Consumer complaint received 2024-11-15 00:00:00
Product: Checking or savings account — Checking account
Issue: Problem caused by your funds being low — Overdrafts and overdraft fees
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: CO

Complaint narrative:
Approx. 2 weeks ago, I filed a claim with this organization asserting that Wells Fargo is manipulating charges to charge consumers overdraft fees. Since then, Wells Fargo has claimed this is untrue by sending me a copy of the fee schedule and its terms and conditions. With this being said, the fee schedule is as follows : 1st ) Holds 2nd ) Deposits : Pending deposits that are immediately available. 
3rd ) Withdrawals That said, on XX/XX/year>, I received a 24-hour grace period notice. In this message, I had until XXXX XXXX. EST to bring my account to a positive status, or I would incur an overdraft fee. The transactions are as follows : 1 ) At XXXX XXXX., I owed the bank a balance of - {$170.00}, which did not include an overdraft fee. 
2 ) At XXXXXXXX XXXX., I owed the bank a balance of - {$170.00}. Again, this did not include an overdraft fee. 
3 ) At XXXXXXXX XXXX, I deposited {$190.00} in the bank, bringing the balance to a positive status of {$20.00}. This did not have an overdraft fee. 
4 ) At XXXXXXXX XXXX, my new balance was now XXXX. This included the overdraft fee. 

According to Wells Fargo, the overdraft fee should have been included in the XXXXXXXX XXXX. balance and added to it at XXXXXXXX XXXX. EST. Therefore, when I made my deposit, I should have made a deposit that included the overdraft fee. However, as you can see from the above actions and pictures of my account, this is untrue. I was positive, and the bank still assessed me an overdraft fee. Please remember that transactions from XXXX are available for immediate use, so how can I be in positive status and still be assessed an overdraft fee? Especially since, according to Wells Fargo 's letter, the Deposits are the second process in the balance calculation formula. Suppose Wells Fargo, or any bank, can assess an overdraft fee after the account is brought to positive status. In that case, the deadline they attempt to impose doesn't mean anything because I could have met the deadline and still be charged an overdraft. Wells Fargo sent their letter to you and me stating, " On XXXX XXXX, a recurring payment of {$56.00} was debited from my account, leaving me a balance of $ XXXX ( paid ). On XXXX XXXX, a recurring {$49.00} from XXXX was authorized, and I had an ending balance of - {$67.00} ( paid ). On XXXX XXXX, I received incoming transfer credit for {$98.00} from XXXX, thus creating a balance of {$130.00}, leaving me a - {$38.00}. The problem is that the actual balance at the time of the transfer was {$67.00}, and the {$98.00} covered that, leaving me in the positive with the remaining funds. The bank waited approximately one hour after the XXXX transfer to post the overdraft... the same thing they did today. This means that Wells Fargo changed the order of the transactions and/or renamed the XXXX type from recurring to incoming transfer. They also stated in their response, " Deposits made after XXXX EST will not increase the accounts available balance in time to avoid the overdraft fee. '' This is not part of the terms and services agreement, especially given that the cutoff time is based on the location of the deposit or transfer ( page 9 ). This goes to my point of using two different time zones. With this, here is the exact process according to page 9 of the terms : Step 1 ) We calculate the available balance in your account that can be used to pay your transactions. Step 2 ) We sort your transactions into categories : 2A ) Credit deposits, 2B ) Subtract withdrawals, and 3C ) Paychecks and reauthorized ACH payments. Step 3 ) If the available balance is not enough the use of overdraft fees become applicable. With all this being said, the 24-hour grace period is EST standard, but the definition of cutoff time is " local time, '' i.e., MST. The time line presented to me goes on to say " We credit deposit received before the cutoff time ... '' Which does appear in both the app and website. From that credit they subtract the transactions ( which is done ). If there isn't enough to cover all transactions the overdraft fee is assessed ( this doesn't happen ). As you can see from the screenshots... the first step was done minus the overdraft fee being included. The second step was done ... and the third step was done but the account was already in the positives thus the overdraft fee should not have occurred.

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 explanation