Consumer complaint received 2018-05-11
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: MA
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process

Complaint:
I called Wells Fargo in XX/XX/XXXX because they were the transfer agent for XXXX XXXX. I owned XXXX  stock and needed to sell that stock to pay the mortgage. For two plus years Wells Fargo did not sell the stock. They did not respond to my sending them the paperwork necessary which they emailed to me and which I sent back to them overnight mail return receipt requested. That paperwork included a XXXX form filled out by XXXX XXXX XXXX. In spite of many telephone calls, Wells Fargo ignored my request to sell the stock. The XXXX stock was purchased by me over many years under their corporate plan where you purchase amounts of stock with no broker fees and they keep the certificates. When you are ready to sell the stock they have the certificates so they immediately sell the stock and you are supposed to be reimbursed as though you sold it yourself through a broker - which is a four day settlement period. 

After many telephone calls to XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX - a group that did not respond to acknowledge receipt of the forms I sent for some two plus weeks - I discovered they could not find the forms I mailed to them overnight mail return receipt requested. I have the receipt signed by XXXX so  they received the papers in a timely fashion. 

Some several weeks after my initial call to XXXX - which was a second, third and fourth call to them, which calls were preceded by calls from my daughter before I made my initial call to Wells Fargo with no response. - She was told they could not talk to her - only to me. The stock was held in trust by me in the names of XXXX of my daughters. 

After two years and several months and dozens of telephone calls, letters, emails, and after my calls to the Massachusetts Attorney General 's office, the XXXX, the Securities and Exchange Comm. XXXX told me via telephone that they had sent my forms back to me because they were incorrectly filled out. 

I was a XXXX XXXX licensed with the XXXX XXXX  XXXX XXXX. In fact, I was the first XXXX XXXX so licensed in the United States. My background includes XXXX XXXX School and more and those forms are not that complicated. The XXXX form signed by the bank was the most important of the forms. 

I filled in more form and resent them to XXXX and again did not hear from them for over a month. Again, with the second set of forms the stock should have been transferred to my daughters names and sold. Again, nothing happened - no contact from XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, - Again, no acknowledgement that they received the forms, as before, and again, no change in the stock. The first time I was told after more than a month and telephone calls during which they could not find the forms I mailed to them. This second time of sending them forms they simply ignored me. 

Finally, some two plus years later after much struggle which negatively affected my mortgage payments and my credit XXXX acknowledged receipt of forms from my daughter - a XXXX XXXX School graduate, lawyer, etc. - and agreed to put the stock certificates in my daughters names so they could execute them. 

All of these two plus years, Wells Fargo Mortgage was charging my mortgage account some {$140.00} per month in late fees because of the position they put me in and kept me in. So they had a motive for what they did and Wells Fargo benefitted at my expense. 

All during this time, I called the Wells Fargo Mortgage department, told them what was happening, made a complaint and received several conflicting responses - one from a Wells Fargo corporate lawyer which had nothing to do with the facts of what happened, but which were outlined in such a way that they attempted to justify what happened instead of responding to the actual problems they caused. Her response was totally to something, but not to the complaint I raised with the bank. It was as if she had a generated form she could send for any possibility and the facts of my complaint were ignored. She clearly either ignored the complaint and did her own thing or responded via a pre-computerized form over which she put my name - facts which pertained to what happened to me were irrelevant. 

Once that was resolved we immediately received letters from Wells Fargo threatening to put us in foreclosure because we were two months behind in the mortgage. 

They outlined a number of things I had to do to bring the mortgage current or face foreclosure. 

Wells Fargo was sending, on a monthly basis, an invoice which included the mortgage, mortgage interest and escrow for city real estate taxes. I called and then wrote to Wells Fargo telling them to stop collecting city real estate taxes because I talked to the City of XXXX and was going to pay the taxes directly to the city. Since I asked Wells Fargo a couple years ago to collect and pay the real estate taxes for me until I could work out whatever was wrong with the city of XXXX and the way they collected my real estate taxes. They agreed and I wanted to be sure I could stop this arrangement whenever I needed to do so. Wells Fargo assured me that was an accurate assumption. 

Now that I have requested they not escrow anymore real estate taxes, Wells Fargo has not done so and has demanded that I not only pay them the mortgage, interest and city taxes for the two months I was behind. 

They already had a substantial escrow account and I called to stop their collection of city taxes at a point where it would be convenient for them to do so because they would use the money escrowed to pay the taxes and I would take over from there. That was not to Wells Fargo 's liking. They got to collect city real estate taxes - which are substantial. They could hold the money for some six months each year before paying the taxes and that would accrue to Wells Fargo a nice amount of extra money. 

Wells Fargo had my account in " Recovery '' and the " Recovery '' people are quite messy and looking for everything they can get for Wells Fargo. The guy I spoke to said they had just paid the taxes and since I didn't have any money to reimburse them they were not going to stop collecting the taxes. I asked him about the escrow account and what happened to it and why that was not used - as had normally been done in the past - to more than cover the amount they paid. His response was he didn't know about an escrow account and would have to check it out. 

I called Wells Fargo on XX/XX/XXXX to pay the mortgage and could not get through. The number I have to pay the mortgage - which is how my mortgage has always been paid, via telephone, did not have any knowledge of my mortgage account. It was as if we didn't exist. 

On XX/XX/XXXX I called back and was going to insist on being transferred to their executive offices, but that didn't seem necessary because the person I spoke to transferred me to this " Recovery '' group. I tried to pay the mortgage due for XX/XX/XXXX and that was refused because I was paying the mortgage and interest, but not escrowing the city real estate taxes. They refused to accept my payment in spite of the fact that it was a full amount of the mortgage and mortgage interest. They would not accept payment for the mortgage without the escrow amount for the city taxes. At that point the escrow amount I had paid them previously for city taxes came to about {$6000.00} plus which was just sitting in an escrow account someplace within Wells Fargo. 

I called back on XX/XX/XXXX several times to pay the second months mortgage due and/or to pay both months at once if that was possible and was turned down. They would not take either the XX/XX/XXXX payment nor would they take the XX/XX/XXXX payment for the same reason they turned down the XX/XX/XXXX payment, nor would they take both at once until all payments included the escrow for city real estate taxes. 

I filed a complaint with the company in XX/XX/XXXX about all of this and was told the gentleman would call me back with some resolution from Wells Fargo by XX/XX/XXXX. 

On XX/XX/XXXX my phone rang and when I answered there was no one on the other side. Since we have had many problems with our telephone service either that was the problem or Wells Fargo was playing games with my account. 

When I picked up the telephone which was ringing on XX/XX/XXXX with no one on the other end - just silence - because I saw Wells Fargo 's name on the caller ID and a telephone number I called that telephone number and a woman answered and said the gentleman who took my complaint was out of the office that day and a woman had placed a call to my telephone number to say the resolution would not come until XX/XX/XXXX instead of XX/XX/XXXX and she was at the time entering a note in my record at Wells Fargo that she tried to call me, let the phone ring for over a minute, no answering machine clicked on so she hung up. Very different from what actually happened on XX/XX/XXXX. 

I again reiterated to the person I spoke to that I tried to pay the mortgage - it was not accepted because of the city real estate taxes and I had checked and discovered that was something they could not do. They could insist the mortgage and interest amount be paid in full, but not include these other things. 

In addition, Wells Fargo collected {$160.00} more than the mortgage payment due many months ago and in spite of several telephone calls about that, including from my daughter, I could not get them to apply that money against anything. I called them several times and asked that it be used to reduce principle or reduce the next payment and they didn't do either. I received, recently, after the account was turned over to " Recover '' a statement saying this amount had been collected in excess and what should they do with it. My response - put it to reduce principle or credit it against a mortgage payment - was again ignored and the money was not reimbursed to me in any form. 

When I paid the mortgage for several months I asked that it be less than the total amount due by {$160.00} and I was told that was not possible. when you call via telephone you are given an amount due and you pay that amount. For them to have collected {$160.00} in excess they gave me that amount as being due and insisted on collecting the mortgage amount due plus the {$160.00} with no explanation. I could either pay the amount being quoted to me as due over the telephone or they could not accept my money. 

I also notice that recently I was charged an additional {$.00} in the same way. That is not a large amount, but multiplied by the thousands of people for whom Wells Fargo collects mortgage money that accumulated figure is a very large amount. 

I am sitting with the arrears from the mortgage - an arrears caused by XXXX - and they are and have refused to accept any amounts from me. So they are doing in the mortgage area what they did in the stock transfer area - creating a circumstance under which they can benefit and under which they can attempt to move to put my house in foreclosure. 

I would appreciate your investigating this complaint.

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 monetary relief