Wells Fargo Is Trying to Bury Another Massive Scandal

[Suppressed]

Wells Fargo Is Trying to Bury Another Massive Scandal
By DAVID DAYEN;illustrated by LIA KANTROWITZ
Jul 17 2017, 4:27pm


The bank became notorious last year for creating fake accounts on behalf of customers. Now it's trying to kill a class-action lawsuit over shady debit card fees.

Wells Fargo became a poster child for corporations that abuse their own customers last year when it got fined for ginning up roughly 2 million (maybe even more) fake accounts to meet high sales goals. The bank has since tried to block customer lawsuits over that misconduct, using fine print buried in contracts known as the forced arbitration clauses, which force customers to go not before judges but a secretive non-judicial process to get relief.

It turns out Wells Fargo has a long history of using arbitration to evade legal scrutiny. In fact, for the past six years, Wells has tried to use arbitration to block a class-action suit that every other major bank in America long ago settled. This has not only delayed restitution for regular customers, but revealed exactly why Elizabeth Warren's brainchild Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) moved to eliminate class-action bans through arbitration clauses earlier this month: It hands big banks a license to steal with impunity.

The case centers on something called debit card reordering. Let's say you have $100 in your bank account, and you make three purchases, costing $20, $30, and $110. Under Wells Fargo account guidelines, the bank can charge you a $35 overdraft fee for taking out more than you have in your account. But by reordering the transactions from highest to lowest, putting the $110 charge first, the bank could charge three separate overdraft fees, one for each attempt to draw insufficient funds. Simply by altering the transaction order, Wells Fargo could make an additional $70.

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Excerpt.  Read more at https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/nev95x/wells-fargo-is-trying-to-bury-another-massive-scandal

[driftdiver]

Big banks are evil

[Smokin Joe]

Big banks are evil

I had heard about Wells Fargo back in the 90s. I had an account in Nevada to make it easier for me to get paid at a bank there. Wells Fargo bought them out, I just asked them to send me a check for my balance. They didn't want to . I insisted and got my check. Then I got a Wells Fargo Credit card. After repeated attempts I spoke with a human and told them I had not requested the card, would not use their card, wasn't paying any annual fee, and if they listened carefully, they could hear the shredder chewing the card up, whereupon I shredded it. They sent me another. Lather, rinse, repeat. Twice more, before they finally got the idea I had no intent of doing business with them.

I have worked with people since who had accounts there, mainly because branches are scattered all over the West, but who frankly, have been unhappy with the services. YMMV, but I won't bank there.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

I had heard about Wells Fargo back in the 90s. I had an account in Nevada to make it easier for me to get paid at a bank there. Wells Fargo bought them out, I just asked them to send me a check for my balance. They didn't want to . I insisted and got my check. Then I got a Wells Fargo Credit card. After repeated attempts I spoke with a human and told them I had not requested the card, would not use their card, wasn't paying any annual fee, and if they listened carefully, they could hear the shredder chewing the card up, whereupon I shredded it. They sent me another. Lather, rinse, repeat. Twice more, before they finally got the idea I had no intent of doing business with them.

I have worked with people since who had accounts there, mainly because branches are scattered all over the West, but who frankly, have been unhappy with the services. YMMV, but I won't bank there.

What is sad is that Wells Fargo was a truly great company at one time.

I read Jim Collins' book Good to Great.  http://www.jimcollins.com/article_topics/articles/good-to-great.html

When it was written in 2001, WF was one of the top 11 companies that the author identified as being able to far surpass other companies.  Discipline, culture development and leadership caused the difference and those owning those companies celebrated with a high return on their investment.

How WF has fallen.

[Smokin Joe]

What is sad is that Wells Fargo was a truly great company at one time.

I read Jim Collins' book Good to Great.  http://www.jimcollins.com/article_topics/articles/good-to-great.html

When it was written in 2001, WF was one of the top 11 companies that the author identified as being able to far surpass other companies.  Discipline, culture development and leadership caused the difference and those owning those companies celebrated with a high return on their investment.

How WF has fallen.

I had heard horror stories about how they were smacking people with fees and then overdrafting accounts when the money ran out and hitting the account holder with overdraft fees for that. Maybe that was helping their bottom line. I wasn't going to do business with that, having a credit union membership that has never charged me for writing a check or required a minimum balance to avoid other fees. I refused to do business with them.

[GtHawk]

Big banks are evil

For years after I dumped Fargo, whichever bank I moved to was shortly bought up by Fargo, I swear it was as if they were following me to the point that they acquired the company that held my home mortgage.