Consumer complaint received 2017-01-03
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: NJ
Product: Bank account or service
Sub-product: Savings account
Issue: Deposits and withdrawals

Complaint:
On XX/XX/XXXX I found {$2200.00} missing from my WellsFargo savings account. This account was a joint account with my wife. On further inquiry, I found that the money was debited on XX/XX/XXXX as part of a legal order against an individual having the same name as my wife. We received a formal notification about the legal order from WellsFargo after a week. At this point I should also mention that WellsFargo bank has my wife 's SSN and a scanned copy of the passport to establish her financial identity. 

WellsFargo gave me the contact details of the court officer in regards to the legal order. On contacting the officer, we were told to contact the XXXX county court of New Jersey. 

At XXXX county court we were told that a judgement was entered against a person having same name as my wife. The debt collector firm XXXX XXXX XXXX , XXXX representing XXXX XXXX won the judgment XX/XX/XXXX. I explained the clerk ( with proof of XXXX ) that my wife entered this country for the first time XX/XX/XXXX and her SSN was issued XX/XX/XXXX. It is not possible that the judgement was against my wife. The clerk advised us to file an Objection against the default judgement. He also advised us to start a Motion and Answer to vacate the default judgement. We followed his advise. 

Meanwhile, we visited WellsFargo branches and spoke with WellsFargo legal order team multiple times with enough evidence to show that this was a case of either identity theft or mistaken identity. They did not help us. 

On the day of hearing the lawyer representing XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX began his argument by demanding to see my wife 's SSN. We were not comfortable with that idea as XXXX XXXX XXXX has a terrible reputation in debt collection. Additionally, we feared that they were involved in identity theft. Allowing to have a look at my wife 's SSN would just give another information to a shady firm. However, on assurance from the judge we showed the last XXXX digit of the SSN. The lawyer immediately, conceded that there was a mistake. My wife is not the person that they were after. Under oath he told the court that they gave WellsFargo the SSN of the correct person, however WellsFargo did a mistake and penalized my wife. 

The judge told us that our money would be given back and the default judgement can not be vacated as it was not against my wife. 

My grievances are as follows : 1. Wells Fargo did not do enough to notify us about the amount debited. The first formal notification was given via regular mail more than after a week of the amount was debited. The problem with this is our account balance went below the minimum that you have to maintain in order to not have a fee on the savings account. Every time I withdraw money from my account, I receive a form of mobile or email notification. However, when we are a victim of mistaken identity or identity theft we receive regular postal mail correspondence. This seems unjustified. As a consumer I feel my rights were violated. 

2. When I told Wells Fargo during my multiple visits and telephone conversations that this was a case of mistaken identity or identity theft, we were not given the proper importance that we deserved as customers and regular law abiding individuals. No action was taken to question the action of the legal order team. Neither did the legal order team did an introspection to question their wrongful action against their customer. 

3. The lawyer representing XXXX XXXX XXXX claimed under oath that Wells Fargo was provided with the correct SSN. If that statement is true then what Wells Fargo did was illegal. If not then the lawyer lied under oath.

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