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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.
The habit of having a "negative agreement" where you have to check a box and send back if you don't want a service is not legal in some areas.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
I'm surprised that they're legal *anywhere*.
There’s no point in acting surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display at your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for 50 of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now What do you mean you’ve never been to Alpha Centauri? Oh, for heaven’s sake, mankind, it’s only four light years away, you know. I’m sorry, but if you can’t be bothered to take an interest in local affairs, that’s your own lookout. Energize the demolition beams.
I'm not entirely sure how this quote applies to the situation described in the article, but if we make the effort I'm sure we can find a way.
Or perhaps you're just one of the millions of people who've been screwed.
Why these recidivist fuckers aren't in jail ? Is that because they're WASP ? Is that because white collar crimes actually pay well ? Where the God damn fuck is justice in all of this ?
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.
It's neither legal not ethical for a company to"offer" services on an opt-out basis, but why does this rant focus on Wells Fargo (scummy though they also be)?
American Home Shield is not owned it operated by WF. It is owned by the same company that owns Terminix, Merry Maids, and some other brands. When you buy a house, the transfer is a public record in most places, and you absolutely will get a lot of junk offers from companies who have no relationship to any of the ones you used.
The difference is that they are owned by the depositors. Hence they are not subject to the same commercial pressures that regular banks are. Unfortunately most of the mutual financial organizations in the UK where destroyed in the 1980/1990's when the building societies converted to banks. During the financial crisis the building societies in the UK weathered the storm much better than the banks and demutilized former building societies did for example.
Where is it legal? Asking for a friend and his company with the amazing monthly paper clip delivery service that's just $999 a month.
Trump speeches sound like Vogon poetry.
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Oh freddled covfefe,
Thy micturations are to me,
As plurdled gabbleblotchits,
On a lurgid bee,
...
"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."
Lists of blatantly corrupt and illegal activities don't mean jack shit unless you do something about it.
And by do something, I mean shut them the fuck down, and throw executives in prison.
Since Greed N. Corruption took over as CEO of US Capitalism, Inc. that will never fucking happen.
How ironic that if any US citizen did this, it would be labeled terrorism. The fact that nothing is ever done only clarifies just how unethical and corrupt the Banking Industrial Complex has become.
We bought a house and the seller paid for a year of a home warranty service. So far, we have had plumbing snaked out, The garage door repaired, and our dishwasher replaced, free of charge.
Years ago I got mail from them regarding my credit card. I had been signed up for "Credit Defense", which WF charged some % of your monthly balance to put toward a pot that you could draw on should you be unemployed for a length of time. I didn't think much of it and didn't care because I didn't have a high balance.
Fast forward a few years and couple moves later and my balance was a bit higher. To top things off, this charge was getting between $50 and $60 every month, which was making payments harder. Basically my story was a lot like this guys. I called up WF, they told me to call this third party company. I call them "Sorry, I can't refund". So I broken record the assholes, "So send me to someone who can". A few people later and I can "file a complaint" or whatever their lingo was. They had to prove that I had signed a document allowing them to charge me. They couldn't, so I got refunded near $2k for my troubles. No bogus charges since.
If it weren't for having my longest running line of credit with them, I'd have walked into a branch, shredded my credit card and given them the two finger salute years ago.
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.
That sounds pretty bad. In the UK, the buyer and seller each have their own solicitor. Typically, all communication happens via the two solicitors (which can sometimes involve long round-trip times) and anything that you're supposed to sign will be first read by your solicitor, who should point out anything that looks dubious.
The French system is much better. The estate agents work for the buyer and have a legal responsibility to them: they are liable for any costs incurred by the buyer that the buyer was not aware of up-front (which means that they have an incentive to have a surveyor look at any property that they're selling and ensure that they have records or pointing out anything important in it to the buyer).
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Yes, I have bought dozens of houses. I am aware that it is a lot of paperwork. That is not an excuse to ignore any of it, nor it is an excuse not to have your own attorney thoroughly review them with you.
Reading everything is not impossible by any stretch of the imagination. If your lawyer only spends 20 minutes on it, you need to tell them that is unacceptable and make them read everything.
Making the largest purchase you'll make in your lifetime is not a time to be uneducated and complacent.
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.
It's not the gulf, it's the conflict of interest on the bank's part between its retail and investment activities, as illustrated by the sub-prime mortgage crisis of 2008. Even where they weren't technically gambling with depositors' funds, their investment activities put them in a position where they were in danger of failing while holding onto those funds.
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The problem is the banks, don't like normal citizens. With penalties on being too poor (High Interest Loans, too small of a balance, overdraft fees, etc...) If you try to get out of the bank they charge you for leaving the bank. As a citizen and getting dinged for trying to survive, they may not like these banks.
If you had millions of dollars in the bank, they treat you like gold, give you low interest loans, greater interest on your account....
Yes I understand the millionaire is a lower risk, so they get these perk, because the chance for reward is so high. However ethically it is bad.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
You're talking in vague, hand-wavy analogies here. What's actually going on is the banks are creating an obligation (to you) in exchange for liquidity. The bank then converts that liquidity into productive assets (loans and investments), subject to the requirement that they retain enough to service likely account demands in the near future.
And either way, it doesn't mean that the banks can't be regulated. From the 1930s to the 1990s retail banks couldn't undertake certain risky businesses that might jeapordize their ability to meet depositor obligations. That was changed by a law signed in 1999 by Bill Clinton, and ten years later the mix of retail and investment banking contributed to a crisis that almost brought down the world economy.
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