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from the how-far-did-Wells-Fargo-go-to-far? dept.
NPR reports:
This month federal regulators fined Wells Fargo $185 million for opening checking and credit card accounts on behalf of customers who had no idea that was happening. The bank has promised to try to make restitution. [...] In some cases, Wells Fargo employees would transfer funds into the new accounts from one of the customer's existing accounts. That could result in late fees or fines for insufficient funds. Ira Rheingold, executive director of the National Association of Consumer Advocates, says that would have had a direct impact on someone's credit score. "You may not have qualified for a mortgage or you might have been dinged by getting charged a little higher interest rate because of what was reported wrongly on your credit report," he says. But the potential impact goes beyond the customer's finances. These days, credit scores are routinely checked by potential landlords, by employers — even by cellphone companies. Wu says someone who has racked up too many overdraft fees because of unauthorized accounts may have trouble getting another checking account.
The U.S. Labor Department will launch a review of complaints related to Wells Fargo:
U.S. Labor Department Secretary Thomas Perez on Monday pledged to conduct a "top-to-bottom" review of all cases, complaints and other alleged violations that the department has received concerning Wells Fargo in recent years. Perez's announcement, outlined in a Sept. 26 letter to Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, comes after Warren and other Democrats asked the Labor Department last week to launch a probe into possible wage and working-hour law violations involving Wells Fargo tellers and sales representatives who may have stayed late to meet sales quotas.
Previously:
Wells Fargo Fined Over Unauthorized Accounts.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday September 27 2016, @04:01PM
So sorry to hear of your story. Thankfully [crosses fingers] I've never had to deal with an inaccurate debt collection attempt myself. But I always find it sad to hear how many times consumers have to resort to contacting governmental agencies just to get some small action or reasonable review from a company these days. Four times in my life so far I've had to escalate things to government agencies when I've been incorrectly charged by utilities. In two of those cases, the companies' own records showed they were wrong (and they admitted so on the phone to me), but they just never seemed to correct the errors and I just kept getting statements each month with the charges (and even more late fees) piling up.
Come to think of it, it's really hard to recall many disputes I've had over charges that have ever been resolved painlessly, even when there was an obvious error. Maybe 2 times I've actually had a customer service person say, "Oops... okay, I can fix this," and they actually do it. The vast majority of the time they either ignore you, refuse to fix the error, or say they'll fix it but don't. Generally, I have to resort to at least threats of escalating to another level (government agencies or something other external body that exert influence).
All I know after reading your report is that I'm glad my disputed charges have never been sent to a third-party collector. That would have been a nightmare.
(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Tuesday September 27 2016, @06:10PM
I think a if a few more people would go scorched earth on them we might start to see some actual resolution to these poor behaviors but far too many people just take it. When I had to deal with American Express several years ago that was painless as they tracked me down to collect a late payment and actually believed me when I told them I didn't take out the credit card and didn't live in New York. I do encourage people to know their rights especially when it comes to debt collectors now since I think we are seeing a resurgence of the really scummy ones since I am sure the backlog from 2008 is being worked through.
I usually try to resolve things in a reasonable fashion first but once the other party acts unreasonable I tend to go all nuke form orbit. I did a similar thing to an insurance company that didn't want to pay fair market value for a wrecked car and there I took them to small claims court and won. At the time I was just out of college and didn't have a job (guess who graduated just after the .com bust) so I had the time to fight it. The car was valued at $3100 or $3150 in the NADA and KBB guides but the insurance company claimed it was only worth $1200. Long story short I won and the judge basically scolded the insurance company stating that it should have never made it this far as what I was asking for was completely reasonable. So instead of paying out some value in the $3100 range they instead paid for an independent appraisal that they didn't like the results, storage of a wrecked car for 6 months, court costs to have someone show up in court, $35 for my filing fee, and $3150 for the value of the car.
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