Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Tuesday September 27 2016, @05:41AM   Printer-friendly
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.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 28 2016, @05:21AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 28 2016, @05:21AM (#407209)

    I'd love to travel to the alternate universe in which the banks were not bailed out following the GFC, and in which those individuals who broke the law ended up in jail. I strongly suspect that the Wells Fargo of that universe (if it still existed) would be behaving itself.

    I wouldn't. Too big to fail is not a joke. The bailout had to happen despite the fact that the people who benefited the most were the most culpable. Everybody else had too much lose.

    But I'm right there with you on jail time. And Elizabeth Warren recently said it herself, people need to go to jail. When the companies can just pay fines for the malfeasance of their officers it eliminates the only kind personal responsibility that matters. We need bailouts for people in the ghetto and jail time for the kleptocrats, but we've been getting the reverse.

  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 28 2016, @06:24AM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 28 2016, @06:24AM (#407235) Journal

    I wouldn't. Too big to fail is not a joke. The bailout had to happen despite the fact that the people who benefited the most were the most culpable. Everybody else had too much lose.

    And that's how too big to fail works.

    But I'm right there with you on jail time. And Elizabeth Warren recently said it herself, people need to go to jail. When the companies can just pay fines for the malfeasance of their officers it eliminates the only kind personal responsibility that matters. We need bailouts for people in the ghetto and jail time for the kleptocrats, but we've been getting the reverse.

    The crime was incidental. Agressive enforcement would not have done a thing about the "too big to fail" problem.