Consumer complaint received 2020-01-18
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: PA
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Problem caused by your funds being low
Sub-issue: Overdrafts and overdraft fees

Complaint:
Our accounts were opened in XXXX of XXXX at a Wells Fargo Branch in XXXX PA. The accounts we opened were a checking account and a savings account and the savings account would be accessed if the checking account was overdrawn and we would be charged a {$12.00} fee for these overdrafts. These accounts were maintained until XX/XX/XXXX when Wells Fargo arbitrarily closed the savings account. This action resulted in an increase to {$35.00} for each overdraft transaction. 
What we are disputing today is : why Wells Fargo closed the savings account resulting in us paying higher fees than we would have been charged if the account remained open. 
This complaint is also being filed because of the fees currently being charged to the checking account that is still open. For this checking account we access the account information through a Wells Fargo banking app which we check to ensure that the balance in the account is sufficient to cover pending and future transactions. Even though Wells Fargos mobile app would consistently show we had sufficient funds to cover pending and anticipated transactions, when these transactions were processed by Wells Fargo the result was us being charged overdraft fees to the checking account. 
This activity occurred over an extended period of time which led to a visit by us to a local Wells Fargo branch to get an explanation as to what was causing the fees to be charged when the mobile app showed sufficient funds to cover these transactions. No explanation was provided at that time as the branch associate could not explain why the fees were being charged. The fees were reversed that day, however, the next day additional fees were charged against the account. We returned to the branch with the same questions and the manager called another area of Wells Fargo for an explanation. The manager was told that the information in the mobile app did not reflect current information and was inconsistent with internal account information. 
Following that inquiry, Wells Fargo began to charge us NSF fees on top of the overdraft fees as well. Based on what has occurred with this account we believe 1 ; Wells Fargo purposely closed the savings account in order to charge higher fees for overdrafts and 2 ; Wells Fargo knew the information in their mobile app did not match their internal information and intentionally used that knowledge to charge additional fees as well. 
These deceptive actions by Wells Fargo has cost us thousands of dollars in fees which we believe should be refunded to us. We believe, Wells Fargos arbitrary actions to close our savings account was done to charge us higher fees. We also believe, Wells Fargo was also aware of the inconsistency of the information in their mobile app and internal account information but continued to charge us fees based on this inconsistency of information. 
After numerous attempts to resolve these issues with Wells Fargo we are writing this complaint with the hope that these practices would be investigated and brought to light and that the fees charged would be refunded to us. Attached you would find records of fee activity showing fees charged.

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