XX/XXXX, I visited XXXX XXXX, Nevada with my Sister-in-law, and on the last day that we were going to be there, we stopped by an electronics stand called XXXX XX/XX/XXXX XX/XX/XXXX in between the two casinos that we were traveling to and from. During this visit, a man named XXXX convinced me to buy a {$5000.00} XXXX XXXX mini projector ( which he showed to me on XXXX as being listed for {$5000.00} but I later released that this was being sold by a third-party and therefore, according to XXXX, they could put any price that they wanted, the conversation that proves this is attached in many of my communications with the credit card companies ) which is actually a rebranded {$250.00} XXXX  projector, along with 2 XXXX XXXX XX/XX/XXXX portable Bluetooth speakers that he charged me {$790.00} each for when you can buy a comparable unit for XXXX XXXX  {$60.00} on XXXX depending on features and quality you want. He also sold me XXXXXX/XX/XXXXHeadphones which he also told me were worth {$790.00} a piece and I ended up buying two of them from him, even though the fraudulent receipt he sent in as proof of my purchase to Mastercard said that I bought 9 pairs of headphones and nothing else when that was clearly not true from my original complaint to the credit card company but this did not seem to matter to Mastercard and they have sided with the merchant. I also bought a phone case + power bank that was supposed to fit my son 's XXXX XX/XX/XXXXXXXX but the unit he sold me was for an XXXX XXXX so there was no way they could be compatible. Even this mistake was not corrected. Along with this, one of the two sets of headphones I bought ( I bought a white pair and a black pair ) the white pairs charging port was broken when it was taken out of the box which was also immediately reported to the seller and they told us that we would have now go through the manufacturer instead even though it was well within the 14 day return period on the receipt.

This transaction was done over 2 credit cards so there are technically 2 complaints, one for Wells Fargo/Visa and one for XXXX XXXXMastercard. The mini projector was put on the XXXX card so the dispute was handled by Mastercard. The XXXX XX/XX/XXXX dispute/case number is XXXX for {$1000.00}. 

The case for Wells Fargo/Visa was initially given the dispute number XXXX but on internal documents, it was referenced as XXXX so I am not sure which is the proper one to reference is by going forward. This was a dispute for everything that wasnt the XXXXXX/XX/XXXXMini Projector so that was for the 2 pairs of headphones, 2 Bluetooth speakers, 2 solar power banks, 1 pair of VR Goggles ( even though they really arent, if you go into the attachment Wells Fargo Response to itemized receipt letter.pdf you will see that these are little more than the XXXX cardboard VR goggles that require you to place your phone into the front of them and the only interactivity is to turn your head and have the poorly made games auto-fire until you hit something, not worth {$1500.00} it claimed, let alone the {$500.00} I paid. 

The reason I have not filed this before now is that I never got the original paperwork from XXXXXX/XX/XXXX and Wells Fargo as to why they made the determinations that they did until just recently. For the XXXX XX/XX/XXXX case I received paperwork dated back to XX/XX/XXXX but I only received it within the last 30 days. It claims that no credit was given because the merchant claims that I never requested credit and that I did not contact them within 14 business days which you can see is completely false. I provided all the record of my text message interactions with the salesperson ( First name XXXX, cell phone number XXXX ) asking for a way to return the items to them within days of me arriving home ( on the XXXX of XX/XX/XXXX ). 

As far as Wells Fargo goes their dispute is very similar but has some strange quirks to it as well. The story is about the same for them except that the itemized receipt that was sent to them claimed that I purchased 1 x XXXX XXXX XXXX ( the headphones ) then 4 x XXXX XXXX XXXX, then 4 more XXXX XXXX XXXX then 1 waterproof XXXX speaker ( the Bluetooth speaker I spoke of above ) and 2x Power case for XXXX XXXX when I bought 1 of these cases and it was for a XXXX XX/XX/XXXX XXXX, and I only bought 2 pairs of headphones, not 9 of them. I brought this to Wells Fargo/Visas attention, but they claim that since the merchant could produce the signed receipt then I had to pay no matter what. This time the total amount sold matches but once again the time of day, the transaction number, and authorization codes do not match so they can not possibly be the same receipt yet this was upheld in the arbitration process that Mastercard forces you to use. 

I received the last letter from Wells Fargo confirming this decision on XX/XX/XXXX, which is again why it has taken me so long to get this turn over to any law enforcement agencies, during this whole time I only ever received 2 or 3 letters from Wells Fargo, most of the contact was over the phone and recorded by them so you shouldnt have a problem getting access to it. 

I had to call Wells Fargo on XX/XX/XXXX to find out what had happened because it had been several months, and I had not heard anything from them. I was then contacted by XXXX XXXX. ( She was not willing to provide her last name, which I find absurd but ok ), she is in the executive office of Wells Fargo, her direct line is XXXX ext XXXX she explained to us that yes, she does see the discrepancy and agrees that we should get credit but that we had already used both attempts at arbitration so we had no recourse and should have filed the disputes properly, to begin with. Since we had no control over the way the customer service associates started any of my disputes how could I possibly have done that? I explained it to her like this Say I went into a jewelry store and they sold me a diamond ring that they certified was worth {$10000.00} but then I bring it to a third-party appraisal group and they tell me I was scammed and it was worth only {$10.00} this would most definitely be considered fraud by the local law enforcement but this is not considered fraud by the credit card agencies? and she agreed that yes the situation is exactly the same and that no, we should have gotten a refund but that there is nothing that she can do for us now and she urged us to pass this along to consumer protection agencies. 

As you can see from the document entitled XXXX Chat Transcript.pdf my son went to XXXX chat and asked them about the {$5000.00} XXXX XXXX Mini Projector and whether XXXX actually backed up those prices or of if the price could be set by the third party seller to whatever they wanted. According to the representative as long as the items were not deemed essential items such as hand sanitizer then there was no price checking ongoing. It was up to the consumer to evaluated whether the item was actually worth {$5000.00} or not. I then sent this transcript to the XXXX and never heard anything back from them at all but they did shut down the XXXX XXXX store that was selling the {$5000.00} item and started a brand new store called XXXX XXXX with the same pricing scheme as before but it was obviously the same people running it. 

All of this information I would have thought would be more than enough to get the credit card companies to reverse the transactions and that would be that ; I even offered to send all the stuff back to them to try to resell to some other people but that was never good enough. So now I am passing all of this off to as many consumer protection agencies and law enforcement agencies that I can think of and that will listen to my complaint. This will at least be sent to the Consumer Protection Bureau, FBI, FTC, SEC, and XXXX  if I can not find anymore. I expect that these agencies will actually do their job and look over the evidence and not just side with the merchant because they have a signed slip of paper. I didnt agree to be defrauded, so that slip of paper should be meaningless after all of the evidence I have provided. 

The letters attached as Wells Fargo Final Response And XXXX XX/XX/XXXXFinal Response are the last letters that I got in the mail from them but they may not be the last time I had contact with them over the phone, however, as things stand now, there is no active investigation on either account and according to them, I owe all the money that was charged. Please help me fight this as I do not have the money to hire a lawyer and fight it directly myself. 

Thank you, XXXX XXXX XX/XX/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