Consumer complaint received 2015-06-28
Product: Mortgage — Conventional fixed mortgage
Issue: Loan servicing, payments, escrow account — 
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY (MO)

XXXX XXXX Bank started automatically withdrawing our mortgage payments from our bank account and stopped sending monthly statements to us when I was very sick and had to be hospitalized. They changed our payments from monthly to biweekly. We had originally inquired about semimonthly payments from the original mortgage company who gave us the loan, XXXX ; and my husband thought semimonthly payments were being deducted to make it convenient for us and them. He honestly is gullible and believed that is what they were doing, and so did I. Due to working a great deal of hours, taking care of a sick wife, and believing FDIC insurance meant that our bank accounts were safe and that a mortgage company or bank just would n't steal from you, he reviewed our bank statements and watched activity on the internet but did not catch that biweekly payments were being withdrawn. By the time I caught it, an extra {$10000.00} had been withdrawn. We have made numerous telephone calls to Wells Fargo and to XXXX and have written numerous letters requesting that Wells Fargo give us our money back. XXXX said that they should n't mind at all if a mistake was made. Wells Fargo has said repeatedly that they did n't make a mistake and that XXXX XXXX Bank is the one that made the change and indicated that they received a telephone call from my husband asking for the change. My husband and I did not make a telephone call to them and never wanted the terms of our mortgage changed. We considered biweekly mortgage payments and knew we could n't afford it just the same as we considered a 15 year loan and knew we could n't afford it. Wells Fargo has passed us around from XXXX person to another and even asked us to send copies of all of our bank statements to them, and they honestly made us believe they would be able to give our money back only to finally tell us that they just ca n't and that they did n't change the terms of our loan and just continued making the withdrawals that XXXX XXXX Bank made and that they just ca n't give us our money back. XXXX did tell us that it was fraudulent activity but that they could n't do anything about it. We panicked and refinanced our loan in order to get a HARP loan with lower interest rates and no closing costs by going through Wells Fargo again and believing we would probably get our money back. They have no documents at all that we ever signed requesting the terms of our mortgage be changed to biweekly from monthly. They also can not tell us who it was at XXXX XXXX Bank who received a telephone call requesting that our loan be changed to biweekly automatic withdrawals from our bank account. They also can not tell us who made the telephone call to XXXX XXXX who was acting as XXXX. XXXX XXXX has told us that they received an incoming call and told us the agent who took the call from XXXX XXXX Bank is still working for them. However, I found out that XXXX went out of business from a Wells Fargo employee. I 've seen how easy it is for businesses to escape responsibility by going out of business or their employees using alias names. I actually pleaded with XXXX XXXX employees to please not agree to make transactions like that anymore without the people 's authorization, because people were being cheated out of a great deal of their money without realizing it, such as the sick, handicapped, XXXX, elderly, uneducated, and very young people. An ex-prosecuting attorney told me that it was stealing and no telling how many people they had done that to. Why does n't Wells Fargo have a legal responsibility to give us our money back right away? Wells Fargo bamboozles people into believing they have the legal right to keep the money, and there is no way they can give the money back.