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Friday, September 09, 2016

Wells Fargo fined $185 million for improper account openings; about 5,300 fired

NEW YORK (AP) — California and federal regulators fined Wells Fargo a combined $185 million on Thursday, alleging the bank's employees illegally opened millions of unauthorized accounts for their customers in order to meet aggressive sales goals.

The San Francisco-based bank will pay $100 million to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a federal agency created five years ago; $35 million to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and $50 million to the City and County of Los Angeles. It will also pay restitution to affected customers.

It is the largest fine the CFPB has levied against a financial institution and the largest fine in the history of the Los Angeles City Attorney's office.

The CFPB said Wells Fargo sales staff opened more than 2 million bank and credit card accounts that may have not been authorized by customers. Money in customers' accounts were transferred to these new accounts without authorization. Debit cards were issued and activated, as well as PINs created, without telling customers.

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

And nobody will get fired.

Maybe this is why Warren Buffett owns so much Wells Fargo?

Anonymous said...

Well it did say 5300 of the little guys got axed. This is the same company fined for laundering drug cartel money a couple years ago.

Anonymous said...

and they keep on keeping on - crony capitalists and gubmint extortion - all too big to fail :(