Consumer complaint received 2016-04-12
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: MO
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Non-federal student loan
Issue: Dealing with my lender or servicer
Sub-issue: Trouble with how payments are handled

Complaint:
I am a parent co-signer on a private loan for my son. The lender is Wells Fargo, there are XXXX loans being serviced by Wells Fargo. The loans involved have been in repayment since XXXX. I have made all payments timely. We are estranged from our son and do not know how to contact him. I have had to make every loan repayment amount because our son will not make repayment. We have no choice as co-signers but to make repayment. 
Over time we have accelerated our monthly payment amounts to more than the required payment. Each month since XXXX Wells Fargo has credited payment to both loans principal and interest. Beginning XXXX XXXX Wells Fargo applied the payment entirely to XXXX outstanding loan only with no written notification to us of this change in procedure. We missed seeing this due to the deceptive nature of their billing statement. Which showed all payment being applied, ( their statement only designates a total payment of the combined loans due ). Since Wells Fargo had previously been crediting extra payment amounts to both loans we had no suspicion they had changed how they were applying our payment. We only noticed this when reviewing the payment statement for XXXX XXXX. The amount of interest charged was extraordinary. Upon further investigation we discovered it was because they had not been applying any payments to XXXX of the loans for all of XXXX. The XXXX XXXX billing statement shows crediting the full amount of the payment remitted to the loan they were not crediting any payments to in XXXX. With my XXXX payment no payment credit was made to the loan previously receiving the entire payments made in XXXX. All the while applying excessive interest charges to the loan that received no payments credited in XXXX. It would appear that Wells Fargo is intentionally switching payment credits with the intent to deceive me the customer. I have made contact with Wells Fargo asking for a correction in this situation and they refuse to offer an acceptable solution. I feel they are being irresponsible and heavy handed in not accepting accountability for their deceitful misapplication of our payments. I believe they have changed the repayment schedule and conditions with no notification in writing to me, ( which I feel could be illegal ), while not being willing to work out an amenable solution. Wells Fargo 's billing statement includes the following statement in regard to payments for more than amount due. " Paying more than the monthly billed amount will reduce your principal amount more quickly, resulting in less overall interest charges on your account. If you make payments over the total amount due it will not be used to advance your due date beyond what is billed ''. By intentionally failing to properly credit payment to both loans Wells Fargo in fact violated their own statement regarding how they apply over payments. The total repayments by my wife and me are in excess of the original principal balance. It was our intent that by paying more than the required amount we would, as stated in Wells Fargo 's own billing statement, accelerate our principal repayment thereby reducing not only the repayment period, but the interest paid as well. I feel we have more than upheld our obligation. I ask that Wells Fargo take accountability for their misapplication of our repayments and credit our loans as paid in full. I feel they can do this because they effectively changed the repayment schedule by trying to deceive us with the way they handled our repayment. I/we feel this was an intentional action by Wells Fargo, thus causing our repayment time and interest to be extended not to mention the emotional expense this has caused us.

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 monetary relief