Consumer complaint received 2022-04-24
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: GA
Product: Debt collection
Sub-product: Other debt
Issue: False statements or representation
Sub-issue: Indicated you were committing crime by not paying debt

Complaint:
For XXXX  days I was denied a decision letter on our companys ( MAS Photo ) PPP forgiveness application with Wells Fargo Bank. Instead, the process was replaced with calls, letters and statements saying it was forgiven, before calling to say it was not, then being bullied in calls, reporting to the SBA as the loan being late the same day I was told the loan was not forgiven, charging fees based on a invalid date, offered quid pro quos to fix reporting and sending demand letters ; all as they withheld a formal decision letter. When the letter came it was predated by 3 months, and a request for review by the SBA was simply ignored.

This is a real problem for me and my company. On the basis of the banks misleading information for 63 days, we accepted an EIDL loan increase for {$150000.00} that we should not have taken had the proper 5-day notification process taken place. The banks action nearly drove my business and myself to bankruptcy. Its only the EIDL increases that saves us. Then the abuses of the next 150 days, as the bank took a stance of because we said so just wore on me physically as I asked for help at the bank and externally with the government agencies for help.

This is not an isolated case. Over 50 hours of calls, and interactions with the XXXX, CFPB, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency It became clear the bank has a system to deal with its mistakes, lies to government agencies, abuses calls, aggressively discourages recording calls by customers and wholly ignores the cares act. Their high-risk case team in the XXXX Complaints Managment office is actively engaged in criminal activity to recover funds that they have not properly claimed. Please investigate this case and the team at Wells Fargo lead by XXXX XXXX, Team Lead, high risk cases. 

There is little recourse for me personally or for my business over the {$20000.00} this account had. The amounts are so small, hiring a lawyer for arbitration does not make sense without prior prosecution by your team. After months working with my congressional delegations offices, and after breaking teeth and having a dentist and doctors tell me to reduce my stress, I followed the doctors orders by paying their inappropriate demands of the bank and getting back to work. 

With that said Im supplying your team with documents and calls that show the banks inappropriate actions. Please protect others before they harm more small businesses. This isnt a one-off situation, this is institutionalized abuse to inappropriately hide mistakes of a poorly run program, that needs to be investigated independent of my situation.

Documents included 1 - date of their internal decision a simple bank statement.

2 - the decision letter sent 200 days later predated by 3 months, withheld for 200 days 3 - the SBA guide for decision letters A document right off the SBAs website 4 - forgiven letters a letter sent in error ( apparently ) 5 - demand letter Sent 2 weeks after, without a formal decision letter being rendered 6 - demand call with quid pro quo a call made to settle the disagreement, threating collections if I did not accept their terms. This call is especially bad when you consider they had been told the day before that the XX/XX/XXXX was the anniversary of the death of my mom, and I did not want to deal with things that date. 
7 - do not consent to recording call unprompted asking are you recording?

8 - reporting to the SBA we where reported at late the same day we where told the loan was not forgiven 9 - Fees assessed just a bank statement Audio files available here XXXX  : XXXX

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