Is Wells Fargo trying to scam us?

What a fantastic site! When I googled for legal advice I didn't expect to find something valuable like this!

Here is our problem: My husband (78) had an accident on 8/30/06. Our car was a total loss. We've reported this to Wells Fargo Auto Loan on 9/2/06. They told us the outstanding balance was ~$15,200. They received a check of ~$13900 from our insurance on 9/8/06. For some reason unbeknown to them and us, according to the payment account excerpt they've sent us, this payment was reversed 10/2/06 with an effective date of 9/8/06 (same date when they've received the check). Neither the bank nor the insurance company contacted us to let us know that there was a problem. In fact, we have not received bills from Wells Fargo for about 3 months before the accident. We've made the remaining last few payments with a letter enclosed, letting them know that we've moved and our new address, and that we haven't received their bills. If our mail was returned to them, why weren't they able to call us to inquire?

On 10/24/06 they've received $1145 from the service contract cancellation leaving a balance of ~$100 we still owed, that is, had they not reversed the payment from the insurance. Now get this: on 12/4/06 (3 months after the car was declared a total loss!) they add $1210 forced insurance to our account. At the end of January 07 we get a call from Wells Fargo saying we still owed them $105.79 (now that they wanted money, they were able to call!), which we promptly paid, thinking our Gap insurance would compensate us for this later. But what followed was call after harassing call from their collection department. We finally found out that they have not received the insurance money (or so they said), and our account was still running with them. They were still expecting regular payments from us! This surfaced so late, because we were always several months ahead with our payments.

Finally we received a letter from them demanding a payoff of $1016.61. They threatened with damaging our good credit, so we paid, again thinking when all this was cleared up we would get our money back. Not so! We called them countless times, spending hours and hours on the phone, trying to clear up this issue, but they always referred us to someone else who promised to look at the account. But instead the collection calls kept pouring in weekly, with always new late charges and interest. One guy finally explained that they applied $576 of the $1016.61 payoff we've sent them to the principal and the rest to the interest.

Not knowing what to do any more, we've filed a claim with BBB 12/07, but Wells Fargo kept extending the date, and we had to re-file the claim. Today we receive a letter from them with a check of $4 saying that after all the expenses accumulated after 8/30/06 and what they were overpaid, they owed us $4 and would send us another $94 as good will payment so to speak.

So what do we do? We are so sick and tired of this. $1000 is a lot of money for us. My husband's health has greatly suffered from all this stress and unfairness. His anxiety level has skyrocketed over the past year. What a waste of precious time at his age - and all due to the incompetence of this bank! Should we take a lawyer, and could we add those lawyer fees to our claim against Wells Fargo? We sure cannot afford to lose more money. Do you think we have a case?

My apologies for such a long letter...

Thank you so much in advance for any help you might be able to offer.

Sonja

Based on what you say here, you could file suit against them (or at least threaten to do so) in small claims court or in regular court; filing in small claims court is easier and requires no attorney...you could try to collect all of the costs and damages that you suffered due to their behavior... You may also report them to your state attorney general's office.

[pwrtripls1]

I also have had nothing but problems with Wells Fargo lately and as of this morning cleared out my account and am getting a new bank. Just this month they have found ways to take me for over $500 in overdraft fees, even though there is nearly $5,000 in the account. They are one crooked bank. I even had my account frozen by them for nearly a month due to a debit card transaction they somehow cleared 13 times! It overdrew my account and I tried getting it cleared up because it was there mistake. They just kept telling me to wait, the extra transactions will fall off. In the mean time I had to take out a loan to support my family and pay my bills for the month. Once the transactions finaly did fall off they said all the overdraft fees were my responcibility. Poor bank In my opinion.

Good luck to you and your husband, take them for what you can, you deserve it. They are messing with your golden years and act like it means nothing. Chances are you have a good case, go for max allowed in small claims court. The judge may be elder also and empathize with you. If not he could always award you with a lesser than max amount, but something is better than losing money.