[SeekAndFind]

More via the CFPB:

According to today’s enforcement action, Wells Fargo harmed millions of consumers over a period of several years, with violations across many of the bank’s largest product lines. The CFPB’s specific findings include that Wells Fargo:

• 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.

Wells Fargo is a repeat offender that has been the subject of multiple enforcement actions by the CFPB and other regulators for violations across its lines of business, including faulty student loan servicing, mortgage kickbacks, fake accounts, and harmful auto loan practices.

Enforcement action

Under the Consumer Financial Protection Act, the CFPB has the authority to take action against institutions violating federal consumer financial laws, including by engaging in unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices. The CFPB’s investigation found that Wells Fargo violated the Act’s prohibition on unfair and deceptive acts and practices.

The CFPB order requires Wells Fargo to:

• Provide more than $2 billion in redress to consumers: Wells Fargo will be required to pay redress totaling more than $2 billion to harmed customers. These payments represent refunds of wrongful fees and other charges and compensation for a variety of harms such as frozen bank accounts, illegally repossessed vehicles, and wrongfully foreclosed homes. Specifically, Wells Fargo will have to pay:
  • More than $1.3 billion in consumer redress for affected auto lending accounts.
  • More than $500 million in consumer redress for affected deposit accounts, including $205 million for illegal surprise overdraft fees.
  • Nearly $200 million in consumer redress for affected mortgage servicing accounts.
• Stop charging surprise overdraft fees: Wells Fargo may not charge overdraft fees for deposit accounts when the consumer had available funds at the time of a purchase or other debit transaction, but then subsequently had a negative balance once the transaction settled. Surprise overdraft fees have been a recurring issue for consumers who can neither reasonably anticipate nor take steps to avoid them.
• Ensure auto loan borrowers receive refunds for certain add-on fees: Wells Fargo must ensure that the unused portion of GAP contracts, a type of debt cancellation contract that covers the remaining amount of the borrower’s auto loan in the case of a major accident or theft, is refunded to the borrower when a loan is paid off or otherwise terminates early.
• Pay $1.7 billion in penalties: Wells Fargo will pay a $1.7 billion penalty to the CFPB, which will be deposited into the CFPB’s victims relief fund.

Read today’s order.

[Leaning Right]

Dumb old Wells Fargo could have avoided this entire mess by putting Hunter Biden on its board of directors. Too late now.

[T.B. Yoits]

Wells Fargo is a crime syndicate that the U.S. government allows to operate.

They needed to be shut down once they got caught opening accounts in users' names without the users' knowledge.

https://www.creditinfocenter.com/wells-fargo-secretly-opened-unauthorized-accounts-need-know/

[G Larry]

What percentage of this $3.7B will be funneled to the DNC?

Following the 2008 financial collapse and the fining of financial institutions there was ZERO accountability of the BILLIONS in fines collected.

Bambi knows!

[PghBaldy]

Isn’t this the monstrosity Liz Warren pushed for?

[Fido969]

They made 78 billion last year. They’ll write this check out of petty cash.

[William Tell]

I had a Wells Fargo checking account years ago.

I wrote a check for my home mortgage to a second bank that erroneously credited somebody else’s account and even credited them for a lesser amount.

A third bank was used to move the check from the mortgage holding bank to Wells Fargo but they did not notice that the check amount did not match the transaction amount.

The error came to my attention when I received a delinquency letter from my mortgage holder saying that I made no payment.

When I went to Wells Fargo they were able to identify the errors but said there was nothing they could do. I told them, “So, if I just close my account right now I will be ahead by more than five hundred dollars?” Suddenly they were more interested.

I closed my account a short time later.

[MeganC]

If the fines are less than the profits then they will keep doing this.

[Carl Vehse]

What?! No public flogging of Wells Fargo executives and BOD members?!?

At least they should be forced to fake an apology.

[sauropod]

I remember how they acted when i used to have a small consumer loan through them.

Never again.

[Timber Rattler]

Wells Fargo is a scummy, crooked bank, and dserves everything that befalls it.

[GulliverSwift]

Wells Fargo needs to be declared a criminal enterprise.

[Vaduz]

Hunter running Wells Fargo now?.

[HereInTheHeartland]

This is quite a bit an Elizabeth Warren jihad.
There is no way that thousands of borrowers lost their homes wrongly.
That part of it mostly involves a form not being sent out at the right time.
People who lost their homes just couldn’t pay for it.

The fake account thing is different .
That was set in place by Carrie Tolstedt who used to be in charge of consumer banking .
I could tell stories about her, and good people at Wells who stood up to her .
She was the one who pushed the policies to open accounts that weren’t needed.

[AppyPappy]

Our credit cards are due on the 1st and we pay them off every month. My wife was making the auto payment on the 1st. I made her change it to the last day of the month because I knew how they processed payments and deposits.

Repoing cars and foreclosing houses is not a quick thing. It generally involves being very late multiple times.