Consumer complaint received 2019-08-22
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: AL
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Closing an account
Sub-issue: Fees charged for closing account

Complaint:
On XX/XX/2019 I went into the Wells Fargo Location XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX alabama XXXX. I attempted to open an account as a representative payee for my daughter who is sick and lives in XXXX Colorado. I spoke to my daughter about the wells fargo easypay card and this was the lowest cost prepaid debit card I felt this was a good option and went to open the bank account. XXXX XXXX the wells fargo employee that helped me stated she would rather not complete the direct deposit because she frequently made mistakes and that if she did not do everything just right it would send a letter out to me and I would have to go in to social security and it would be better if I just went to social security and just gave them the paperwork and they would take care of it. It sounded like I could just walk in and provide the paperwork she had given me and there was nothing to it. She stated again she could do it but I would just get a letter telling me to go into social security. I went to social security and you can not just hand the paperwork to someone you have to take a number and meet with someone. I waited and the line never moved after about an hour possibly more I left and went back to Wells fargo to have them do this as I had already been told they could do it. The next banker stated that she could do it but would have to call social security. I advised her ok call them. She said let me start the process to see if I can do it I am not really sure I can. She turned her computer screen around and said look there is no box on my screen for me to even do a social security direct deposit. I advised her the other banker stated she could do one. The banker stated maybe she does not know we can not do this. I advised her the other bank I was currently with had completed the direct deposit and she stated she could call a banker and she did. The wells fargo banker on the phone stated that wells fargo did not do direct deposits for people you had to go to social security or go to your employer to have a direct deposit completed and they did not do it at all. She advised me I could wait on XXXX XXXX to come back but she would not be able to do a direct deposit as they did not have any way to do them. I had gotten information that a direct deposit could be completed in the wells fargo banks and they were advising me they would either make mistakes and I would get a letter from social security and have to go to social security anyway or they could not and had not been completing social security direct deposits for 3 years according to the banker called on the phone. At no time did anyone offer to get the bank manager to help with the problems the employees were having. This branch is closing in XX/XX/2019 and this seems to be an issue. XXXX XXXX wanted to know why the account was being opened I explained about my daughter and the easy pay card ( I really did not feel I needed to answer this question but for the sake of being nice and getting along I did ) XXXX stated the easy pay cards had been used for fraud and they would be asking my daughter many questions to determine if she was committing fraud and they would do a screening due to the amount of fraud with wells fargo easy pay cards. XXXX XXXX stated 90 % of her job was to detect fraud and spent 90 percent of her time working on fraud. XXXX XXXX asked if I was able to perform simple math like adding and subtracting after I checked to make sure no overdraft protection would be added to the account. I found this rude, but again to be nice I advised her I could indeed do math. XXXX XXXX asked if I frequently overdrew my accounts and had problems managing my money after I requested no overdraft protection.I found this question unnecessary. I was simply trying to open a bank account. XXXX XXXX advised me that my account could still be overdrawn the banker could look and decide to let a payment go through and I could incur overdraft charges anyway even if I had no type of overdraft protection. XXXX XXXX entered my daughter 's address for the account even though I gave her my driver license which clearly states my address we had to go through a whole process to change the address from my daughter 's address in Colorado to my address in alabama. XXXX XXXX sent me a letter stating my address had been updated with my NEW address and this is not the case I gave her the CORRECT address and she entered the INCORRECT address. The letter should have stated I corrected my mistake when I entered the incorrect address, it was not a NEW address it was the first address I gave her she made a mistake and updated her mistake there was never a new address.This was all done on the same day so how could it possibly be NEW. XXXX XXXX really really did not want to put in the direct deposit information and stated if she did anything incorrectly while entering the information like misspell anything or put something on the incorrect line it would cause us to get a letter from social security. XXXX XXXX asked how long I had been living at my current address i told her 11 years which she failed to enter on the forms she gave back to me. Why ask at all if you do not plan to enter the information. I asked my other daughter to go into the bank with me as I am very hard of hearing. The daughter that went with me called wells fargo on the phone on our way home on speaker phone. It is 20 miles to XXXX from where I live and 20 miles back home and another 4 miles to social security and 4 miles back to the bank. At this point we had spent several hours attempting to open a bank account and get a direct deposit set up. The first banker on the phone XXXX said he would get a supervisor and transferred the my call to the treasury department. I talked to the treasury department and they said they had no idea of why we were transferred to them and we hung up and called back. The person we spoke to supposedly transferred us to the executive branch and I filed a complaint and the person I was speaking with called the branch and spoke with the branch manager and she stated if we would come back in she would complete the direct deposit. If the branch manager could complete the direct deposit why were we told it could not be done. We were at that time about 4 or 5 miles from home and exhausted. I had other things to attend to and had decided to close the account due to concern about the bank itself. My daughter has attempted to help me we called on speaker phone with me giving verbal permission for my daughter to speak and tried to cancel the checks but were told to call back tomorrow to cancel the checks as to it was too soon to cancel and when I went to another branch the very next day I was told I had waited too long and the order had gone through and could not be cancelled. I was able to get a cashiers check for the money I had deposited and take it back to the original bank I started with but even though it was a CASHIERS check they had to call wells fargo which took them forever to get through on the line to wells fargo. I have never had a problem with a cashiers check before this it is usually just like cash. My daughter has attempted to call and help me with this to just find out how long it may take for the checks to clear. I would not close the account due to the checks costing XXXX and they were not offering to waive the fee until the checks cleared. I left XXXX after the overdraft threats and I did not want any more problems with this bank. XXXX XXXX stated after my daughter gave her account number 3 times " well nothing is populating with that account number '' I gave my account number and was told " nothing is populating '' My daughter gave the complaint number and the account number and was told nothing is populating. XXXX put us on hold on a dead line the call was disconnected. XXXX XXXX wanted to put us on hold but gave us another number spoke to someone else spoke to XXXX spoke to XXXX spoke to XXXX   and more was given XXXX for executive complaints XXXX XXXX I was given a complaint number of XXXX some people could populate it others could not given the run around some customer service representatives were rude. On XX/XX/19 when the letter stating the " NEW '' address had been added My daughter called and spoke to XXXX he was nice he asked what happened and advised my daughter that without my permission he could not provide information but could listen she went over the whole story again and he filed another complaint but she was not attempting to file a complaint just help with other issues. We called again and got a lady in Idaho who asked if I had been writing checks on the account. Now, I have made at this point two trips into town to attend to this issue. I went into another branch in another town to close the account on the following day XX/XX/19 20 miles each way to attend to this problem and I have to leave {$20.00} in this account because I was not allowed to cancel the checks I feel I have to leave the money even though the banker stated she would XXXX everything out I have been told I can be charged overdraft if they so choose. The only other checks I have are two counter checks that have been ripped up. I am not a thief have never been in jail never written hot checks never committed fraud nothing no police record of any kind. The lady in Idaho got an attitude with my daughter because we have been dealing with this since XX/XX/2019 and just get a run around and no one addressed the real issue. She tells my daughter she does not appreciate my daughter 's attitude and will only speak to me. She also tells my daughter there is nothing wrong with my hearing that I can hear her perfectly well. The banker was not in my home and could not see my daughter helping me. I do not think wells fargo hires audiologists and maybe the employees should stick to banking and not making a diagnosis on my hearing without ever examining me. Some of the customer service representatives treat us like they are the ones that have been wronged it is very odd and maybe they just do not want to help poor people. My daughter 's account was not going to make them any money so who cares right. Several people have provided good customer service and the banker helping me close the account was nice but could not do anything about the checks no one would cancel. I may end up paying for those checks but just to be able close the account it will be worth it. It does not seem  like any bank could or would allow this to happen. I am sure other people have had worse things happen than this, but by the time I am finished I will have spent three days and three 40 mile round trips just trying to help my sick daughter and closing this account. The customer service people on the phone seem to indifferent and do not explain why they are asking questions or what they are trying to do.I have no way of knowing if they have properly documented what actually what happened. If an employee is telling you she makes mistakes and she enters the incorrect address with you giving her your drivers license she may need some assistance. I am now waiting the 2 to 4 weeks for the checks to arrive at my home so I can go back to the bank and close the account. The representatives on the phone say they can waive fees and close the account but I do not trust them because the banker said she could not do this. I want something in my hands stating this account is closed. The bankers on the phone said the bankers in the branch could complete a direct deposit for social security. Some of the bankers in the branches said they could and some said they could not some of the customer service representatives said they could complete direct deposits in the branch and some said they could not. I am concerned about the lack of knowledge and the lack of good information from this bank. I am waiting until I can completely be out of the mess I was put in by wells fargo. Dealing with this for a week has been trying and exhausting. 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