Consumer complaint received 2016-10-04
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: IL
Product: Bank account or service
Sub-product: Other bank product/service
Issue: Problems caused by my funds being low

Complaint:
XXXX XXXX, XXXX Dear XXXX, I am writing in regards to my Personal Line of Credit, account number XXX-XXXXXX, and Joint Personal Checking account number XXXXXXXXXX. 

On XXXX XXXX, XXXX a recurring automatic payment was debited from my Joint Personal Checking account which was not being used for day-to-day transactions and thus had a low balance, causing it to overdraft {$300.00} from my Personal Line of Credit and charge a fee. Neither the joint account holder nor I authorized this charge and I therefore contested the automatic payment with the Wells Fargo Fraud department. 

Although I informed the bank that neither the joint account holder nor myself authorized the XXXX XXXX automatic payment or authorized future recurring payments, Wells Fargo permitted a second automatic payment to be debited from my Personal Checking account the following month. This again caused {$300.00} to overdraft from my Personal Line of Credit, and I was charged an additional fee in order for the payment to be funded from my Checking account. It was not until I asked Wells Fargo a second time to cancel the recurring payments indicating again that they were not authorized by the account holders, that Wells Fargo cancelled the future payments. 

Solely as a result of this activity and the fees, a negative balance accumulated in my checking account and inappropriate fees were added to my line of credit, which I have since paid off. After several months, this negative balance was reported to the credit bureaus. My attempts to dispute the activity with Wells Fargo, as well as all three major credit bureaus around XXXX XXXX were unsuccessful. 

I have spent dozens of hours on the phone with Wells Fargo Customer Service inquiring about the matter, yet Wells Fargo has been unable to verify how funds were allegedly authorized to be moved out of my account. To this day, Wells Fargo still can not verify how or by whom the recurring payments were authorized, or provide me with evidence of such. 

Wells Fargo Customer Service promised more than once to mail me documentation evidencing how and by whom the recurring automatic payments were authorized, as well as paper statements for my checking account since I closed it and can no longer access account activity online, yet I never received the requested items in the mail. 

To be clear, these transfers were never authorized and Wells Fargo had no right to attempt to pull payments from my inactive joint Checking Account. It would appear that Wells Fargo made these transfers with the sole purpose of generating fees in order to increase fee revenue and that Wells Fargo willfully ignored my repeated requests to cease these transfers. 

Since I have been unable to get resolution from Wells Fargo notwithstanding my numerous phone calls and inquiries I am filing a complaint. I would also like to dispute the XXXX counts of late payments in XXXX and XXXX XXXX against my Wells Fargo Line of Credit account that are unjustly negatively impacting my credit score. 

I look forward to your immediate response. 

Thank you.

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