Consumer complaint received 2022-09-07 00:00:00
Product: Checking or savings account — Other banking product or service
Issue: Managing an account — Funds not handled or disbursed as instructed
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: NY

Complaint narrative:
I am the administrator of my fathers estate, and Wells Fargo has not disbursed assets from my fathers estate to my financial firm for over three months. This transfer is for an inherited IRA with an account value of {$470000.00}. 

I am the sole inheritor of these assets, and I have provided Wells Fargo with all required legal documentation and claim forms. Wells Fargo continues to delay the transfer of assets, and will not provide rationale as to why the assets are not being transferred. 

I submitted all required legal documentation as required per Wells Fargo in XX/XX/2022. This included the death certificate, letters of testamentary, and other legal documents that were drafted by my probate attorneys. 

After the legal documents were accepted, Wells Fargo required that I submit an IRA Beneficiary Claim form, transfer instructions to my outside financial institute, and a letter of acceptance from my financial institute. 

The IRA Beneficiary claim form is an internal form that provides instructions on where the assets should be transferred. I contacted their Estate Processing Department on XX/XX/2022 to begin the claims process, and was given instructions by their phone representative on how to complete their internal forms. 

I signed and submitted the IRA Beneficiary Claim form and provided the transfer documents per their instructions. Wells Fargo requires up to two business days to intake documents and up to 5 business days to review the documents. After a reasonable amount of time I contacted the Estate Processing Department and was informed that my claim was rejected because their IRA Beneficiary claim form was filled out incorrectly. I informed the representative that I followed their instructions as they had stated, but would make their requested corrections. 

This pattern of being given different incorrect instructions repeated for at least five more times, with each iteration taking a week before being denied. In addition, Wells Fargo suspiciously claimed that they did not receive several faxed documents which further delayed the process. 

As of XX/XX/2022 all required documents have all been accepted, however the transfer has still not moved forward. My financial institution has initiated a transfer request per Wells Fargos request, but Wells Fargo claims that they have not received a transfer request. 

This inherited IRA claim has reached an impasse as Wells Fargo will not let me speak directly to the individuals on the transfer team, or escalate this to any supervisor. In addition, the phone representatives are not allowed to share any details on the specific issues preventing the transfer from moving forward. From the perspective of my financial institution, everything is in place for the transfer to move forward and Wells Fargo is the blocker. 

Wells Fargo is intentionally stalling the IRA beneficiary claim process in every step of the way. Their internal policies and are designed in a manner that allows their firm to retain assets for as long as possible. They have no business incentive to provide customer service for beneficiary claimants. Their customer service representatives are limited in their knowledge and not empowered to take any action ; Wells Fargo is not providing any means of resolving this issue. In my opinion, Wells Fargo is intentionally making this external transfer as difficult as possible as they would prefer I keep the assets within their bank.

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