Consumer complaint received 2020-10-08
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: CA
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Home equity loan or line of credit (HELOC)
Issue: Applying for a mortgage or refinancing an existing mortgage

Complaint:
I've been having HELOC with Wells Fargo since I first bought my place in XXXX. I refinanced the HELOC with them again in XXXX. When XXXX XXXX county ordered the shutdown of non-essential businesses in mid XXXX of this year, I didn't know what was going to happen. All I knew was I had to temporarily close XXXX XXXX. I didn't know how long it was going to go on. So I asked Wells Fargo for help with the HELOC. They agreed to help so that I didn't have to pay for 3 months. During that time I've applied for PPP and other business grants that I planed to use to reopen XXXX XXXX in the HELOC account. In XXXX, when XXXX XXXX was not yet allowed to reopen and the 3-month period was ending, I called Wells Fargo again for help. They told me that the account will be restricted during this non-payment period and if I wanted to resume my account I had to just give them a call and start the normal payment and it would be resumed. 

But when the situation started to get better, I expected XXXX XXXX   would be allowed to reopen soon. I contacted Wells Fargo ( late  XXXX XXXX ) to resume payment and using the account to reopen XXXX XXXX. I was told that I would not have access to the money I put in the account during the non-payment. In order for me to have the access again, I would have to go through the underwriting process. There was never mention of me having to go through the underwriting process. Had I known that I would not have put all the money meant for reopening XXXX XXXX in this account. I would have done something else. I knew fully well that I would not qualify if I had to go through the underwriting process since XXXX XXXX was/is still new and we still have negative cash flow. I tried to contact the bank by going one of their branches. The person at the branch helped me open the ticket to their resolution team. At first I was told that it would be resolved by XX/XX/XXXX. Then I heard nothing from them. I called the person assigned to me at their resolution center but never got a hold of him nor did he ever called back. I got another letter saying they needed more time and it would be resolved by XX/XX/XXXX. On XX/XX/XXXX, I still hadn't heard anything. So, I called again and spoke to another person. She took my contact information and had another representative call me back. When this new representative call me back, he told me that there was no guarantee that I would be able to access the money that I had put in ( {$99000.00} ) that I had planned to use to reopen XXXX XXXX. He said that even they didn't mention about the underwriting process, it was my fault to assume/misunderstanding. He said he would talk to his supervisor and would try to help me. But I feel like they are putting me around in circle. They didn't tell me that I had to go through the underwriting process. I was not fully informed and it is not fair. I need the money to pay my people now that my business is allowed to reopen.

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