Consumer complaint received 2024-11-11
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service — Domestic (US) money transfer
Issue: Fraud or scam — 
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY (CA)

On XX/XX/XXXX I identified an unknown payment made from my Bill Pay service to a XXXX XXXX from a shared Wells Fargo acct. for {$1600.00}. All account holders spoke with a Wells Fargo fraud agent that day & found out that someone hacked into my online banking profile, sometime before XX/XX/XXXX and added XXXX unknown Payees ( XXXX XXXX & XXXX XXXX ) to my bill pay service in order to pay off credit cards. XXXX XXXX set up payment for a XXXX  XXXX credit card from the shared checking account and XXXX XXXX set up payment for a XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX credit card from my personal checking account. The {$1600.00} payment was initiated on XX/XX/XXXX & completed on XX/XX/XXXX. The Wells Fargo XXXX assured us that no payment had been made to XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX credit card, assured us that she would delete all payees, make a fraud claim for the stolen {$1600.00} payment to XXXX XXXX & temporarily revoked my online banking access for security purposes. On XX/XX/XXXX I called Wells Fargo to reinstate my online banking access & found out that neither fraudulent payee had been removed from my " Bill Pay '' service, as I was initially promised and another fraudulent payment of {$5000.00} had been made on XX/XX/XXXX to XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX credit card. During that call, The Wells Fargo agent remove the payees & made an additional claim for the stolen {$5000.00}. I made a third call to the bank on XX/XX/XXXX, to follow up on the progress of my claim. During that call the fraud agent informed me that the claim had been denied but that the initial phone call was set to be reviewed, so all hope was not lost. He also informed me that during my initial call on XX/XX/XXXX, the agent should have immediately closed my account and transferred my funds to a new one. As this was never done, the agent proceeded to close my personal checking account and transferred my remaining funds to a new checking account and filed a complaint on my behalf for the mishandling of the initial claim. 

I went into a local branch in XXXX, XXXX and met with the bank manager who was shocked at my story and worked with me to submit another statement of information on my behalf and encouraged me to file a police report. I then filed a police report with the XXXX, XXXX police department for both claims. Submitted them to all three banks involved. I also spoke to my complaint representative who saw many irregularities in the way the payees were added, as it appeared they were added and payments were initiated on the same day, which is not typically possible through the bill pay system. There was also no email sent to me notifying me that bill payees had been added like the the wells fargo system typically will do automatically. 

On XX/XX/XXXX I was sent an email from my Wells Fargo customer complaint advocate that Wells Fargo had denied my claim again, stating that this was not fraud and that it appeared that me or someone I know added these payees with my login credentials. I am reporting this here now as I have found out that many others have experienced this exact same fraudulent scenario and Wells Fargo will not stand by them either, aside from one case I discovered that was reported to the CFPB. This is my final hope for a just resolution and an attempt to inspire others to report these incidences so that Wells Fargo can be held accountable to standing behind its customers as any trusted financial institution should.