Consumer complaint received 2015-07-20
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: CA
Product: Bank account or service
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Account opening, closing, or management

Complaint:
Yesterday ( XXXX XXXX ) I received a notice in the mail from Wells Fargo Bank informing me that one of my checking accounts was being closed due to " a business decision to end your deposit account relationship with Wells Fargo. '' And that as a result all monetary transactions were being blocked on this account. I have a current balance of over {$3200.00} in the account. I did not receive any prior notice nor any disclosure from the bank alerting me of any issues with my account or that it was failing to meet their requirements. Or for that matter what those requirements were. If they had informed me of any issues with my account, I would have tried to resolve it to meet their " requirements '' or simply not written any further checks on it and closed it. Unknowing that there was this issue and that they planned to close my account, over the past XXXX weeks, I wrote a checks to pay various bills. I now learn that those payments will not honored. In fact, my electric utility called me to tell me that the check I sent them over a week ago in payment was not being paid by the bank and the check returned. They are charging me a {$25.00} returned check fee and further told me that if payment was not received quickly, I would need to submit a deposit to keep my service going. Besides the humiliation of having my payments returned unpaid by the bank, and being faced with check return fees, I am concerned that such nonpayments will harm my credit rating. And in their letter ( attached ) dated XXXX XXXX the Bank stated that my account was scheduled to be closed by XXXX XXXX, 2015. Yet, checks written will in advance of that date have already been rejected. 

I immediately went to the nearest branch bank to try to resolve this issue. However, I was not successful in getting my account reopened -- even temporarily until the recent transactions were completed. All told I wasted nearly 3 hours at the bank between waiting to speak with someone who might help me and then having the bank personnel call a service rep who simply told me after another wait that there was nothing to be done. The telephone service rep then told me that the only thing I could do was either withdraw the funds in my account at this time or wait for them to send me a certified check in the mail.. I opted to withdraw the funds immediately but was unable to do so since the account was blocked. So the option I was told over the phone available to me was in fact not true. The branch manager was not able to override it. Now I have to wait up to 2 weeks to receive my money. Even though in their letter they indicate XXXX XXXX as the date the account was scheduled to be closed. So access to my account and payment of outstanding checks written has occurred nearly two weeks prior to the date indicated in their letter. 

I have been a customer of this bank for over 25 years and currently have XXXX other active checking accounts. XXXX is my business account in which I run a substantive amount of money through annually. While the Bank 's actions in this case are clearly not customer focused and totally insensitive to the consequences suffered by the customer, I do not understand how a bank can decide secretly close an account and terminate a customer relationship without some prior warning or explanation to the customer. This is not only unethical behavior, but in my view fraudulent due to their failure to disclose their conduct of any review on my account. 

Thank you in advance for your help with this matter.

Company public response: Company chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief