Apparently, Wells Fargo has been doing some of their customers filthy and now they’re going to have to pay the price for it!
According to @CNNBusiness, this Tuesday the major bank was hit with a $1.7 billion fine for “widespread mismanagement” over multiple years that harmed over 16 million consumer accounts.
Not only were they given the hefty civil penalty, but they were also ordered to pay more than $2 billion to compensate consumers for a range of “illegal activity.” The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said Wells Fargo’s “illegal activity” included repeatedly misapplying loan payments, wrongfully foreclosing on homes, illegally repossessing vehicles, incorrectly assessing fees and interest, and charging surprise overdraft fees, the news site notes. Rohit Chopra, the CFPB’s director, said in a statement, “Wells Fargo’s rinse-repeat cycle of violating the law has harmed millions of American families.”
Wells Fargo has agreed to a $3.7 billion settlement for mistreating customers. The company released a statement saying,
“We and our regulators have identified a series of unacceptable practices that we have been working systematically to change and provide customer remediation where warranted,” Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf said.
When Did This Start Happening
Dating back from 2016, Wells Fargo has been repeatedly sanctioned by U.S. regulators for violations of consumer protections. Around that time, employees were found to have opened millions of accounts illegally in order to meet their sales goals.
Although executives have said repeatedly that the bank will be fixing that major problem, Wells Fargo was ultimately found in violation of other parts of consumer protection law, including in its auto and mortgage lending businesses, CNN notes.
CEO Charles Scharf said the “far-reaching” agreement with the CFPB is “an important milestone in our work to transform the operating practices at Wells Fargo and to put these issues behind us.”