Consumer complaint received 2016-10-19
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: CA
Product: Credit card
Issue: Identity theft / Fraud / Embezzlement

Complaint:
In XXXX I opened a business checking account for a XXXX ; XXXX XXXX, XXXX. with Wells Fargo Bank. Afterwards the bank sent my business manager a credit card with his name and the name of the XXXX written on it. I was, at that time, a stockholder in the XXXX and my manager had made almost XXXX XXXX on a XXXX deal he was involved in- a one time thing. When he received the credit card he thought the bank was " kissing XXXX '' and sent an unsolicited card because of the amount of money the XXXX had made. My manager lived XXXX hours away from me and makes all the decisions, ran the entire business and handled all the paperwork and dealt directly with the CPA. Later on the manager bought the business from me. The card was taking automatic payments from the business checking account I had set up and on XXXX XXXX went into the Wells Fargo branch in XXXX , CA and put a stop automatic payment withdrawal order on the checking account. He knew the market was tanking and knew his cash flow was going to be negatively affected and wanted to make sure there was enough money available to pay the monthly minimum due on the credit card. The teller who took the stop automatic payment withdrawal order was named XXXX and the reference number he gave the manager was XXXX. The manager made sure the order had been make effective immediately prior to leaving the bank as this was critical. XXXX assured him it was effective at that point. When he received the next bank statement he realized Wells Fargo bank had taken approx. XXXX XXXX dollars from the account which they no longer had the authorization to do. This was a breach of fiduciary duty the bank had to me and the XXXX. When the manager went to the bank to ask them about returning the money to the checking account they refused telling the manager that no one by the name of XXXX ever worked at the bank and that the reference numbers for the stop automatic withdrawals order given to the manager were meaningless! This action by the bank caused the manager a huge amount of damages trying to find funds to pay the monthly minimum on the credit card which he suffered until he could no longer pay the monthly minimum due and defaulted on payments at which point Wells Fargo Bank charged almost 30 % interest and penalties. On top of this Wells Fargo Bank forged my signature on a personal guaranty for the credit card and are now suing me for the balance due on the card. Wells Fargo sent my manager a redacted, illegible paper titled : '' Loan Application Wells Fargo Retail '' which has a signature on it which is supposed to be mine. The signature is misspelled with my first name being spelled " XXXX '' and my name is spelled " XXXX ''. Wells Fargo bank is stating this is a personal guaranty for the credit card. It also lists the amount " requested '' as {$10000.00}. The credit amount Wells Fargo bank is stating in the card is {$45000.00}. This does n't make any sense. My manager has tried to talk with Wells Fargo and told them this is his and the company 's debt but they have refused to talk with him. He has offered to try and settle with them and they have refused. My manager admits to using the card even though the card was not requested. He never talked with me about the card as I had nothing to do with the business other than I owned stock in it so he did not know any details of the card origination or credit limits. He certainly never would have knowingly used a card with my personal guaranty on it and I would never sign or knowingly sign such a guaranty for any business. That signature is a forgery. I now have a lawsuit against me in the XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX to which I and my former manager and subsequent owner of the company have filed a Cross-Complaint : Case number XXXX. Please help us. We are XXXX XXXX XXXX and not in good health.

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