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Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

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Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#31

Post by samstave »

TuringNYC wrote: post #29
aphextron wrote: post #4

Something has happened to big banks along the way, where they no longer actually provide banking services to their customers. When I walk into a Wells Fargo branch now and sit down with a "banker" to take care of my accounts, it consists of sitting next to them while they call 1-800-WELLSFARGO for me and talk to a call center. There simply is no service anymore. I walked into my local branch to open up an IRA last we…

Sounds bad, but you should see some Citibank branches -- they dont even make the call for you nor do you get a place to sit down -- I was trying to resolve an issue and the representative literally took me to an in-bank phone booth, dialed the number and handed the phone to me. Basically -- deal with call-center-hell while standing up. What's the point? The good news is that this behavior is not universal, I looked a…

Whats your "tier" and how much money do you keep with them?

Please reply with mothers maiden name, SSN and DOB.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#32

Post by djschnei »

kolbe wrote: post #28
djschnei wrote: post #5

Where does the fine go? Does it get divvied up amongst the people affected by WF's wrongdoing?

I don't know about this fine, but the vast majority of bank fines are usually "consumer relief." Banks usually are in a position to where the actual financial impact of the fine is a very small fraction of the headline number. "Goldman Sachs buys a home loan at 50 percent off. It then modifies the mortgage for the borrower to perhaps 60 percent of face value. The modification gets referred to the overseer of the mort…

That's interesting. Thanks for the resources. I wasn't aware of this.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#35

Post by Jweb_Guru »

djschnei wrote: post #8
aphextron wrote: post #4

Something has happened to big banks along the way, where they no longer actually provide banking services to their customers. When I walk into a Wells Fargo branch now and sit down with a "banker" to take care of my accounts, it consists of sitting next to them while they call 1-800-WELLSFARGO for me and talk to a call center. There simply is no service anymore. I walked into my local branch to open up an IRA last we…

Unfortunately, the massive restructuring you're referring to would likely need to be in the form of deregulation. It's unfortunate because deregulating something is typically a non-discussion. Our banking regulations make almost no distinction between massive, "too big to fail" banks and small community banks. Like most regulation, it's the massive companies that can foot the bill for complying with regulation, creat…

I suppose you just consider it collateral damage that big banks will act just as irresponsibly as before when they are deregulated? The whole premise that deregulation is the answer is always that the regulation isn't accomplishing anything useful, but if it really weren't accomplishing anything useful you would think the big banks themselves wouldn't be so eager to get rid of it.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#36

Post by Rapzid »

aphextron wrote: post #4

Something has happened to big banks along the way, where they no longer actually provide banking services to their customers. When I walk into a Wells Fargo branch now and sit down with a "banker" to take care of my accounts, it consists of sitting next to them while they call 1-800-WELLSFARGO for me and talk to a call center. There simply is no service anymore. I walked into my local branch to open up an IRA last we…

I wonder if all these small banks have to re-invent the SaaS wheel, or if there is a company out there providing a banking platform to them...

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#37

Post by citilife »

ellisv wrote: post #26
istorical wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a similar breaking point with Wells Fargo. I was about 20. Needed to get something notarized, someone mentioned that banks could do it. I googled and confirmed WF could do it for their customers so I went over to my nearest branch. Asked the front desk if I could get something notarized. They said sure and referred me to a banker at a desk. I walked over and sat down and told him I was looking to get something…

> A few months later walked by a branch and on a whim decided it was a good time to close my account. Walked in, ask to close it, they said I had to wait, I said oh OK that's alright I'll just withdraw all of it. Good riddance. Careful, if it's not actually closed they'll hit you with fees.

And thats when he realized Wells Fargo got the last laugh, 10 years of late fees

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#38

Post by heurist »

aphextron wrote: post #4

Something has happened to big banks along the way, where they no longer actually provide banking services to their customers. When I walk into a Wells Fargo branch now and sit down with a "banker" to take care of my accounts, it consists of sitting next to them while they call 1-800-WELLSFARGO for me and talk to a call center. There simply is no service anymore. I walked into my local branch to open up an IRA last we…

It's definitely an industry ripe for rebirth. For instance, I should be able to partition my money into several lightweight accounts - one for groceries, one for home expenses, investment, etc - and automatically have fractions of my deposits sent to those accounts so my budgeting and money management are handled without any effort on my part. I should have lightweight cards available for each of those accounts with online card management (request/terminate cards, track per-card spending); multiple cards per account so I can give my wife full use of "grocery" card, and alerts/notifications when I am spending too much in an account/not efficiently allocating the full amount/potentially using a card improperly; financial projections; and so on.

Most consumer products and customer services should be totally accessible through a web interface. All of this could be built on top of today's banking infrastructure as a mostly-frontend service but instead I'm forced to give my personal information to services like Mint (who can not and will not ever do what I actually need it to do) or trust Random Startup #347 with access to my bank account because banks are monoliths without technical capacity or consumer-oriented business practices. I imagine some upstart will eventually come along with a better solution but banking regulation (though absolutely necessary in many ways) will hinder growth of any challenger.

If anyone has any recommendations in the meantime, please let me know!

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#39

Post by johnwheeler »

kaizendad wrote: post #19

OK, but Wells Fargo made $5 billion last year, and the activity they were fined for took place over many years, which leaves me to ask: after the fines, was this activity profitable or not? If it was profitable, do the fines actually dissuade future dishonesty? Also, apparently Wells Fargo thinks that 27,000 people lost their cars over this. I bet none of those people will be made whole. Cars are really essential thi…

No, they made 22 billion. You're probably reading their quarterly figures.

source: https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/wfc/financials?query=income-st...

The scams in themselves were not profitable. For the cross-selling, they made an extra 100 million or so over the course of many years, I don't recall the figures I read.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#40

Post by djschnei »

Jweb_Guru wrote: post #35
djschnei wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, the massive restructuring you're referring to would likely need to be in the form of deregulation. It's unfortunate because deregulating something is typically a non-discussion. Our banking regulations make almost no distinction between massive, "too big to fail" banks and small community banks. Like most regulation, it's the massive companies that can foot the bill for complying with regulation, creat…

I suppose you just consider it collateral damage that big banks will act just as irresponsibly as before when they are deregulated? The whole premise that deregulation is the answer is always that the regulation isn't accomplishing anything useful, but if it really weren't accomplishing anything useful you would think the big banks themselves wouldn't be so eager to get rid of it.

I was commenting on the lack of competition. Deregulating with the aim of making the barriers to entry into the marketplace smaller. Not deregulation to allow big banks to get away with more...

Also, I would guess with more competition from smaller banks, megabanks might actually act more responsibly.

[EDIT] but you are kind of proving my point, so thanks! I said "deregulation" so your mind is already made up on the point.

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