According to the CFPB, here’s a list of what Wells Fargo did (or didn’t do as the case may be):
- Unlawfully repossessed vehicles and bungled borrower accounts: Wells Fargo had systematic failures in its servicing of automobile loans that resulted in $1.3 billion in harm across more than 11 million accounts. The bank incorrectly applied borrowers’ payments, improperly charged fees and interest, and wrongfully repossessed borrowers’ vehicles. In addition, the bank failed to ensure that borrowers received a refund for certain fees on add-on products when a loan ended early.
- Improperly denied mortgage modifications: During at least a seven-year period, the bank improperly denied thousands of mortgage loan modifications, which in some cases led to Wells Fargo customers losing their homes to wrongful foreclosures. The bank was aware of the problem for years before it ultimately addressed the issue.
- Illegally charged surprise overdraft fees: For years, Wells Fargo unfairly charged surprise overdraft fees – fees charged even though consumers had enough money in their account to cover the transaction at the time the bank authorized it – on debit card transactions and ATM withdrawals. As early as 2015, the CFPB, as well as other federal regulators, including the Federal Reserve, began cautioning financial institutions against this practice, known as authorized positive fees.
- Unlawfully froze consumer accounts and mispresented fee waivers: The bank froze more than 1 million consumer accounts based on a faulty automated filter’s determination that there may have been a fraudulent deposit, even when it could have taken other actions that would have not harmed customers. Customers affected by these account freezes were unable to access any of their money in accounts at the bank for an average of at least two weeks. The bank also made deceptive claims as to the availability of waivers for a monthly service fee.
So far, while some Wells Fargo executives finally lost their jobs (or conveniently stepped away) after having to admit firing upwards of 3,500 employees who were clearly participating in a culture of greed and fraud created in the C-suites, they have walked away with just under hundreds of millions in golden parachute packages. And the evidence against Wells Fargo was numerous and included defrauding everyone all the time to make big profits.
They have had to pay out billions in settlements, but the veracity of those settlements is questionable. After the Trump administration touted a $1 billion settlement with the bank in 2018, it slowly trickled out that the language in the settlement—created by famed multitasking douche bag Mick Mulvaney—was uniquely corrupt. It created a payout system that would force the victims of Wells Fargo’s fraud, people who had lost thousands of dollars in bogus loans and insurance deals, to come up with the money to investigate the billion-dollar behemoth if they wanted to attempt any possible recourse for the money they had lost.
And that’s just the $1 billion they agreed to in 2018. There was the $1.2 billion they agreed to after admitting they scammed the U.S. government into insuring piles of poo the bank had “certified” were solid home loans back between 2001-2008. Maybe you heard of that? There are a few movies about it.
In recent months, news of the bank’s continuing crapitude continued to make headlines. In May, a former Wells Fargo executive accused the billion-dollar bank of firing him for pointing out that pretending to hold job interviews for fake jobs in order to pretend you have diverse hiring practices wasn’t a good thing to be doing. That accusation happened in May. Of 2022.
RELATED STORIES:
Wells Fargo is back with even more abuse for would-be customers
Wells Fargo is fined $185 million and fires 5,300 employees over fraud
Wells Fargo executive who oversaw fraud and thousands fired now collecting $124.6 million
From fake customer accounts to fake job interviews, Wells Fargo is just the worst
