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Online Critics Decry Even More Wells Fargo Fraud Scandals (boingboing.net)
On Saturday author/blogger Cory Doctorow launched a new barrage of criticism towards Wells Fargo:
It's been a whole day since we learned about another example of systematic, widespread fraud by America's largest bank Wells Fargo (ripping off small merchants with credit card fees), so it's definitely time to learn about another one: scamming mortgage borrowers out of $43/month for an unrequested and pointless "home warranty service" from American Home Shield, a billion-dollar scam-factory that considers you a customer if you throw away its junk-mail instead of ticking the "no" box and sending it back.
$43/month gets you pretty much nothing: people who tried to actually use their AHS insurance found it impossible to get them to actually do anything in exchange for this money. Here's a quick Wells Fargo fraud scorecard: stealing thousand of cars with fraudulent repos; defrauding mortgage borrowers; blackballing whistelblowers; creating 2,000,000+ fraudulent accounts, and stealing millions with fraudulent fees and penalties.
Life Pro Tip: if you don't like banks, join a credit union.
$43/month gets you pretty much nothing: people who tried to actually use their AHS insurance found it impossible to get them to actually do anything in exchange for this money. Here's a quick Wells Fargo fraud scorecard: stealing thousand of cars with fraudulent repos; defrauding mortgage borrowers; blackballing whistelblowers; creating 2,000,000+ fraudulent accounts, and stealing millions with fraudulent fees and penalties.
Life Pro Tip: if you don't like banks, join a credit union.
Sign a contract for service X, get unwanted service Y in addition slipped into the hundreds of pages of legalese. Who's going to refuse to sign mortgage papers over a $43/month bullshit charge? Especially if it's a contract of adhesion and you can't just cross it out? It's like crapware that comes preinstalled on a name-brand computer, they get a kickback for each install. Remember: it's not fraudulent fees and penalties, it's "innovative financial services."
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Desjardins, the biggest credit union in North America has actually become worse than a bank.
Maybe you can be fine with a small credit union somewhere but the GP is pretty much right nowadays.
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
Many reasons.
* WF is huge, which means they have vast legal resources.
* Much of what they do is at the margins of legal
* The people losing money don't have many resources and their losses are relatively small
* Investigating and prosecuting them is a massive effort that strains the budgets of State AGs
* Finding culpable individuals in the organization and proving fraudulent intent is really difficult
I was actually surprised that the "account scandal" got sorted out like it did (CEO resigned, clawbacks of executive bonuses, etc). It probably had something to do with the actions being closer to actual criminal fraud.
Unfortunately I think we have two problems. One, we're a huckster culture, where we generally allow for fraudulent behavior as "good salesmanship".
The other is an economy with marginal broad growth which forces large companies to pursue more and more dubious income to make up for the lack of growth in their sector's organic income. In theory, banks should be natural profit centers -- if the economy is growing, they basically make a percentage off that growth through loans and money handling. But they face an economy with marginal growth and increased growth expectations, so they have to grind out these increases on the margins of their business.
Not all junk offers are illegal.
My point is perhaps they should be. And until you can clearly define the difference between a scam and a "junk offer", perhaps we should get rid of the latter bullshit term and call it what it is.
I already said that if the company did what the summary described, it was illegal. What more do you want?
From TFS:
"Here's a quick Wells Fargo fraud scorecard: stealing thousand of cars with fraudulent repos; defrauding mortgage borrowers; blackballing whistelblowers; creating 2,000,000+ fraudulent accounts, and stealing millions with fraudulent fees and penalties."
There's certainly more than one reason Wells Fargo was called out here. Commonly referred to calling a spade a spade. What more do I want? Shutting down unethical and corrupt businesses would be a refreshing start. Either that, or get rid of laws that define ethics in business; we obviously ignore the shit out of them anyway.
Motherfucking worthless when the AC compressor dies! Mine was covered under the home warranty, but because it used the old older R22 system (which I'm sure at least 95% of Americans are still using), they couldn't, or rather, wouldn't replace it for an R410a system. One, can't get new-old stock compressor, and two, they wouldn't cover the entire labor of flushing out the lines and replacing the the evap coil that goes with it. I even stated I would meet them half way if they at least replace the compressor and labor for just that part, and I'd pay for the flushing and coil. NOPE! They couldn't warranty it based on that.
So here's the deal. If you have an R22 system, and you bought home warranty, chances are you got royally fucked. They will NOT take the 5 grand hit for the mandated chuck and replace to be federally compliant with R410a system.
Hope you boys and girls have a nice little nest egg saved to replace your AC when it dies (because they all do eventually). Otherwise, I need to invest in company stock that builds window units. Holy shit!
Life is not for the lazy.
Have you ever actually bought a house?
Typically you're in a room with a Realtor, who works for the seller, because the Realtor always works for the seller, that's who pays them (even if you think they're working for you), a real estate lawyer, who works for the Realtor, and maybe a seller, if its a private sale. There's a stack of papers about three inches high and you have to sign about fifty times and initial another twenty. The lawyer has set aside about twenty minutes to do all this and reading everything is impossible, not to mention it requires both a law degree and an economics degree to understand what's been written.
Wells Fargo for my mortgage for 10 years, AHS for about 7 years. I'm currently battling Wells against their attempts to foreclose on my home (for the second time) and I dumped AHS 3 years ago after I got a local consumer investigative reporter to contact them regarding fraudulent work their chosen AC contractor told me I HAD to pay for (new pad for a replaced AC unit when the old pad was fine, new wiring harness for same when the old was fine, etc). Wells had been okay with my incremental catch up payments for 6 months (I'm behind due to a recent divorce)...but last month I made the mistake of telling them I'll be current probably within 60-90 days...and 5 days later I got the "pay us now or we accelerate the loan to foreclosure by 8/23". I have the ability to do that so I will...but it pisses me off that a previously agreed upon plan was jettisoned when they understood that the late payment penalties are about to stop and they'll lose any legal chance to steal my home. Effing bastards. I can't recommend more strongly for any and everyone to avoid both these companies as if they were plutonium gonorrhea.
My son's school pictures arrangement is about like this too. Some company called Lifetouch contracts with the schools for school pictures. OK, no big deal, right?
If only...
So here's what they do. They herd the kids through the usual picture rigamarole and then a few weeks later, there is a proof image to look at and parents can decide which poses the want, right?
Oh no. Not at all.
A few weeks later, a full print set with all the usual sizes shows up in my son's backpack. A few 8x10s, some 4x6s, a bunch of wallets. Probably about the $25-30 package. Printed, ready to go, in his backpack. And Lifetouch puts a letter in there saying (paraphrased): "Hey mom and dad! Here are the wonderful pictures of your super cute kid! We already printed them for you, if you want to keep them just send a check back to the school. Or if you hate your kid and think he's ugly, send them back with a note to the teacher. Oh, and if you keep them and don't pay, we'll just kick your kid out of the photo line next year."
And not to mention what happens if you do send them back. Who knows? I bet they don't actually get sent back to Lifetouch. My guess is a pile of crisp 8x10 photos with all the identifying information a sexual predator would want printed right on the envelope goes straight into the dumpster.