Consumer complaint received 2016-05-04
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: NC
Product: Bank account or service
Sub-product: Savings account
Issue: Account opening, closing, or management

Complaint:
My mother recently passed away. I have spent the last few weeks tending to her affairs and paying off any debt. She managed her finances well, and wanted to honor her memory by being thorough. One set of accounts at wells Fargo, was a checking ( we had joint as I provided her funds monthly ), savings, and a IRA. She had left me beneficiary on the Checking and IRA but she was apparently not aware she needed to do anything for the savings. We are both immigrants, I grow up in the US. We have no other family. So she was not very familiar with all the administrative things all ways needed. Her Savings account was the large liquid account I was using to pay her debt off and close her business licenses, etc. 

Before death, she gave me a Durable Power of Attorney for Financial, Property, and Healthcare. Upon receiving her Death Certificate I notified Wells Fargo. However, the following events occurred which I feel Wells Fargo failed to provide adequate disclosures and did not act in the best interest of its customers. 

1. When I notified the phone rep of the death, he put a block on all her accounts, even though I was listed as beneficiary and I identified myself. He did not disclose the block. This almost caused some issues with her debt payments. 
2. When I went to the branch to show the Death Certificate, my ID, the Power of Attorney, they created a new checking account and transferred the checking account funds. I was not notified of this. Again, another failure of disclosure. I wanted to keep the old account as my mom has had it since I was a child going back to XXXX XXXX in XXXX. It was something I wanted to maintain to remember her. Wells robbed me of that. I figure that they would have to clearly notify me of this rather than doing it behind a terminal without communication. 
3. Even though I am beneficiary on all her other accounts, she missed one account setup and have to go through probate despite having Power of Attorney during her life and beneficiary for all else. Regardless, I feel Wells Fargo is doing a disservice here. There is a huge population of baby boomers. I assume many do n't have every beneficiary field filled out. Wells could easily do data mining for empty fields for all depositors and as a courtesy, prompt them on login to update. This problem could have been solved beforehand. I assume there are going to be tens of thousands, if not millions of other families that have a similar situation or will upon a lived ones death. I feel banks could do more here to make sure transition is easier for the loved ones so they can focus on grieving vs the bureaucracy and pain Wells is putting my family through. I am paying off her remaining items on my own, which is fine. The funds will be released upon the judges signature, but the issue could have been avoided had Wells had more thoughtful proactive risk practices given its clients missing data fields. A simple query could easily ID other depositors with the same issue. So much frustration could be saved. 
4. Given our aging population, seems there should be more uniformity of federal banking requirements on how to deal with beneficiaries. Having done this not, seems like its all over the place. Some banks do beneficiaries online, others only Trusts, or you have to go to a branch. It is not uniform. Some banks are easier, others are near impossible to deal with. A uniform requirement would make things easier for the living loved ones.

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