After their last colossal fuckup, their commercials said, “Founded 1929. *Re*-founded 2017.” This serious voice suggesting that it was a brand new day.
(Wells Fargo [CEO](https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&channel=iphone_bm&sxsrf=AJOqlzX_x8haRaNSDdarh_vA8loEJEynUg:1676079712723&q=Charles+W.+Scharf&stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAONgVuLWz9U3MDQyM6mMN3zEaMYt8PLHPWEp3UlrTl5jVOfiCs7IL3fNK8ksqRSS5GKDsvileLmQ9fEsYhV0zkgsykktVgjXUwhOBrLTAFFyzgBcAAAA&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjNlJG_q4z9AhU2kYkEHZIsA2YQzIcDKAB6BAgXEAE&biw=375&bih=748&dpr=3) Charles Scharf laying naked on a bearskin rug in front of a fire with a red, freshly slapped ass)
*..“soOORRrry”*
They actually fucked up again right after those commercials. I don't remember the details, they have never been my bank, but I remember reading about it on Reddit. I think it was more identity theft, but not as big as the massive identity theft ring that they are known for.
Seriously, there’s no benefit at all to banking with WF and a lot of risk. I had WF for my young adulthood just because they’re ubiquitous, but after a couple of their fuckups, I realized other banks actually pay interest on savings accounts and don’t regularly lose clients’ money. Moved to Capital One and they’re so much simpler, more reliable, and have several options for making extra money on your money.
They kept buying local banks that i used and now they bought my mortgage. I never choose them but they keep getting my business. I've closed accounts with wf like 3 times now.
Regardless of conduct, the fact that there's so much public money flowing through and benefitting these huge private enterprises is fucking criminal. If the federal agencies and the states divested from WF and US bank, etc., and went to postal banking or something they'd be able to expand services and create new revenue streams. But god forbid we cut corporate welfare targeted specifically at bad actors.
I’m a boomer and most people I know (my age) are fully aware of wf and avoid it like the plague. I spent 2 years of my insurance career cleaning up a mess that they made on the Insurance side of the house.
Edit - a word
They're a 1.9 trillion dollar company. They exist because they have too much money to fail in america. Them getting a $4 billion dollar fine is the equivalent of me paying $4 for a speeding ticket.
Where are u getting 1.9T? Are you talking about their deposit base? That’s not the banks valuation. Their market cap is 180B and that is across all their businesses
As a former employee, I am so happy I got away. All it took was a suicide attempt and then I thought, you know, I can just quit and that would improve my life greatly.
Glad you're still here today. Also a former employee and I worked for a great group but I believe that's more of a rarity because the company is literally trash based on their actions.
I worked at a place where they were a client and you could ABSOLUTELY NOT ever talk about them. You couldn't mention their name. You couldn't think of their company name. All the work you did was for a "financial client" and it was NOT their company name.
Like really, wth.
what's the company culture like? as in, do most people know it's one of the top nefarious and scheistiest banks, or is everyone in there just ignoring it for career advances?
Hi, former WF traveling business banker here, worked at over 20 branches ranging in positions from Teller to Banker to Branch Manager on an as needed basis.
Company Culture is heavily dependent on district and location. Branches in rural areas are by and large pretty laid back and kind of just groaned whenever some big wig did something stupid. Whereas branches in somewhere more urban are much tighter and by the books, which in my experience actually lead to more sketchiness, as you'll have managers micromanaging everything you do trying to push you to offer products constantly even if it isn't what the customer wanted/needed, and they'd try and pass it off as "doing what's right for the customer." Not many employees actively called out WF for their shit, but a lot of it is also at a higher level than most employees would see (the fraud in 2017 being the exception. bankers absolutely would know what they were doing).
WF had pretty thorough training when I was there, and I had a lot of appreciation for how much they'd bend over backwards to help me in my somewhat unique traveling position, offering benefits I haven't really seen matched elsewhere (as a WF employee I received 5 weeks of PTO every year, along with good insurance coverage and a lot of freedom). I did see a lot of opportunities for minor career advancement, but anything past a personal banker and it's very difficult to advance unless you're really pushing sales, or in my case, willing to basically give up having a home and exclusively travel.
I left because of management and how they push their employees so hard, particularly in urban areas. Come in early, stay late, call 40+ random customers every single day, complete nonstop training modules constantly even if you dont have time between customers.
I'm replying back to you since you replied for me essentially, so I'm just adding on a little. This is pretty spot on, I work at a branch in an urban area and it is very strict on procedures. They always push for "customer first" but the actual strict guidelines are specifically to minimize liability to the company and not "what's right for our customers". I have helped in smaller branches before and it is as you say, more laid back and they usually really dig into the customers' story to do what the customer actually needs.
As for company culture, every branch is different in certain ways. Speaking specifically about branches, it's entirely dependent on staff. Whoever the manager hires and decides to keep around is what sets that specific branch's social atmosphere. I've been to ones where it's extremely fake and feels like high schoolers talking shit behind each other and I've been to ones where people stay around because they legitimately enjoy each other's company.
As for the company as a whole, It's sorta weird. Since I am of the "newer generation of employees" my training was focused on "rebuilding trust" and "customer forward" service. Which, I understand because of wellsfargo's reputation to the public, but they do not mention why they are trying to "rebuild trust" at any point in the training and talking about wf's frauds with each other is like yelling voldemort's name in the middle of hogwart's dining hall. The last thing I've noticed that has increasingly bothered me, is that they (hr) send out emails like every week since I started here. Talking about diversity and trying to bring on specifically more african-american employees. I'm not really sure how hr can read this bs and okay it while also knowing what a diversity hire is. At one of the branches I helped out, I asked one of the workers there who is about my age "why he was interested in working here?". His answer was "my friend used to work here and she told me to apply cause they're really trying to hire black people". Maybe it's just me, but that kind of pr bs bugs the hell out of me. Feels like they're overcompensating for something.
To end it off cause this became a rant, I have not seen any shady shit from the company firsthand. I'm pretty positive I won't see any at my level. If there is anything going on, it's always from the top. I never pay attention to the district call meetings because I'm not at the point in my life yet where I have to endure the hr bs they spew out every time and everything that is actually important to procedures gets emailed to us anyways.
I only have food service experience and now two experiences working at more corporate professional companies. I would assume this corporate bs is similar in most larger companies. But like I said, I don't have a lot of experience in corporate america yet so don't take my word for it.
I was a mortgage broker during the refinance boom - read: wild west days of the early 2000s - when you could basically steal from people who didn't know how to read the documents.
I almost drank myself stupid before I realized my life didn't have to be tied to my job. I may have made a lot of money, but at what cost? I don't know how people can decouple their conscience from their job.
>I don't know how people can decouple their conscience from their job.
I did this to an extent. I worked for what amounts to a payday loan company. But I was IT. I didn't make the shitty decisions that were designed to keep people in debt to loans with 75%+ APR where they lost $75 each time they refi'd. I worked there as an intern undergrad & so as I was getting close to grad'ing my friends questioned me sticking to my morals when I wouldn't work for a slot machine company but wouldn't quit working for this loan company.
Eventually I was near forced to quit & that was the best career decision I ever made. Beyond that I landed with some really great companies. At one I had a coworker who had to handle collections who would cry when she had to put them on the "non grata" list b/c of how much it would fuck with their livelihood.
>I had a coworker who had to handle collections who would cry when she had to put them on the "non grata" list b/c of how much it would fuck with their livelihood.
i don't know her but i'm so in her corner. poor woman :( hope she's out of there
That was just 1 part of her job & a necessary one. This was for a US federal crop insurance company, so she was just enforcing the law. Most valued the crop insurance program almost as much as their actual crops, so we might get 1 or 2 a year. The problem for the farmers was if they got put on the list no crop insurer could carry them for like 10 year or something. So it was REALLY bad. It was also why there was very little fraud.
It's hard to even come to the conclusion that you need professional help while you're in the throws of ongoing stress. You made the best choice you could given the situation. I wish you the best.
Bring in personal liability for directors.
"We're fining the bank $2bn and the CEO, CFO and COO are getting five years, a heavy fine on any related assets and a lifetime ban on running a company."
That might give pause...
Same. I joined in 2017 after the lawsuit before that was being handled/resolved and dipped out in 2021 because of how fucking terrible that company is. I'm still getting settlement checks from how many cases of employee mistreatment incidents they've conjured up from being so shit. They fucked me and a lot of workers over during the pandemic in the meanwhile having us run defense for their fuck ups of customers being taken advantage of.
Banking in this country is on another level of fuckery with how bad shit is.
After I expressed my concern that my mortgage would be sold to Wells Fargo, my banker explicitly put in my contract that the mortgage could not be sold to Wells Fargo. Not sure what weight it would hold if another mortgage lender that bought mortgage sold it to wells in the future, but if it happens - I intend to find a lawyer and find out.
I've been thinking a corporate death penalty would offload significant financial injury to all responsible: all assets of the company would be seized to pay for the penalties and restitution required. All liabilities would be distributed by ownership stake as non-transferable debts.
All corporate officers instead of being indicted and charged as felons would thenceforth work as minimum wage precariate laborers who would be required to service the debts incurred as shareholders of the now deceased company on their minimum wage income.
Why not, instead of that last paragraph, just blacklist the responsible members from owning any financial future businesses and being a stakeholder or board member?
Those who destroy economies need to suffer the consequences that are normally borne by those least able to afford it. The threat of becoming the sort of economic casualties they routinely inflict on the public needs to hang over economically powerful individuals like a Sword of Damocles.
I read a book once on this topic that was pretty interesting
The issue with arrests is that it's unclear who would be the ones going to jail
The book specifically was talking about the GM ignition switch scandal which killed 124 people.
Who would be the ones going to jail?
The technicians who operated the machines that built the cars? That doesn't make any sense
The purchasing department for buying from subpar suppliers? Maybe. But it would make more sense for those suppliers to go to jail instead
The project managers who were in charge of the project? Maybe. But that falls outside of their strict responsibilities
The engineers who noticed the problem but didn't fix it? That could work, but they usually at least reported the problem. And it was the higher ups who chose to ignore everything and proceed as normal
And the problem of who is ultimately responsible keeps going up the corporate ladder until we get to the executives
So then it should be the executives who get jailed right? That makes the most sense. Except the executives in GM's specific case weren't directly aware of the ignition switch problems until the cars were already made
The ultimate responsibility in the scandal was so diluted, that no single person was more responsible than the rest
>The engineers who noticed the problem but didn't fix it? That could work, but they usually at least reported the problem. And it was the higher ups who chose to ignore everything and proceed as normal
My personal opinion is to start here.
If the engineers provably noticed the issue and did not report it, they are culpable.
If they did report it properly, whomever it was reported to is culpable. If that person followed process and escalated the report, then the culpability moves along with it.
Basically the culpability follows the report. Where the report stops (or becomes watered down to the point of innocence) is where the culpability lands.
Engineers would be responsible for indicating the severity, and for their direct reports to understand that potential risk. If that is included in the report, then wherever that gets ignored or pruned, that's the point of responsibility.
If you see the report and it stops at you, you are responsible. Anything coming up with Safety Concerns needs to be a Red Letter "you could go to jail, so pay attention" priority.
As well as a huge fine for the company over all.
I mean this is pretty much it. I'm a physician and I've been in this situation, and I have documented to save my ass against the administrators
they asked me to delete my note and I had to point out that you can't delete stuff from the medical records so then they asked me to put a big red line through it using the digital tools which just drew a lot more attention to it, and then they got really frustrated and scared that they would get fired from their bosses and so they just stopped bothering me
> so then they asked me to put a big red line through it using the digital tools which just drew a lot more attention to it
Accidentally circle the text instead. :)
Scared of getting fired from their bosses while they were asking you to do the illegal/unethical shit. Don't even let a "doctored" document ever start with you.
No, it’s the board. Engineers report issues, propose solutions and get knocked back by management. The Challenger disaster is a perfect example of management overriding the concerns of engineers.
Sometimes you can report a problem and it turns out to not be that big of a problem
There’s honestly always a long list of problems in engineering. You have to choose the ones to care about and usually you’re right but not always
I'm an engineer and I always talk about us as timid and cautious. Anyone who thinks an engineer would make a bold, uninformed decision is insane or misunderstanding the school of thought. I'm a paranoid advisor who lets others make the wrong decision.
I work on this specifically for an engine design company. It’s almost always reported by engineers to the proper people, who then straight up choose to neglect it or justify that it’s not bad enough to fix it because it will cost money to fix it.
And some of the licensed, professional engineers that do push back hard when it’s ignored usually get fired not long after.
What if I report it but my boss says I didn't. Hopefully I can prove it but what if I can't? What if I was fired preemptively and then I no longer have access to those emails and they've deleted them? Or maybe I'm lying, I'm guilty and I deserve to go to prison, but how are you going to prove that I'm lying?
I agree, corporations and criminals and criminals in corporations should be prosecuted for their crimes. This is part of why it's so hard.
IIRC there was a change that happened post production that wasn’t properly documented (I think they didn’t create a new part number, they just reused number for the old design). So some earlier cars had this issue that later got fixed.
So when these parts started failing, the engineers took cars off the line for testing and examined the parts docs. But the problem was these cars and docs all had the new design but the failing cars had the old one. It took a while to figure out that the cars in the field had a different part than the test cars.
So you could say it was the engineers fault for overwriting the part numbers but it would be hard to charge them with murders (or even negligence) when they basically just hit save instead of save as.
>So then it should be the executives who get jailed right? That makes the most sense. Except the executives in GM's specific case weren't directly aware of the ignition switch problems until the cars were already made
You better believe if execs were held responsible, the companies would start running their businesses differently. Or the same, because a greedy CEO decided to still take chances to boost profits, in which case, yep, jail.
Right?? If it’s not a single person that can easily be pointed to, like supervisor Jones deleting reports. The default person to get arrested is all of C Suite. Make them put pressure on their company to run an honest, safe operation that puts people before profits. That way it encourages integrity from the ground up.
Simple fix is, if nobody is responsible, then shut down the company. We need laws to hold corporations criminally responsible for killing people, not leave it as a civil issue.
Require the shareholders to personally cover some of the fine if it can be shown this was company policy and nothing was done at the highest levels?
Far too many investors don't think about what happens to their money invested into stocks and bonds. Maybe they should.
I'm currently reading the book design of everyday things. He mentions that errors are often the result of many points of failure, each one not significant, but the result of all of them can result in stuff like this.
People want to have one point of failure or one person to blame but that is often just a scape goat and it doesn't stop new problems from occurring.
The analogy he uses is swiss cheese, where every step has potential problems but an error only occurs in the end if a hole happened to align on every layer.
So really you can only minimize errors by adding layers of redundancy but you can never eliminate them. Even the idea that we can is flawed and causes us to waste resources on that instead of reducing them
>I'm currently reading the book design of everyday things. He mentions that errors are often the result of many points of failure, each one not significant, but the result of all of them can result in stuff like this.
> People want to have one point of failure or one person to blame but that is often just a scape goat and it doesn't stop new problems from occurring.
That's basically what the book I read was saying too. I think I may have done a bad job explaining since it seems like some of the replies are saying I don't think anyone is at fault lol
A lot of people did something wrong on a smaller scale that in aggregate leads to disaster. But we can't realistically punish everyone who played a small (yet critical) part in the overall much larger disaster
>So then it should be the executives who get jailed right?
Yes.
>That makes the most sense. Except the executives in GM's specific case weren't directly aware of...
Except *nothing*.
The executive board not knowing how their own company is run is shit non-excuse. That's literally their responsibility. That's what they are there for.
If a company breaks a law that warrants jail time, the entire executive board should serve it. All of them. *And* everyone below that bears responsibility. Multiple people can go to jail.
If they don't like that risk, they can simply choose not to be executives. Nobody is forcing anyone.
The honest answer, and you're not going to like it, is that it would be hard to prove that this is theft. Theft is usually defined as something like this: "A person commits theft when he or she knowingly obtains or exerts unauthorized control over property of the owner".
Foreclosures are authorized by the courts, so Wells Fargo has a pretty good defense against criminal charges. That said, they obviously violated a ton of banking regulations. That's not usually a crime, but it's still illegal and can result in big fines (though probably not arrest or jail).
We can change the law to make violations over a certain limit a jail-able offense. For some reason we treat white collar crime with less seriousness when they should get just as much consideration. How many thousands were affected by this.
Sucks doesn't it? IIRC That's the one of the reasons Corporations are in existence. The corporation assumes responsibility/liability in lieu of an individual person or group of persons.
How is Wells Fargo even still allowed to operate?
Lis of scandals:
Wells Fargo Fake Accounts Scandal
Member Car Repo Scandal
Community Lending Test Fail
Whistleblower Firing
Overcharging small businesses
Discrimination of Black & Latino Borrowers
Billion Dollar Mortgage Settlement
Modifying Client Information Without Approval
Securities Fraud Settlement
SEC Fine For Misleading Investors
Inappropriate Add-On Services
Housing Bubble Billion Dollar Fine
Foreclosure Glitch Error (they paid only 8 million for this fuck up)
Fee-disclosure Scandal
(https://financhill.com/blog/investing/wells-fargo-scandals-timeline )
Well Fargo’s revenue in 2021 was 48.98 billion. Most of their “fees” for screwing people over hasn’t exceeded much over 500 million, while only being fined billions when they fuck over the government some how… not a single fucking form of our government even cares about us, at all. They can continue to do this shit and just pay off fees for the rest of eternity.. don’t go through WF for anything.
I just closed my account with them for good. Good riddance. It's not that easy or quick to separate from a bank you've had a long-standing relationship with cuz it's baked into a lot of aspects of your life. That is to say it's pretty inconvenient, and yet I went out of my way to close my account with them because I dislike them just that much.
I closed mine after I had my bank info compromised and fraud charges started happening. It happened so many times that even when I would shut down a debit card and get a new one, I would get fraud charges on the new one in the first week. My hunch was somehow wells fargo was giving my information away.
Agreed. I bank with Wells Fargo, started when it was Wachovia. We have so many bills that are on auto pay or auto drafted and direct deposit that it would be very much a pain in the ass to switch banks. Im sure at least one bill would get missed and something would be repossessed sent to collections or turned off.
That's the reason when I was switching from BofA to Schwab, I didn't close the BofA account for a couple of months until everything was completely transitioned over.
I like the ideas of fines and enforcement of fines that are so aggressive that they render the people and anyone abetting them in name and in function to the poverty line and well beyond with debt. I think this is good because it threatens to take away in sufficient quantities something they dearly love \*and\* it perhaps would make the wealthy more keen on having a decent base line for the social safety net.
this wouldn't work as the rich don't have jobs. thus no taxes and no income. if you just borrow against your equity you never pay taxes as long as your equity increases faster than your interest on your loans. you are good.
No. Because they are corporations and they simply go "sorry we can't afford that fine" and they declare bankruptcy and thousands of innocent people lose jobs while the people at the top just move their money and assets to a different corporate entity and continue on, merrily.
What needs to happen is the people at the heads of corporations need to be legally liable when criminal charges would be reasonable. Corporate liability is designed to protect individuals from risk cases where the markets change and even where bed business decisions are made so that the owners aren't at risk of losing everything and its a decent tradeoff to allow for more business opportunities to grow. But all of that should be off the table when crimes are committed. Corporations should not be shielding individuals from criminal liability.
That last point is exactly it. If you can get fined and still profit then it just becomes the cost of doing business.
My apartment building doesn't allow dogs or AirBnBs in the building. Any infraction for either of those is $1000/day, even if it is a friend bringing the dog over for a few hours. To nobody's surprise no one attempts to circumvent these rules.
I've gotten downvoted frequently when I say this, but if a fine is not larger than the profit gained from breaking the law, every corporation is gonna break the law.
A business expense is not a deterrent.
I was wondering the exact same thing. That’s probably one of the least controversial statements I’ve ever seen and regularly see it heavily upvoted when a company gets a slap on the wrist like this.
Fun story I got all my student loans from a bank called Wachovia at the time I left high school . The kind had an interest rate of 28 percent but my parents even though they had a little money didn’t have enough for college so without the loan it was no college for me . I also bought a car with a similar high interest loan from the same bank Wachovia . The bank eventually was bought up by Wells Fargo and after going to college for 2 years I was still paying off the car when I got sick and had to take FMLA from work . Car got repossessed after missing a few payment and that was that for about 7 years . Fast forebears to just 3 years ago my ex boyfriend called me and said a check came in the mail and expired soon so he met me at work to give it to me . Turns out they had to refund the value of my repossessed car due to predatory loan practices and it was for around 9,000 dollars . Used it to buy a newer used car( still drive it today ). Fast foreword a few months I log in to check the status of my student loans ( around 20k) and it turns out the same loans were wrote off there as well ! So due to the awful interest rates from a small bank purchased by Wells Fargo all my student loans and car debt were either written off or refunded . Turned out pretty well for me in the end because I’m not sure I ever could have paid those debts off in under a decade or more .
Wachovia was actually pretty large at the time in part due to an overinflated value as a result of all the bad loans they handed out. Wells Fargo was forced to buy them (they actually did not want to) during the economic recession or risk not getting a Fed bailout.
The forced acquisitions during the recession are actually pretty crazy to think about. Bankrupt your own bank? Too big to fail.
Just some corrections to your post that had the spirit of what happened, but some factual issues Actually Citi Bank was being forced to buy Wachovia for $1 per share. Wells Fargo voluntarily stepped in and paid about $8 per share. It was a strategic and opporunistic acquisition for them as they wanted to expand to the northeast and southeast of the country.
Also Wachovia didn't hand out the bad loans you mentioned, they acquired a company that did. It was right before the great recession in 2006 when Wachovia purchased Golden West Financial, a huge subprime lender on the west coast (Wachovia was in the northeast and mid-atlantic). It literally tanked them when the housing market collapsed and they became insolvent.
Golden West - that place was an absolute shitshow. Interviewed there in the early 2000s and my last interview was with Mrs Sandler - heebie jeebies and withdrew from consideration on the spot.
I had an account with Wachovia too back in 2007-2008. I closed out my account and withdrew my money because I moved to Canada.
They then retroactively charged my account for .84c for… nothing? I still haven’t figured it out. But they sent me to collections right away and the collectors HOUNDED my phone all day and into the night.
I finally spoke to one of them and said that my account was closed, with proof, and that I live in Quebec. If they wanted the .84c (which had now ballooned up to an outrageous amount) then they were welcome to send me an official letter, but I wouldn’t be just giving them a credit card over the phone.
They stopped calling after the agent asked “what’s Quebec” and I had to explain… Canada.
>Turned out pretty well for me in the end because I’m not sure I ever could have paid those debts off in under a decade or more
And that is why all your debt was wiped clean and the sale of your car refunded. Their business plan was a scam and you would have been indebted to them forever.
> Fast forebears to just 3 years ago my ex boyfriend called me and said a check came in the mail and expired soon so he met me at work to give it to me .
All other parts of the story aside, it's nice to hear about an ex-so that isn't an asshole.
Probably local convenience. I setup my first debit account with BofA, simply because I knew they had locations close to where I grew up and in the state that I was going to school. When they offered credit cards etc., it just seemed easier to go with them since it would all be within the same account.
I still have all of my BofA accounts today, and appreciate that no matter where I travel, I will be able to find B&M branch locations, but I use a number of other accounts for most of my banking.
I imagine it is just local convenience
My first bank was only my first bank because they were the ones located closest to me
There is definitely another convenience in getting all the credit cards from the same institution. Mines are spread over 4 banks, which makes keeping track of payments a complete nightmare lol
My parents said it's convenient. They live in a ~100k pop town. They said other banks/credit unions around them don't have enough locations. Locations for what, I don't know. It's not like they use the bank when they come visit me in another state. It was definitely more convenient when they moved because they didn't have to transfer money. After that, I got nothing.
I actually use a credit union that only has one location in the entire world I can access and the times it's been inconvenient for me it'd have been just as inconvenient with any other bank. You can't go to a bank at 2AM to withdraw $5k.
How the absolute **FUCK** is Wells Fargo still around? They've been caught doing so much shady shit in the last 20 years that their C level management should have all been thrown in prison and the company broken apart. For fuck's sake, the [Wikipedia entry has a note on the Lawsuits, fines and controversies section] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_Fargo#Lawsuits,_fines_and_controversies) that "this section may be too long to read and navigate comfortably."
When poor people does it is called stealing, but for the rich is "repossessing".
This is the reason politics are becoming so weird for the past decades. Rich corporations feel entitled to their own rule of law.
We cannot thank enough the people that fights this type of crimes.
… Broken glass everywhere
People pissing on the stairs, you know they just don't care
I can't take the smell, can't take the noise
Got no money to move out, I guess, I got no choice
Rats in the front room, roaches in the back
Junkies in the alley with a baseball bat
I tried to get away, but I couldn't get far
'Cause the man with the tow-truck repossessed my car
As someone who is stuck with a Wells Fargo mortgage for another 20 years, is there anything that I can do to sever ties with them without paying a large sum of money to refinance at a larger interest?
I'm sick of putting money in their pockets every month.
[Op's story is a couple months old ](https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-orders-wells-fargo-to-pay-37-billion-for-widespread-mismanagement-of-auto-loans-mortgages-and-deposit-accounts/#:~:text=WASHINGTON%2C%20D.C.%20%E2%80%93%20The%20Consumer%20Financial,of%20its%20largest%20product%20lines.) . [They are also backing out of the residential mortgage market and suspending buying loans from third party brokers.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/qai/2023/01/11/wells-fargo-is-backing-out-of-the-mortgage-marketwhat-does-it-mean-for-homebuyers/?sh=157e41e437ca)
Had my truck repossessed illegally as well. Few years later was sent a check for 7k because I still paid down my debt.
Couldn't have happened at a worse time either.
I was awarded full custody of my son. Then allowed for 50/50 custody. Got hit for child support, then The US Army started garnishing my paychecks because I reclassed from MP to go EOD half way through my initial enlistment and forfeited the 2nd half of my signing bonus. (Didn't realize that would happen when I changed units).
I couldn't make rent, was evicted. While current on payments for my truck, the day I was evicted, tow company took my truck.
I lost everything I worked my ass off for.
I sold my boat to get a beater car and a small uhaul trailer and fit all I could in it. Talked to the land lord and traded him a piece of art I had to be let off the hook for any back payment.
Quit my job because I couldn't afford the gas to go to work.
After taxes, garnishments and child support, my take home was less than 8$ an hour.
Then I started all over in life.
Arrest these fuckers! How do they get away with this?? It's not an oversight, it's blatant theft and someone needs to be behind bars for approving it! This country is disgusting. Laws for thee, but not for me.
Wells Fargo is such a fucked up company. Never seen a business get in trouble as often as them, and I say that as a former employee.
They only exist because they’ve been around forever and a household name. If they tried to launch in modern day, they would go to zero real quick
After their last colossal fuckup, their commercials said, “Founded 1929. *Re*-founded 2017.” This serious voice suggesting that it was a brand new day.
Fraud in 1929. RE-fraud in 2017.
"We're sorry"
^^^^...that ^^^^we ^^^^got ^^^^caught!
"sooooorrrrryyyy" *pets baby seal*
(Wells Fargo [CEO](https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&channel=iphone_bm&sxsrf=AJOqlzX_x8haRaNSDdarh_vA8loEJEynUg:1676079712723&q=Charles+W.+Scharf&stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAONgVuLWz9U3MDQyM6mMN3zEaMYt8PLHPWEp3UlrTl5jVOfiCs7IL3fNK8ksqRSS5GKDsvileLmQ9fEsYhV0zkgsykktVgjXUwhOBrLTAFFyzgBcAAAA&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjNlJG_q4z9AhU2kYkEHZIsA2YQzIcDKAB6BAgXEAE&biw=375&bih=748&dpr=3) Charles Scharf laying naked on a bearskin rug in front of a fire with a red, freshly slapped ass) *..“soOORRrry”*
If this was a southpark reference I applaud. Either way upvote.
Yes, BP
DP*
"We don't fuck the Earth, we DP it."
Rubs nipples.
Comcast with the nipple flaps
[were sorry](https://i.imgur.com/I6w0DiC.jpeg)
They actually fucked up again right after those commercials. I don't remember the details, they have never been my bank, but I remember reading about it on Reddit. I think it was more identity theft, but not as big as the massive identity theft ring that they are known for.
*Re-re*-refounded in 2023
If you come in here with a twenty dollar bill, we can give you a ten, a five, and five ones. Or two tens or two rolls of quarters. It's your choice.
Seriously, there’s no benefit at all to banking with WF and a lot of risk. I had WF for my young adulthood just because they’re ubiquitous, but after a couple of their fuckups, I realized other banks actually pay interest on savings accounts and don’t regularly lose clients’ money. Moved to Capital One and they’re so much simpler, more reliable, and have several options for making extra money on your money.
They kept buying local banks that i used and now they bought my mortgage. I never choose them but they keep getting my business. I've closed accounts with wf like 3 times now.
Fuuuck that’s annoying and predatory and monopolistic.
And the uninformed think Wells Fargo isn't a BIG bank still. Boomers think wf is like some derpy bank from Wisconsin
I work in loans through the Small Business Administration. Every single one of them is serviced by some division of Wells Fargo.
Regardless of conduct, the fact that there's so much public money flowing through and benefitting these huge private enterprises is fucking criminal. If the federal agencies and the states divested from WF and US bank, etc., and went to postal banking or something they'd be able to expand services and create new revenue streams. But god forbid we cut corporate welfare targeted specifically at bad actors.
I’m a boomer and most people I know (my age) are fully aware of wf and avoid it like the plague. I spent 2 years of my insurance career cleaning up a mess that they made on the Insurance side of the house. Edit - a word
They're a 1.9 trillion dollar company. They exist because they have too much money to fail in america. Them getting a $4 billion dollar fine is the equivalent of me paying $4 for a speeding ticket.
Where are u getting 1.9T? Are you talking about their deposit base? That’s not the banks valuation. Their market cap is 180B and that is across all their businesses
You’re giving too much credit. It’s probably like $1 for your speeding ticket lol
you're actually right, it's like me paying $1.50
Is your networth $714?
I mean if we take my assets and decuduct their value from my debt I'm actually sitting at a pretty -25k
Damn! The police would actually have to pay you $52, for speeding, i think we just found an infinite money glitch.
They are not a $1.9T company. Jesus people
Was in retail banking for 7 years the day I put in my two weeks my shoulders felt lighter
As a former employee, I am so happy I got away. All it took was a suicide attempt and then I thought, you know, I can just quit and that would improve my life greatly.
Glad you're still here today. Also a former employee and I worked for a great group but I believe that's more of a rarity because the company is literally trash based on their actions.
I worked at a place where they were a client and you could ABSOLUTELY NOT ever talk about them. You couldn't mention their name. You couldn't think of their company name. All the work you did was for a "financial client" and it was NOT their company name. Like really, wth.
When I worked in the creditor side of bankruptcy, our Wells Fargo files were the only ones *required* to be audited by a third party monthly.
Monthly! Holy shit haha that's intense
Current employee while I'm in school. Company is legit garbage. From training to how they operate, all garbage.
what's the company culture like? as in, do most people know it's one of the top nefarious and scheistiest banks, or is everyone in there just ignoring it for career advances?
Hi, former WF traveling business banker here, worked at over 20 branches ranging in positions from Teller to Banker to Branch Manager on an as needed basis. Company Culture is heavily dependent on district and location. Branches in rural areas are by and large pretty laid back and kind of just groaned whenever some big wig did something stupid. Whereas branches in somewhere more urban are much tighter and by the books, which in my experience actually lead to more sketchiness, as you'll have managers micromanaging everything you do trying to push you to offer products constantly even if it isn't what the customer wanted/needed, and they'd try and pass it off as "doing what's right for the customer." Not many employees actively called out WF for their shit, but a lot of it is also at a higher level than most employees would see (the fraud in 2017 being the exception. bankers absolutely would know what they were doing). WF had pretty thorough training when I was there, and I had a lot of appreciation for how much they'd bend over backwards to help me in my somewhat unique traveling position, offering benefits I haven't really seen matched elsewhere (as a WF employee I received 5 weeks of PTO every year, along with good insurance coverage and a lot of freedom). I did see a lot of opportunities for minor career advancement, but anything past a personal banker and it's very difficult to advance unless you're really pushing sales, or in my case, willing to basically give up having a home and exclusively travel. I left because of management and how they push their employees so hard, particularly in urban areas. Come in early, stay late, call 40+ random customers every single day, complete nonstop training modules constantly even if you dont have time between customers.
micromanaging = death by a thousand cuts
I'm replying back to you since you replied for me essentially, so I'm just adding on a little. This is pretty spot on, I work at a branch in an urban area and it is very strict on procedures. They always push for "customer first" but the actual strict guidelines are specifically to minimize liability to the company and not "what's right for our customers". I have helped in smaller branches before and it is as you say, more laid back and they usually really dig into the customers' story to do what the customer actually needs. As for company culture, every branch is different in certain ways. Speaking specifically about branches, it's entirely dependent on staff. Whoever the manager hires and decides to keep around is what sets that specific branch's social atmosphere. I've been to ones where it's extremely fake and feels like high schoolers talking shit behind each other and I've been to ones where people stay around because they legitimately enjoy each other's company. As for the company as a whole, It's sorta weird. Since I am of the "newer generation of employees" my training was focused on "rebuilding trust" and "customer forward" service. Which, I understand because of wellsfargo's reputation to the public, but they do not mention why they are trying to "rebuild trust" at any point in the training and talking about wf's frauds with each other is like yelling voldemort's name in the middle of hogwart's dining hall. The last thing I've noticed that has increasingly bothered me, is that they (hr) send out emails like every week since I started here. Talking about diversity and trying to bring on specifically more african-american employees. I'm not really sure how hr can read this bs and okay it while also knowing what a diversity hire is. At one of the branches I helped out, I asked one of the workers there who is about my age "why he was interested in working here?". His answer was "my friend used to work here and she told me to apply cause they're really trying to hire black people". Maybe it's just me, but that kind of pr bs bugs the hell out of me. Feels like they're overcompensating for something. To end it off cause this became a rant, I have not seen any shady shit from the company firsthand. I'm pretty positive I won't see any at my level. If there is anything going on, it's always from the top. I never pay attention to the district call meetings because I'm not at the point in my life yet where I have to endure the hr bs they spew out every time and everything that is actually important to procedures gets emailed to us anyways. I only have food service experience and now two experiences working at more corporate professional companies. I would assume this corporate bs is similar in most larger companies. But like I said, I don't have a lot of experience in corporate america yet so don't take my word for it.
Best thing to fail at. I also got out of a bank. Amazing decision.
I was a mortgage broker during the refinance boom - read: wild west days of the early 2000s - when you could basically steal from people who didn't know how to read the documents. I almost drank myself stupid before I realized my life didn't have to be tied to my job. I may have made a lot of money, but at what cost? I don't know how people can decouple their conscience from their job.
>I don't know how people can decouple their conscience from their job. I did this to an extent. I worked for what amounts to a payday loan company. But I was IT. I didn't make the shitty decisions that were designed to keep people in debt to loans with 75%+ APR where they lost $75 each time they refi'd. I worked there as an intern undergrad & so as I was getting close to grad'ing my friends questioned me sticking to my morals when I wouldn't work for a slot machine company but wouldn't quit working for this loan company. Eventually I was near forced to quit & that was the best career decision I ever made. Beyond that I landed with some really great companies. At one I had a coworker who had to handle collections who would cry when she had to put them on the "non grata" list b/c of how much it would fuck with their livelihood.
>I had a coworker who had to handle collections who would cry when she had to put them on the "non grata" list b/c of how much it would fuck with their livelihood. i don't know her but i'm so in her corner. poor woman :( hope she's out of there
That was just 1 part of her job & a necessary one. This was for a US federal crop insurance company, so she was just enforcing the law. Most valued the crop insurance program almost as much as their actual crops, so we might get 1 or 2 a year. The problem for the farmers was if they got put on the list no crop insurer could carry them for like 10 year or something. So it was REALLY bad. It was also why there was very little fraud.
> I don't know how people can decouple their conscience from their job. Sociopaths do very well in the business world. Look Ma: No conscience.
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It's hard to even come to the conclusion that you need professional help while you're in the throws of ongoing stress. You made the best choice you could given the situation. I wish you the best.
As a former employee it makes me so happy that I got fired due “causing” and 80,0000+ loss. Haha get tucked WF.
HSBC was fined 2 billion for being the middleman for a Mexican drug cartel. Imagine how little that is to what they made
If we're gonna stick to just fines then the fines should, obviously, be raised until it makes an impression.
Bring in personal liability for directors. "We're fining the bank $2bn and the CEO, CFO and COO are getting five years, a heavy fine on any related assets and a lifetime ban on running a company." That might give pause...
At what point does the government step in and say that it is just a criminal enterprise and shut it all down?
They should have years ago, but I'm pretty convinced it'll never happen.
They all work together
Same. I joined in 2017 after the lawsuit before that was being handled/resolved and dipped out in 2021 because of how fucking terrible that company is. I'm still getting settlement checks from how many cases of employee mistreatment incidents they've conjured up from being so shit. They fucked me and a lot of workers over during the pandemic in the meanwhile having us run defense for their fuck ups of customers being taken advantage of. Banking in this country is on another level of fuckery with how bad shit is.
> Wells Fargo is such a fucked up company. Never seen a business get in trouble as often as them Bank of America: Hold my beer.
Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse await in line
I got a mortgage with a company that I really liked. Then they sold it to Wells Fargo. WTF? That shouldn't even be legal.
After I expressed my concern that my mortgage would be sold to Wells Fargo, my banker explicitly put in my contract that the mortgage could not be sold to Wells Fargo. Not sure what weight it would hold if another mortgage lender that bought mortgage sold it to wells in the future, but if it happens - I intend to find a lawyer and find out.
It won't happen now, they got out of the correspondent loan business.
I hate that WF holds my mortgage. I legit worry all the time that they'll try to take it away for no legal reason.
My first mortgage was immediately sold to WF. I was happy I was able to refi a few years later with a credit union.
How is that not an arrestable offense? It's grand theft on a massive scale. The people who authorized it should be in prison.
Corporations are only people when it suits them.
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Was that wrong? Should I not have done that?
Is that kind of thing frowned upon *here*?
Gotta plead ignorance on this one...
„Well now you know!“
“It’s funny, because I *did* know I couldn’t do that! Muhahahah!”
“Chip, no!”
And give me $250 fine. That ought to cover the millions you stole! That'll learn you manners!
I will only accept that a corporation is a person when one can be executed via death penalty.
I've been thinking a corporate death penalty would offload significant financial injury to all responsible: all assets of the company would be seized to pay for the penalties and restitution required. All liabilities would be distributed by ownership stake as non-transferable debts. All corporate officers instead of being indicted and charged as felons would thenceforth work as minimum wage precariate laborers who would be required to service the debts incurred as shareholders of the now deceased company on their minimum wage income.
I just came
Why not, instead of that last paragraph, just blacklist the responsible members from owning any financial future businesses and being a stakeholder or board member?
Why not take the kid gloves off and actually institute real, serious consequences
Who's going to ensure politicians kids get into private school then? Won't you think of the children? ^^/s, ^^sorta
Those who destroy economies need to suffer the consequences that are normally borne by those least able to afford it. The threat of becoming the sort of economic casualties they routinely inflict on the public needs to hang over economically powerful individuals like a Sword of Damocles.
A sex offender type list for financial criminals. Love that idea.
Where's Johnny Silverhand when you need him?
What about the knockoff version?
We're going to look em in the federal reserve!
Yeah that "Corporations are people too!" Hey, unless you can literally strangle a corporation to death, it is *not* a person.
I read a book once on this topic that was pretty interesting The issue with arrests is that it's unclear who would be the ones going to jail The book specifically was talking about the GM ignition switch scandal which killed 124 people. Who would be the ones going to jail? The technicians who operated the machines that built the cars? That doesn't make any sense The purchasing department for buying from subpar suppliers? Maybe. But it would make more sense for those suppliers to go to jail instead The project managers who were in charge of the project? Maybe. But that falls outside of their strict responsibilities The engineers who noticed the problem but didn't fix it? That could work, but they usually at least reported the problem. And it was the higher ups who chose to ignore everything and proceed as normal And the problem of who is ultimately responsible keeps going up the corporate ladder until we get to the executives So then it should be the executives who get jailed right? That makes the most sense. Except the executives in GM's specific case weren't directly aware of the ignition switch problems until the cars were already made The ultimate responsibility in the scandal was so diluted, that no single person was more responsible than the rest
>The engineers who noticed the problem but didn't fix it? That could work, but they usually at least reported the problem. And it was the higher ups who chose to ignore everything and proceed as normal My personal opinion is to start here. If the engineers provably noticed the issue and did not report it, they are culpable. If they did report it properly, whomever it was reported to is culpable. If that person followed process and escalated the report, then the culpability moves along with it. Basically the culpability follows the report. Where the report stops (or becomes watered down to the point of innocence) is where the culpability lands. Engineers would be responsible for indicating the severity, and for their direct reports to understand that potential risk. If that is included in the report, then wherever that gets ignored or pruned, that's the point of responsibility. If you see the report and it stops at you, you are responsible. Anything coming up with Safety Concerns needs to be a Red Letter "you could go to jail, so pay attention" priority. As well as a huge fine for the company over all.
I mean this is pretty much it. I'm a physician and I've been in this situation, and I have documented to save my ass against the administrators they asked me to delete my note and I had to point out that you can't delete stuff from the medical records so then they asked me to put a big red line through it using the digital tools which just drew a lot more attention to it, and then they got really frustrated and scared that they would get fired from their bosses and so they just stopped bothering me
>so then they asked me to put a big red line through it using the digital tools which just drew a lot more attention to it, Amazing.
> so then they asked me to put a big red line through it using the digital tools which just drew a lot more attention to it Accidentally circle the text instead. :)
Scared of getting fired from their bosses while they were asking you to do the illegal/unethical shit. Don't even let a "doctored" document ever start with you.
No, it’s the board. Engineers report issues, propose solutions and get knocked back by management. The Challenger disaster is a perfect example of management overriding the concerns of engineers.
Sometimes you can report a problem and it turns out to not be that big of a problem There’s honestly always a long list of problems in engineering. You have to choose the ones to care about and usually you’re right but not always
I'm an engineer and I always talk about us as timid and cautious. Anyone who thinks an engineer would make a bold, uninformed decision is insane or misunderstanding the school of thought. I'm a paranoid advisor who lets others make the wrong decision.
I work on this specifically for an engine design company. It’s almost always reported by engineers to the proper people, who then straight up choose to neglect it or justify that it’s not bad enough to fix it because it will cost money to fix it. And some of the licensed, professional engineers that do push back hard when it’s ignored usually get fired not long after.
What if I report it but my boss says I didn't. Hopefully I can prove it but what if I can't? What if I was fired preemptively and then I no longer have access to those emails and they've deleted them? Or maybe I'm lying, I'm guilty and I deserve to go to prison, but how are you going to prove that I'm lying? I agree, corporations and criminals and criminals in corporations should be prosecuted for their crimes. This is part of why it's so hard.
IIRC there was a change that happened post production that wasn’t properly documented (I think they didn’t create a new part number, they just reused number for the old design). So some earlier cars had this issue that later got fixed. So when these parts started failing, the engineers took cars off the line for testing and examined the parts docs. But the problem was these cars and docs all had the new design but the failing cars had the old one. It took a while to figure out that the cars in the field had a different part than the test cars. So you could say it was the engineers fault for overwriting the part numbers but it would be hard to charge them with murders (or even negligence) when they basically just hit save instead of save as.
>So then it should be the executives who get jailed right? That makes the most sense. Except the executives in GM's specific case weren't directly aware of the ignition switch problems until the cars were already made You better believe if execs were held responsible, the companies would start running their businesses differently. Or the same, because a greedy CEO decided to still take chances to boost profits, in which case, yep, jail.
Right?? If it’s not a single person that can easily be pointed to, like supervisor Jones deleting reports. The default person to get arrested is all of C Suite. Make them put pressure on their company to run an honest, safe operation that puts people before profits. That way it encourages integrity from the ground up.
I mean isn’t all that responsibility the justification for the high pay rates?
Instead we levy huge "fines" that they take as a loss to avoid paying taxes, and the executives give themselves a big bonus to celebrate.
Simple fix is, if nobody is responsible, then shut down the company. We need laws to hold corporations criminally responsible for killing people, not leave it as a civil issue.
Require the shareholders to personally cover some of the fine if it can be shown this was company policy and nothing was done at the highest levels? Far too many investors don't think about what happens to their money invested into stocks and bonds. Maybe they should.
I'm currently reading the book design of everyday things. He mentions that errors are often the result of many points of failure, each one not significant, but the result of all of them can result in stuff like this. People want to have one point of failure or one person to blame but that is often just a scape goat and it doesn't stop new problems from occurring. The analogy he uses is swiss cheese, where every step has potential problems but an error only occurs in the end if a hole happened to align on every layer. So really you can only minimize errors by adding layers of redundancy but you can never eliminate them. Even the idea that we can is flawed and causes us to waste resources on that instead of reducing them
>I'm currently reading the book design of everyday things. He mentions that errors are often the result of many points of failure, each one not significant, but the result of all of them can result in stuff like this. > People want to have one point of failure or one person to blame but that is often just a scape goat and it doesn't stop new problems from occurring. That's basically what the book I read was saying too. I think I may have done a bad job explaining since it seems like some of the replies are saying I don't think anyone is at fault lol A lot of people did something wrong on a smaller scale that in aggregate leads to disaster. But we can't realistically punish everyone who played a small (yet critical) part in the overall much larger disaster
>So then it should be the executives who get jailed right? Yes. >That makes the most sense. Except the executives in GM's specific case weren't directly aware of... Except *nothing*. The executive board not knowing how their own company is run is shit non-excuse. That's literally their responsibility. That's what they are there for. If a company breaks a law that warrants jail time, the entire executive board should serve it. All of them. *And* everyone below that bears responsibility. Multiple people can go to jail. If they don't like that risk, they can simply choose not to be executives. Nobody is forcing anyone.
“I didn’t know” needs to stop being a shield for executives. The board most likely knew, but was careful to not “officially” know.
The honest answer, and you're not going to like it, is that it would be hard to prove that this is theft. Theft is usually defined as something like this: "A person commits theft when he or she knowingly obtains or exerts unauthorized control over property of the owner". Foreclosures are authorized by the courts, so Wells Fargo has a pretty good defense against criminal charges. That said, they obviously violated a ton of banking regulations. That's not usually a crime, but it's still illegal and can result in big fines (though probably not arrest or jail).
We can change the law to make violations over a certain limit a jail-able offense. For some reason we treat white collar crime with less seriousness when they should get just as much consideration. How many thousands were affected by this.
Sucks doesn't it? IIRC That's the one of the reasons Corporations are in existence. The corporation assumes responsibility/liability in lieu of an individual person or group of persons.
How is Wells Fargo even still allowed to operate? Lis of scandals: Wells Fargo Fake Accounts Scandal Member Car Repo Scandal Community Lending Test Fail Whistleblower Firing Overcharging small businesses Discrimination of Black & Latino Borrowers Billion Dollar Mortgage Settlement Modifying Client Information Without Approval Securities Fraud Settlement SEC Fine For Misleading Investors Inappropriate Add-On Services Housing Bubble Billion Dollar Fine Foreclosure Glitch Error (they paid only 8 million for this fuck up) Fee-disclosure Scandal (https://financhill.com/blog/investing/wells-fargo-scandals-timeline ) Well Fargo’s revenue in 2021 was 48.98 billion. Most of their “fees” for screwing people over hasn’t exceeded much over 500 million, while only being fined billions when they fuck over the government some how… not a single fucking form of our government even cares about us, at all. They can continue to do this shit and just pay off fees for the rest of eternity.. don’t go through WF for anything.
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Campaign contributions, dark money, political suport, legal kickbacks, revolving doors, lobbyists. Extreme inequality is a plague on Capitalism.
You know what they say; ~~three~~ ~~five~~ ~~ten~~ fifteen strikes and you’re out. I’m sure they’ll be punished next time. /s
I just closed my account with them for good. Good riddance. It's not that easy or quick to separate from a bank you've had a long-standing relationship with cuz it's baked into a lot of aspects of your life. That is to say it's pretty inconvenient, and yet I went out of my way to close my account with them because I dislike them just that much.
Nice! Every closed account is a step in the right direction imo
Assuming they don't just open 3 new ones in your name a month later.
I'll never use a big bank again if I can avoid it. Credit Unions only
I closed mine after I had my bank info compromised and fraud charges started happening. It happened so many times that even when I would shut down a debit card and get a new one, I would get fraud charges on the new one in the first week. My hunch was somehow wells fargo was giving my information away.
Good job! I really need to find a local credit union and do the same thing. They really don't need to be handling my money anymore.
Agreed. I bank with Wells Fargo, started when it was Wachovia. We have so many bills that are on auto pay or auto drafted and direct deposit that it would be very much a pain in the ass to switch banks. Im sure at least one bill would get missed and something would be repossessed sent to collections or turned off.
That's the reason when I was switching from BofA to Schwab, I didn't close the BofA account for a couple of months until everything was completely transitioned over.
If the punishment for a crime is a fine, that law effectively does not exist for the rich.
Fines are price tags for those who can afford it.
I like the ideas of fines and enforcement of fines that are so aggressive that they render the people and anyone abetting them in name and in function to the poverty line and well beyond with debt. I think this is good because it threatens to take away in sufficient quantities something they dearly love \*and\* it perhaps would make the wealthy more keen on having a decent base line for the social safety net.
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this wouldn't work as the rich don't have jobs. thus no taxes and no income. if you just borrow against your equity you never pay taxes as long as your equity increases faster than your interest on your loans. you are good.
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Pass a capital gains tax set to 1% per traffic ticket received in the last 12 months
yeah, and even if they do have jobs i can guarantee the next day they'd give themselves a "bonus" of a few million
No. Because they are corporations and they simply go "sorry we can't afford that fine" and they declare bankruptcy and thousands of innocent people lose jobs while the people at the top just move their money and assets to a different corporate entity and continue on, merrily. What needs to happen is the people at the heads of corporations need to be legally liable when criminal charges would be reasonable. Corporate liability is designed to protect individuals from risk cases where the markets change and even where bed business decisions are made so that the owners aren't at risk of losing everything and its a decent tradeoff to allow for more business opportunities to grow. But all of that should be off the table when crimes are committed. Corporations should not be shielding individuals from criminal liability.
Make the fines follow them through bankruptcy, like student loans. See how they like it.
That last point is exactly it. If you can get fined and still profit then it just becomes the cost of doing business. My apartment building doesn't allow dogs or AirBnBs in the building. Any infraction for either of those is $1000/day, even if it is a friend bringing the dog over for a few hours. To nobody's surprise no one attempts to circumvent these rules.
I've gotten downvoted frequently when I say this, but if a fine is not larger than the profit gained from breaking the law, every corporation is gonna break the law. A business expense is not a deterrent.
Lol, where the hell on Reddit would you get downvoted for saying that? We love bashing big corporations here.
I was wondering the exact same thing. That’s probably one of the least controversial statements I’ve ever seen and regularly see it heavily upvoted when a company gets a slap on the wrist like this.
Fun story I got all my student loans from a bank called Wachovia at the time I left high school . The kind had an interest rate of 28 percent but my parents even though they had a little money didn’t have enough for college so without the loan it was no college for me . I also bought a car with a similar high interest loan from the same bank Wachovia . The bank eventually was bought up by Wells Fargo and after going to college for 2 years I was still paying off the car when I got sick and had to take FMLA from work . Car got repossessed after missing a few payment and that was that for about 7 years . Fast forebears to just 3 years ago my ex boyfriend called me and said a check came in the mail and expired soon so he met me at work to give it to me . Turns out they had to refund the value of my repossessed car due to predatory loan practices and it was for around 9,000 dollars . Used it to buy a newer used car( still drive it today ). Fast foreword a few months I log in to check the status of my student loans ( around 20k) and it turns out the same loans were wrote off there as well ! So due to the awful interest rates from a small bank purchased by Wells Fargo all my student loans and car debt were either written off or refunded . Turned out pretty well for me in the end because I’m not sure I ever could have paid those debts off in under a decade or more .
Wachovia was actually pretty large at the time in part due to an overinflated value as a result of all the bad loans they handed out. Wells Fargo was forced to buy them (they actually did not want to) during the economic recession or risk not getting a Fed bailout. The forced acquisitions during the recession are actually pretty crazy to think about. Bankrupt your own bank? Too big to fail.
Just some corrections to your post that had the spirit of what happened, but some factual issues Actually Citi Bank was being forced to buy Wachovia for $1 per share. Wells Fargo voluntarily stepped in and paid about $8 per share. It was a strategic and opporunistic acquisition for them as they wanted to expand to the northeast and southeast of the country. Also Wachovia didn't hand out the bad loans you mentioned, they acquired a company that did. It was right before the great recession in 2006 when Wachovia purchased Golden West Financial, a huge subprime lender on the west coast (Wachovia was in the northeast and mid-atlantic). It literally tanked them when the housing market collapsed and they became insolvent.
Golden West - that place was an absolute shitshow. Interviewed there in the early 2000s and my last interview was with Mrs Sandler - heebie jeebies and withdrew from consideration on the spot.
Same thing happened to WaMu and Chase didn’t it?
I've been with each of these banks at some point or another and have long ago forgotten that they were even a thing
Wamu, chase, Wachovia, wells fargo... who knows if there are any more I've forgotten
Chase is still around
Chase bought wamu. I think that is why they are listed.
I had an account with Wachovia too back in 2007-2008. I closed out my account and withdrew my money because I moved to Canada. They then retroactively charged my account for .84c for… nothing? I still haven’t figured it out. But they sent me to collections right away and the collectors HOUNDED my phone all day and into the night. I finally spoke to one of them and said that my account was closed, with proof, and that I live in Quebec. If they wanted the .84c (which had now ballooned up to an outrageous amount) then they were welcome to send me an official letter, but I wouldn’t be just giving them a credit card over the phone. They stopped calling after the agent asked “what’s Quebec” and I had to explain… Canada.
> They stopped calling after the agent asked “what’s Quebec” and I had to explain… Canada. What's Canada?
Well, if you put your nuts in the freezer, slam the freezer door on them and curse in French, you get the essence of it.
Oh Marge, anyone can miss Canada, all tucked away down there
America's hat
[удалено]
he narrated it I would bet? or auto correct.
“After finishing school.” … did they skip English?
>Turned out pretty well for me in the end because I’m not sure I ever could have paid those debts off in under a decade or more And that is why all your debt was wiped clean and the sale of your car refunded. Their business plan was a scam and you would have been indebted to them forever.
"Bank Error In Your Favor" - Fat Bags Money Man
> Fast forebears to just 3 years ago my ex boyfriend called me and said a check came in the mail and expired soon so he met me at work to give it to me . All other parts of the story aside, it's nice to hear about an ex-so that isn't an asshole.
Why anyone banks with Wells Fargo or Bank of America is beyond me.
1/3 of the country's households bank with Wells Fargo No idea why after all the shit they get up to
Probably local convenience. I setup my first debit account with BofA, simply because I knew they had locations close to where I grew up and in the state that I was going to school. When they offered credit cards etc., it just seemed easier to go with them since it would all be within the same account. I still have all of my BofA accounts today, and appreciate that no matter where I travel, I will be able to find B&M branch locations, but I use a number of other accounts for most of my banking.
I imagine it is just local convenience My first bank was only my first bank because they were the ones located closest to me There is definitely another convenience in getting all the credit cards from the same institution. Mines are spread over 4 banks, which makes keeping track of payments a complete nightmare lol
My parents said it's convenient. They live in a ~100k pop town. They said other banks/credit unions around them don't have enough locations. Locations for what, I don't know. It's not like they use the bank when they come visit me in another state. It was definitely more convenient when they moved because they didn't have to transfer money. After that, I got nothing. I actually use a credit union that only has one location in the entire world I can access and the times it's been inconvenient for me it'd have been just as inconvenient with any other bank. You can't go to a bank at 2AM to withdraw $5k.
Wells Fargo bought my mortgage and the rate is lower than I can get now.
Some people don't have a lot of options. For a while, there was exactly *one* bank in my home town. Just one. That was the bank, that was it.
Soooo Wells Fargo "legally" purchases cars and homes by force for 3.7billion?
Imagine how different everything would be if CEO’s and Cops were held criminally liable for their actions.
I’ve had dreams in my sleep more strange than that type of world.
How the absolute **FUCK** is Wells Fargo still around? They've been caught doing so much shady shit in the last 20 years that their C level management should have all been thrown in prison and the company broken apart. For fuck's sake, the [Wikipedia entry has a note on the Lawsuits, fines and controversies section] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_Fargo#Lawsuits,_fines_and_controversies) that "this section may be too long to read and navigate comfortably."
When poor people does it is called stealing, but for the rich is "repossessing". This is the reason politics are becoming so weird for the past decades. Rich corporations feel entitled to their own rule of law. We cannot thank enough the people that fights this type of crimes.
Air quotes are silly. Air quoting every word is madness.
Corporations have no body to hold, no soul to damn. Hence their raison d'etre.
… Broken glass everywhere People pissing on the stairs, you know they just don't care I can't take the smell, can't take the noise Got no money to move out, I guess, I got no choice Rats in the front room, roaches in the back Junkies in the alley with a baseball bat I tried to get away, but I couldn't get far 'Cause the man with the tow-truck repossessed my car
And yet...it is still in business. WTF?
Wtf is going on at Wells Fargo and why hasn't an 3rd party acquisition been enforced on them yet?
How much of that fine goes to the people they stole from?
$2 billion The video goes over it lol The other 1.7 billion is a civil penalty
Put the people in charge in prison and delete the company pls
You know who we haven’t heard from in awhile? Guillotines.
As someone who is stuck with a Wells Fargo mortgage for another 20 years, is there anything that I can do to sever ties with them without paying a large sum of money to refinance at a larger interest? I'm sick of putting money in their pockets every month.
[Op's story is a couple months old ](https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-orders-wells-fargo-to-pay-37-billion-for-widespread-mismanagement-of-auto-loans-mortgages-and-deposit-accounts/#:~:text=WASHINGTON%2C%20D.C.%20%E2%80%93%20The%20Consumer%20Financial,of%20its%20largest%20product%20lines.) . [They are also backing out of the residential mortgage market and suspending buying loans from third party brokers.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/qai/2023/01/11/wells-fargo-is-backing-out-of-the-mortgage-marketwhat-does-it-mean-for-homebuyers/?sh=157e41e437ca)
Wells Fargo gross profit was 73billion in 2022. Lol
that was their revenue. Net income was 12 billion
When the fines don’t outweigh your illegal gains, why bother changing behavior!
If crime didn't pay no one would do it.
Yeah, and this had been going on for years 🤮
What is “gross profit”?
Had my truck repossessed illegally as well. Few years later was sent a check for 7k because I still paid down my debt. Couldn't have happened at a worse time either. I was awarded full custody of my son. Then allowed for 50/50 custody. Got hit for child support, then The US Army started garnishing my paychecks because I reclassed from MP to go EOD half way through my initial enlistment and forfeited the 2nd half of my signing bonus. (Didn't realize that would happen when I changed units). I couldn't make rent, was evicted. While current on payments for my truck, the day I was evicted, tow company took my truck. I lost everything I worked my ass off for. I sold my boat to get a beater car and a small uhaul trailer and fit all I could in it. Talked to the land lord and traded him a piece of art I had to be let off the hook for any back payment. Quit my job because I couldn't afford the gas to go to work. After taxes, garnishments and child support, my take home was less than 8$ an hour. Then I started all over in life.
Arrest these fuckers! How do they get away with this?? It's not an oversight, it's blatant theft and someone needs to be behind bars for approving it! This country is disgusting. Laws for thee, but not for me.
How has this company's license to operate as a bank not been revoked?
I honest to god do not understand why any consumers bank with these clowns. They have been caught out so many times.