Consumer complaint received 2018-01-05
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Managing an account
Sub-issue: Problem using a debit or ATM card

Complaint:
I am requesting the help of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for the following complaint about a wrong fee unfairly charged and not reimbursed by WELLS FARGO BANK : In XXXX I asked to the bank about a fee called " INTL SERVICE FEE '', equivalent to 3 % of the amount withdrawn, that had been charged to ATM withdrawals ; a bank representative helped to stop that fee and explained that the 3 % deduction is only applied for purchase transactions made in a foreign currency ( not U.S. dollars ) but not for international withdrawals. After the claim, this " INTL SERVICE FEE '' was not longer charged to withdrawals, but this fee had not been reimbursed by the bank. Last year I did a claim to the bank, first by phone and later by their websites mail system, requesting the reimbursement of all charged fees of 3 % called " INTL SERVICE FEE '' that were applied to withdrawals in my account from XXXX XXXX XXXX until XXXX XXXX XXXX ; the total amount is {$100000.00} US. 

The bank in their answers completely evades the situation : two claims for this issue were closed without providing any notification or information to me ; in the following mail communications, they never gave an explanation about what happened, they never assessed the problem punctually, they never admitted their mistake, furthermore, they mentioned false and confusing information by saying that the fee deducted were applied to international purchases ( this is false, the " INTL SERVICE FEE '' of 3 % was also charged to withdrawals ) and by saying that I am claiming for an ATM fee of {$5.00} called " INTL ATM WD SERVICE FEE '' ( this is false, I am claiming for a fee called " INTL SERVICE FEE '' of 3 % charged to withdrawals ), this shows that they not even read carefully a complaint done by a customer. In the last communication, they said : As this information was made available to you, and is available any time online, Wells Fargo is not responsible for reversing fees that arelisted in these agreements, or that were not a cause of a direct bankerror. Furthermore, as the charges are also more than five years old, we will not be able to provide reimbursements for the charges, as we do not have fee information for fees more than one year old. This is a completely wrong and evasive answer because : 1. In the bank agreements is clear that there is a fee of 3 % applied to PURCHASES and, in the section of ATM fees, there is not any fee of 3 % for international WITHDRAWALS. This " INTL SERVICE FEE '' of 3 % is not part of the fees for withdrawals. 
As a proof of a Purchase and a ATM withdrawal are different transactions with different fees conditions in WELLS FARGO, I am attaching two documents : An statement of XXXX XXXX which shows an International Purchase Transaction Fee of 3 % correctly charged to a PURCHASE. 
An statement of XXXX XXXX which shows an unique fee called Non-Wells Fargo ATM Transaction Fee correctly charged to a WITHDRAWAL, it means that the " INTL SERVICE FEE '' fee of 3 % was not applied to the withdrawal, which is correct. 
These two documents also proves that the " INTL SERVICE FEE '' was unfairly charged to withdrawals during the period claimed. 

2. This is in fact a direct bank error, so they were and are responsible for reversing this fee. 

3. They must have information and/or files of all customers account agreements -not only of the last year-, in the same way that they keep account statements available online for up to 7 years, for example. I also told them that I have all statements which prove the period when the wrong fee was charged and when it has stopped. This is not correct that the bank use this argument as an excuse to evade responsibility, furthermore as I did the claim in XXXX and they knew since XXXX about their responsibility of reimburse these wrong charges ; in other situations they have refunded fees without a customer request. 

I am attaching all statements of the period claimed, the communications done through the bank websites mail system and the Wells Fargo ConsumerAccount Agreement and Consumer Account Fee & Information Schedule.

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 non-monetary relief