Wells Fargo will have to pay $3.7 billion in fines and refunds for a string of acts and “illegal” coppers to customers, as notified by the United States consumer protection office.
This is because the bank seized cars, froze accounts and made “surprise charges” for illegal overdrafts, in addition to “improperly” denying changes to their mortgages, causing people to lose their homes.
The fraudulent practice has been going on for about a decade and is reminiscent of another scandal that saw the bank write off other $3,000 million dollars a couple of years ago.
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This scandal splashed known artists What Ana Barbara. It was learned that the employees of the financial institution they opened accounts and credit cards without the clients’ knowledge.
The “Illegal conduct by the bank caused financial damage of billions of dollars to its clients and, for thousands of them, led to the loss of their vehicles or homes”, reported the consumer protection office (CFPB).
«Consumers were illegally charged fees and interest on their auto and mortgage loans, their cars were repossessed, and payments were incorrectly applied on those loans. Wells Fargo also illegally charged surprise overdraft fees and incorrectly applied fees to your checking and savings accounts.“, reads the statement.
are around 16 million customers affected for illegal practices. Now the bank will have to pay a fine of $1.7 billion to the CFPB and $2,000 in refunds to the clients.
Check if you were affected
- With car loans: The CFPB noted that Wells Fargo suffered “systematic failures” in loans of this nature, causing damages for US$1.3 billion in 11 million accounts.
- With mortgages: Over seven years, the bank improperly denied thousands of modifications to its home loans and hundreds of customers lost their homes. “The bank knew for years that this was happening before correcting the matter”.
- Surprise Overdraft Fees: According to CFPB, overdraft fees were “improperly” charged, even when customers had sufficient funds in their accounts.
- Frozen accounts: Wells Fargo froze more than 1 million accounts through an automated feature that flagged a fraudulent deposit. “Customers impacted by the freezing of their accounts were unable to access their money for an average of at least two weeks.” said the CFPB.
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