Slashdot Mirror
Wells Fargo Agrees to $1 Billion Fine Over Home and Auto Loan Abuses (reuters.com)
Wells Fargo got hit with a $1 billion fine Friday -- the largest ever issued by America's consumer protection agency. An anonymous reader quotes Reuters:
Taken together, the mortgage and auto programs ensnared more than 600,000 customers and will require nearly $300 million in refunds, the bank has said. The programs allowed Wells Fargo to earn fees from unneeded car insurance and penalties on mortgage paperwork that the bank had botched. For homebuyers, Wells Fargo promised to "rate lock" or freeze the interest rate for borrowers who got their mortgage paperwork finished within a few weeks. When that deadline slipped and it was the bank's fault, Wells Fargo could blame the customer. The penalty for late mortgage paperwork often topped $1000, according to a borrower lawsuit...
Drivers stung by insurance fees were wrongly pushed into policies that they did not need... Insurers working for Wells Fargo pushed policies onto more than 500,000 customers who already had coverage, the bank has said.
The penalty comes 18 months after Wells Fargo "admitted it opened sham accounts for customers -- a practice that likely ensnared millions...
Wells Fargo agreed to the new $1 billion fine "without admitting or denying wrongdoing."
Drivers stung by insurance fees were wrongly pushed into policies that they did not need... Insurers working for Wells Fargo pushed policies onto more than 500,000 customers who already had coverage, the bank has said.
The penalty comes 18 months after Wells Fargo "admitted it opened sham accounts for customers -- a practice that likely ensnared millions...
Wells Fargo agreed to the new $1 billion fine "without admitting or denying wrongdoing."
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is going to get the death penalty for this.
..for a company with a $250B market cap.
But I guess when I get pulled over speeding it only costs me $1000, compared to my $300k salary, that's peanuts and the last time I was caught was 10 years ago.
THIS IS AMERICA, THEREFORE THIS IS NORMAL AND NOT SOMETHING THAT YOU SHOULD FROTH AT THE MOUTH ABOUT
Mistakes were made, but bless their little cotton socks it seems that despite all this illegal activity no crimes were committed except by the stock holders who need to pay for this. Shocking! Just shocking I tell you!
There clearly is a different legal system for people in suits.
Let's see...
Yep, corporations have it so tough in America.. let's give them another tax break to make up for treating them like this eh?
Does anyone know where the $1B is going to land after it's paid? Just cuirous.
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
When the govt subsidizes them when they go out of business you really think they give a shit about a billion? They are the govt.
then it wasn't high enough.
I thoroughly enjoyed your testimonial. Mod parent insightful.
I didn't see how much money WF actually stole from some number of their customers, or a real number of how many were affected.
If it's 600,000, that's less than a fine of $2 a customer.
Later in the summary, it mentions millions of customers.
I wish I had enough money to rob people of god knows how much money, and pay what is probably a VERY small fraction as a fine, with no charges. It seems like a very viable business strategy.
At the very least, the fine should be triple the profits of their unlawful behavior. Optimally, the bank should be broken up and the pieces sold off. At some point a business can not be allowed to remain in business. Wells Fargo was well past that point.
-- Will program for bandwidth
I am still waiting for the banks to repay the public for the hundreds of billions of tax dollars spent in "the bailout."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Like that is going to happen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Let me just try to agree / negotiate some fine I may get. That won't go anywhere - for us peons, it's "pay the fie or go to jail". Two sets of rules....
Republican leadership = Idiocracy
> So, hopefully, everyone will "vote with their wallet" on this debacle.
Wells Fargo is offering high salaries for experienced computer security professionals, but because we're currently in high demand we are quite free to choose which companies we accept interviews with. Who wants to work for a bunch of scumbags, in a toxic corporate culture? Not I, and not any of the security professionals O talk to.
Wells Fargo needs to be shut down like an organized crime syndicate would be.
They "agree" with the fine? Well, good start.
My dealer obtained auto loan was sold to Wells Fargo. Seemed like every 6 months when my state farm insurance renewed, I'd get a call about the bank wanting to add insurance to my loan costs. The calls were very threatening, even though I could document my coverage never lapsed.
I'm now wondering if they added hidden charges to my loan.
RICO act - The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly referred to as the RICO Act or simply RICO, is a United States federal law that provides for extended criminal penalties and a civil cause of action for acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization. This has proven over and over to be a criminal organization and needs to be treated that way. How many times do they have to steal huge sums of money from their clients until something is done about it. BTW-there are other banks that fall into this same category (JP Morgan, HSBC).
... so yeah, we agree to be fined $1 billion.
www.singhhealthtips.com
They're REALLY going to have to rip off customers now to pay that $1 billion. I'm sure they won't take the money away from the managements' salaries, which btw is who deserves it.
1b is nothing.
I live in a city that has a high percentage of wells fargo security jobs.
I had a friend who worked in the firewall group. They made them work 24x7. Meetings all day, implementations all night. He lasted 3 months and came back.
I haven't looked at Wells since.