by Todd Fulginiti

Wells Fargo sucks.  Their incompetence has changed my financial outlook, and they refuse to take responsibility for it or do anything about it.

Here’s what happened:

Months ago, with interest rates near historic lows, my wife and I decided to refinance, get some extra cash out in the deal, and use that money to make some needed improvements to our house.

In applying for the refinance, we had to discuss my daughter’s college loans. They were all in her name but we were co-signers. Since my daughter had recently graduated, the loans were in deferment, what they call the grace period. In the meantime, she was in the process of consolidating all of the loans into her own name, so that we would be financially off-the-hook for them as co-signers when the grace period ended. In other words, the college loans would, at no time, have any impact on our ability to borrow, refinance, etcetera. Wells Fargo agreed that those loans would not factor into our dealing and, for practical purposes, did not exist.

So settlement day comes in early December, and Wells Fargo is supposed to send somebody to our house where we will sign the papers and complete the deal.  But, a few hours beforehand, they call and say that they can’t find a document they need in order to go through with the settlement.  My wife resends them the email from a few weeks prior, containing the document that they apparently lost, and we reschedule for about 10 days later.

When settlement day #2 arrives, Wells Fargo calls again, asking to reschedule a second time. It seems that their agent has Covid, they are short-staffed, and they don’t have anybody available to do the settlement with us. With Christmas only a few days away, a third settlement date is scheduled for early January.

At this point, my wife and I are irritated, but everything is still looking good, or so we thought.

When early January comes, my daughter’s college loans come out of deferment and are immediately claimed by her new consolidation loan, which is totally in her name with no co-signers.  

And here’s where it get’s stupid.

Although my daughter’s loan papers were signed, it apparently takes anywhere from 2 weeks to a month for this information to be circulated and vetted by everyone involved (banks, agencies, etc.). And while that process is taking place, it appears to creditors as though those loans are still on our financial record.

So Wells Fargo calls and tells us that we are, in fact, liable for those loans. We tell them that, as planned, the loans had recently been consolidated into one, on which our daughter is the sole signee.

“Can you send us proof of that?”, they ask.  We could and we immediately did.

For a few days we hear nothing from them, our 3rd settlement date apparently in limbo. Finally, they contact us, saying that although the paperwork on my daughter’s consolidation loans looks good, we cannot proceed as planned until all the financial records have sorted themselves out and our financial record shows that we’re off the hook for our daughter’s college loans.

“But we are off the hook for those loans and we showed the paperwork to prove it, right?”, we ask.

“Yes, but we have to see that reflected on your record. And by the way, in the time that’s passed as we’ve discussed this, your loan application has expired. So the original deal we were going to sign is now off.”

YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING!

Not only was Wells Fargo not kidding, they weren’t even done being jerks. In order to continue with resettlement, they wanted us to reapply, pay another $500 application fee, and undergo another round of credit checks (which they did on their own anyway without authorization from us).

By this time, interest rates had been rising steadily and were nearly double the rate we were getting in our original refinance deal.

Should we decide to reapply, they said, they would offer us the same interest rate we have on our current mortgage, in light of recent rate increases and the financial impacts of my daughter’s college loans.

WTF?!

My wife spent 2 weeks going through the Wells Fargo pyramid of customer service, finally talking to someone senior enough to make amends, but too gutless to call us back saying he wasn’t going to do it.

And here we are. Close to 5 months after our original settlement day, we have nothing. Nothing, except 3 cancelled closings, a lost $500 application fee, a lowered credit score due to the credit checks, and an unauthorized credit check (Wells Fargo performed). Interest rates have risen so fast that they’re now higher than the rate on our original mortgage. We have no refinance and no “cash out” for the home improvements we planned.

This all happened because Wells Fargo screwed up twice on settlement dates, and is now holding us responsible for loans which have zero practical effect on our financial picture- loans that we have proven are totally off our books except for a temporary technicality. Loans that they told us we had handled properly.

The whole Wells Fargo experience has been horrendous.  After the debacles of their recent past, I would have hoped they’d have their act much more together than they do.

Wells Fargo sucks.  They have no compassion for customers.  They’re incompetent.  I regret having any business with them and will transfer my mortgage elsewhere as soon as I possibly can.

If you have no business with Wells Fargo, keep it that way.  If they are your bank in any form, I hope you can move on from them before you have any experiences like mine.

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