Consumer complaint received 2016-11-18
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: NC
Product: Credit card
Issue: Cash advance fee

Complaint:
I have XXXX issues here. First, in XXXX 2016 through Wells Fargo 's online banking, I had accidently pulled out {$200.00} as a cash advance ( really easy to do with their online system, no warning that it was a cash advance transfer and not a payment ). I called in as soon as I realized my mistake ( same day ) to request that the cash advance transfer be overturned as I meant to make a {$200.00} payment to the credit card. After speaking with the representative, they told me to go ahead and transfer the {$200.00} back to the account and go ahead and make the payment that I originally intended to do. I did just that, all in the same day I made the {$200.00} payment online and even had them initiate the {$200.00} reversal over the phone. You can see that in the attached statement ending XXXX/XXXX/2016. Fast forward to today, as this is strictly a balance transfer card I do n't normally check the statements because I do not use the card for purchases, it was strictly for the balance transfer offer I did back in XXXX. So if we take a snap shot of this statement ending XXXX/XXXX/2016 you will see that there was a {$200.00} cash advance, {$200.00} online payment, {$200.00} phone payment. You would think that this would have taken care of everything. 

So we get to my XXXX issue - payments made over and above the minimum payment should go towards the highest interest balances first, according to the new credit card act. Today, I was creating some budgeting spreadsheets for my monthly spending and pulling up all my most recent credit card statements and noticed that I had a balance in my " Purchase APR '' bucket in the amount of {$170.00} in the statement ending XXXX/XXXX/2016 which prompted me to give Wells Fargo a call to figure out why. Through no help from them, I was able to go back to the XXXX statement and show them that this cash advance should have been a reversal but what really happened was they actually kept it in the cash advance bucket at 24.24 % interest, then moved it to the purchase bucket in the next statement period, all the while charging me that interest. What 's even more peculiar is that the balance in the cash advance bucket in the statement ending XXXX/XXXX/2016 was only {$120.00}. In the next months statement ( ending XXXX/XXXX/2016 ) the balance jumped to {$140.00} and now showing under the purchase bucket being charged 19.40 % interest. In my most recent statement the balance again increases to {$170.00} and again in the purchase interest bucket at 19.40 %. 

After speaking with the supervisor at Wells Fargo, what really prompted me to make this complaint is that that not only are they not paying off my high interest rate cards first ( I 've made {$200.00} payments, over and above the min {$57.00}, since XXXX they actually admitted that portions of the payment over the minimum are allocated " mostly '' to high interest cards then some to all other promotional balances. This contradicts what the credit card law under the CFPB has published. Now if their are nuances to this not spelled out on your website, I 'm ok with that. What I 'm not ok with is how I made a total of {$400.00} in payments ( when the min was {$50.00} ) the day I made the error in making a cash advance for {$200.00} on top of all the other payments that I 've made since then ( 3 months worth of paying over and above the minimum payment ) and the balance continues to increase each month all the while accruing interest at 19.40 %. I 've attached all statements dating back to the cash advance error. The supervisor was going to see if they could add the balance back to my promotional balance but I do n't really understand why that money is not already paid off all the while being charged high interest for something that they told me was corrected. Lastly, Wells Fargo be held accountable for not applying payments according to the rules of the credit card act set forth by the CFPB.

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