Consumer complaint received 2023-12-05
Product: Credit card — Store credit card
Issue: Advertising and marketing, including promotional offers — Confusing or misleading advertising about the credit card
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY (NY)

I placed an order with XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX to replace all the windows in my house at a cost of {$13000.00} and negotiated what, at the time, was described as " 0 % interest for 18 months. '' I completed a financing application during the sales appointment and was not advised then of the possibility of the financing having deferred interest, rather than 0 % APR introductory promotion. The windows were installed XX/XX/XXXX after which the account was open to make the payment. I was asked to quickly sign the financing disclosures, amongst other documentation, at the end of the installation appointment and was again not counseled on the deferred interest promotion. I did not receive a copy of the disclosures to review them in detail on my own time. So I remained unaware of the deferred interest. I have historically always shopped for my own financing, so have always been very familiar with the terms of all other products I've signed up for. This process made them very obscure. Shortly after the installation, I saw that a Wells Fargo account had been opened on my credit report. I then received an email from Wells Fargo asking me to enroll for an online account. I enrolled online and immediately set up autopayments for the minimum amount. I did assume at the time that the minimum would be sufficient to pay the balance by the end of the promotional period. That was my error having not done a calculation to confirm. On the website, there was no conspicuous alert anywhere on the account screen clearly disclosing the nature of the promotion or warning of the unfathomably high amount of deferred interest I would have imposed if the entire balance was not paid in full by the end of the promotional period. I see now that the deferred interest promotion is referenced in small grey text as the bottom of the page in the following note : " If you have a No Interest if Paid in Full promotion, pay the Special Terms Balance in full by the Special Terms End Date to avoid deferred interest charges. Locate special account terms on your under Special Terms Calculation. '' This note does not even specify whether your account is specifically subject to the 'No Interest if Paid in Full " promotion and is very easy to overlook. I did not see the note at the time. I logged off the website and, given I had set up autopayments, did not log back on again. I therefore never saw one of my electronic statements which explained the deferred interest promotion. I at no point received any direct outreach from Wells Fargo during this application or account opening process to validate that I had been made aware of the promotion and I understood my obligations to avoid deferred interest. The first time this was communicated specifically was in an email a month prior to the end of the promotional period. The subject was " Alert : Avoid interest charges on your promotional balance. Act now., '' which did not sufficiently alert me to the impending DEFERRED interest charge, so I did not immediately read beyond the subject. I interpreted the subject as meaning post the end of the promotional period, I would begin to be charged interest on any remaining balance. I did not in any stretch of my imagination think that this single casual outreach attempt would be the precursor to such a massive financial consequence. So I remained unaware of the terms and did not pay down the entire balance ahead of the end of the promotional period, despite being fully financially able. Had I had any idea of the consequence, I INDISPUTABLY would have paid it in full far in advance. I only finally became aware of the agreement when the period ended and I was charged the massive, egregious deferred interest total of {$5400.00} from an APR of 28.99 %. At that point I scoured the website and my email and finally learned via the alert email and my electronic statements of the promotional terms, at which point it was too late.