Location: Florida
I’ve had a business account with Wells for 6 years. I’ve used Zelle during that time with zero issues.
Recently, I took on a new client that made a Zelle payment for a single purchase. The purchase was negligible; $30. Apparently, the purchase was made using a joint account, to which the client shared with another individual didn’t recognize the payment and called their financial institution to make a fraud claim.
I found this all out because I go to login to my account online and get a message saying my credentials have been revoked. I call the bank and they say I’ve got a fraud notice. I contact the individual and ask what happened and they tell me that the individual on the joint account didn’t recognize the payment and initiated the fraud claim.
Nothing wrong there, it was accidental. The client agrees to contact their bank and does so the very next day at the first opportunity.
At the request of Wells, the client also gets a letter stating the fraud claim was incorrect and is rescinded that they give to me.
Wells lets me know first of all, that my online login is revoked for 10 business days while they do an “investigation” 🤦🏻♂️. They also revoke my Zelle privileges indefinitely.
Fast forward almost a month now, I finally got my login turned back on, but they caused me to miss payroll, are constantly charging me fees for overdrafts (I had to take any money out since I couldn’t access it), I’ve had to open a new bank account elsewhere and am trying to get everything switched over, and yet they still aren’t fixing my Zelle issue or doing anything to fix the situation.
I’ve made complaints to the CFPB which got my situation escalated with no movement.
They responded to the complaint saying they still had not received a notice from the other financial institution that the fraud claim was removed which makes no sense. They also said the letter provided was insufficient and “third party” even though it comes directly from the FI that issued the fraud claim.
Furthermore, there is ZERO willingness on their end to manually check their systems to confirm that the fraud claim is still active or even call over to the other financial institution.
They’ve disrupted my business, caused me all kinds of problems, and are refusing to help. Not to mention they took that $30 out of my account. I do thousands with them each month and I got hit with all this for a measly $30 transaction.
Finally, this issue has gotten my business number and email restricted with Zelle so that I can’t use it at the new institution. Wells blames Zelle and Zelle blames Wells.
Any legal options here?
Thank you in advance!