Consumer complaint received 2017-10-20
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: NJ
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Problem with a lender or other company charging your account
Sub-issue: Transaction was not authorized

Complaint:
In XXXX of XXXX my husband and I refinanced our home with XXXX XXXX we had our original mortgage with Wells Fargo. We had an automatic withdrawal for our monthly payment. My husband contacted Wells Fargo to make sure they stopped the automatic mortgage withdrawals. The mortgage was closed as of XXXX XXXX, XXXX. We had three checking accounts with Wells Fargo. In XXXX of XXXX I purchased some items on line and was told I could not use my debit card. My husband has the account information on his computer so I called him to ask what was wrong with the account. He discovered that Wells Fargo had attempted to take a mortgage payment out of the account and had taken over {$300.00} from the one account and then took approximately {$100.00} from the other account, this withdrawal wiped out the account. The account they hit first was our tenant account, we have a rental property and we used that account for all matters dealing with that property. The other account was our tenant escrow account. When we contacted Wells Fargo about the matter we had a hard time getting a response. Finally, my husband spoke to a banker who said she would investigate. We received a letter from the bank following her investigation with a check for approximately {$1200.00} for taking a mortgage payment in XXXX, the month we closed on the mortgage. Following receipt of that letter we received several other overdraft notices stating that we owed them {$860.00}, the balance of the amount between the money they took from our account in XXXX and the amount of the original monthly mortgage payment. We contacted them because we were very upset that they had totally messed up our account by taking money that was not owed in XXXX, then again in XXXX, refunding the XXXX payment, but then demanding we pay them another {$860.00} after taking the {$400.00} from the two accounts, illegally, since the mortgage was no longer in the bank. They then closed the tenant account after taking the {$860.00} from the escrow account, and to add insult to injury charged us {$100.00} in overdraft fees. We received several letters from them demanding that we give them that money and on XXXX XXXX they took the {$86000.00} from our account and closed our tenant account which had a zero balance. We are still getting letters from them and are trying to close everything out of that horrible bank. But they owe us the last mortgage payment which they stole our of our account. Things are so confused at this point I do n't know if they also took the illegal overdraft fees or if they are showing on the statement but have n't been taken yet. They just help themselves to our money like it belongs to them. In XXXX, we were victims of the phony credit card scam and were issued a credit card that we never received. It was issued in my name however we never received a card. We suddenly had overdrafts on our account we did not understand and my husband called the bank with questions and it is was his phone call not mine that they said activated a card issued to me. I spent months writing letters to the bank all the way up the chain to no avail. Later the law suits came out about how other people had suffered the same illegal practices. That credit card ruined my credit for several years, which was why we refinanced in another bank we wanted out of the night mare. Please help us get our money back, they had no legal right to take money from our account to pay for a mortgage that was closed.

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