Posted on 11/26/2016 5:03:48 PM PST by Lorianne
Even though disgraced Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf has left the building, his most outrageous legal theories live on: on Wednesday, the company filed a motion in a federal court in Utah seeking dismissal of a class action suit by the customers it defrauded -- the bank argues that since customers sign a binding arbitration "agreement" when they open new accounts, that the customers whose signatures were forged on fraudulent new accounts should be subject to this agreement and denied a day in court. REPORT THIS AD This is the same argument that Stumpf made during his disastrous performance in front of a blazing Elizabeth Warren -- that Wells's poor customers should be subjected to agreements they never made, because Wells stole their identities and "agreed" on their behalf.
Mandatory arbitration rules inserted into account-opening agreements prohibit customers from joining class actions or suing Wells Fargo. Instead, the agreements require individual, closed-door arbitration. Mandating arbitration when signing up for financial products has become standard practice after a 2011 U.S. Supreme Court decision validated the practice. But customer advocates say it improperly denies customers the legal protections of court proceedings, such as the right to appeal, and helps to conceal corporate misconduct from the public and regulators because documents and hearings are not made public. Customers trying to recover small sums of money are also unlikely to find lawyers to represent them in arbitration, critics say, and the cases do not set a legal precedent to help other affected individuals.
(Excerpt) Read more at boingboing.net ...
Interesting.
Seems to me that they’re trying to get the fraud charges dismissed by admitting to widespread and institutionalized identity theft. Not to mention criminal conspiracy.
I’m reminded of the story of a man who took out an insurance policy on a box of fine cigars. He tried to collect, saying that the cigars had been lost in several small fires. Even though he admitted in court that he had smoked the cigars normally, because the policy did not exclude it, the court ruled that he could collect.
The insurance company accepted the loss, then a few days later charged him with arson and insurance fraud. He was arrested, with his own court testimony used against him.
Add several hundreds thousand new counts of fraud to the pending fraud charges.
The real picture of the CEO - Wells Fargo
If there were any justice to be found in the Obama/Holder/Lynch “Just-Us” department, there would be RICO prosecutions in this and the VA hospitals, and the myriad Obama administration “scandals,” and we would be seeing REAL criminal persecutions of the many villains that have populated the government bureaucracy.
Mark
WFC needs to “claw back” their attorney’s fees.
100%
US Supreme Court said binding arbitration is ok. Now banks own you. They could cr*p on your porch, and closed door ‘arbitration’ is secrecy. They could sexually harass your daughters openly and you have NO RIGHTS.
Flip side, you say no in closed door arbitration, say you then are denied binding arbitration, and contract is voided. Agree to NOTHING in secret arbitration.
All corporations’ contract clause say you have no rights. That is how they write those 50 page monster contracts eg a new job. You are nothing.
I tried several times to work it out but each call ended with my being transferred to someone else and starting my long tale from the beginning. This went on over and over. After several calls I realized I was getting a deliberate run-around. To end the problem (and save my credit rating) I finally paid the overcharge, chopped up my W-F credit card, closed my account and have warned anyone foolish enough to do business with that fly-by-night outfit of the dangers involved.
They took it from your checking or saving account. I closed my accounts with them after I found out about their fraud. They paid back what they stole. A trivial amount. I left.
I still don’t understand how they were supposed to get away with this.
That is my point; how did they think people wouldn’t notice?
“I mean, you need an opening deposit from somewhere, no?”
i think WF made unauthorized transfers from existing customer accounts to open these new, fraudulent accounts.
Thanks; I understand that. In that case, how would the victims not notice it? It would be one thing to open up a bunch of no-fee accounts for customers with a nominal opening deposit of $.01; it is quite a different matter to open these accounts that DEMAND deposits to cover the fees charged (which were the purpose for opening them to begin with).
I think they thought people would just roll over. Not this duck.
You really think they expected that reaction? Apparently they did, but I don’t know anyone that would just accept that.
“In that case, how would the victims not notice it? “
The amounts transferred were small and unfortunately a LOT of people do not pay close attention to the their bank accounts.
Twenty years ago I’d believe that; now it seems my co-workers spend half their time checking their personal bank account balances online to avoid overdrawing their accounts...
you’re not considering how many poor, old, and ignorant people there are in the world that have bank accounts.
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