Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines • Hacker News Board

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#141

Post by aeorgnoieang » Fri, Apr 20, 2018, 7:13 PM UTC

jahabrewer wrote: post #120

Someone1234 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that require giving them your banking online login details?

Buy YNAB 4 (aka YNAB Classic). You'll have to import transactions manually, but I much prefer it to their subscription SaaS offering. I've used it for five years and love it. I use a python script to download most transactions from banks/credit cards. https://sites.google.com/site/pocketsense/home/msmoneyfixp1/... There are enough people who do this that you can figure out how to access the OFX endpoint for most fina…

You can import transactions manually into NYNAB (the new web version).

One problem I have with relying on OFX is that I have a nagging suspicion that it's not as 'official' as the statements. If there were a discrepancy between the two, I'd worry that I wouldn't be able to resolve it in my favor without having reviewed (and thus downloaded and reconciled against) the statements.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#142

Post by Bye_Felicia » Fri, Apr 20, 2018, 7:14 PM UTC

disgusting.

conclusion: Bankers are above the law.

They should be in jail, along with the CEO. This isn't just white collar crime. This was blatant, premeditated, financial fraud. Directed from the very top to every single Wells Fargo office.

How is the public so stupid and uneducated, as to not be outraged?

All this does, is help to motivate the next generation of sociopaths. Zero consequences.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#143

Post by aeorgnoieang » Fri, Apr 20, 2018, 7:16 PM UTC

p-funk wrote: post #81

heurist wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I've been planning a side project with a lot of those features. That's exactly how I think about my budgeting and that's exactly how I would like to allocate my money. I'm really not aware of any way to do this currently, apart from a lot of manual work in a spreadsheet, which is annoying and still requires restraint in spending. Mint isn't even that helpful when it comes to budgeting because their alerts and categor…

Checkout YNAB (You Need A Budget).

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#144

Post by aeorgnoieang » Fri, Apr 20, 2018, 7:18 PM UTC

black6 wrote: post #48

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…

The repeal of the Glass-Steagall legislation (Banking Act of 1933) in 1999 deregulated and allowed banks to act as investment, commercial, and retail at will. That deregulation doomed us to the financial crisis a decade later and the "too-big-to-fail" atrocity that ensued.

That's not supported by the evidence from what I've read.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#145

Post by 013a » Fri, Apr 20, 2018, 7:18 PM UTC

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…

One piece of it is actually regulation. When you're dealing with huge amounts of yellow tape and you have millions of customers, the overhead cost of providing services is absolutely sky high. Many of their clients don't even make them money; think of the Starbucks barista that has $1000 in checking and no savings. Sure they can turn some of that money around into interest, but the cost-per-customer of lawyers, compliance, auditing, etc is far higher.

Any of the banks that are actually offering decent interest rates on deposits are online banks, because it enables them to centralize and automate all of their operations in one place.

Credit Unions are similar. They usually serve a smaller community, which means they're centralized and have less overhead. They are also beholden to different less-strict laws.

I've heard this first-hand from the founder/CEO of a small local bank. Every time they write a loan they are forced to provide the customer with a 200-page "book" of all the compliance and regulation surrounding that loan. The client immediately throws it in the trash, every time. It hurts the bank, because they have to print that, audit it, have lawyers look it over, maintain it. It also hurts the client; these laws are meant to inform consumers, but in reality they irresponsibly only require banks to throw incomprehensible amounts of information at consumers. Like website Terms of Service, consumers never read it, they just trust what the bank teller tells them.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#146

Post by jstarfish » Fri, Apr 20, 2018, 7:20 PM UTC

sethammons wrote: post #65

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 only know horror stories from Wells Fargo. My only experience was wanting to break a $100 bill. I went up to the teller and asked for change, and they could not break the bill for a non-customer. Mind blown. I just walked next door to the grocery and bought a $1 thing of gum. My favorite terrible story was a founder I know. His company just got funded and he got is first paycheck in a while, and he deposited it his…

I had the same experience as you with Bank of America (come on, you're a bank. This degree of shitty service does not entice me into wanting to become a customer).

Even my credit union can be a pain in the ass. I had a check made out to my wife that needed to be deposited immediately. She signed it over to me and I took it to the CU. She wasn't on that account so they wouldn't deposit it without her being there. I went right outside and forced it through the ATM, which didn't make such stupid demands.

Your second story is a textbook example of why you should never open credit/loan accounts with a bank if you already have checking/savings there. You lose all leverage in negotiating debts, since they'll just take what they feel is owed when they get fed up with your delinquency. Wells Fargo did that to me, but I've seen that right reserved at more banks than just them.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#147

Post by Bye_Felicia » Fri, Apr 20, 2018, 7:20 PM UTC

djschnei wrote: post #15

rb808 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does it get divvied up amongst the people affected by WF's wrongdoing? Are you crazy? The fines usually get distributed around different politicians to spend on their favorite things. Like this https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/editorials/2014/07/14... Which is why these fines will continue. Everyone hates the banks so the regulators can just keep fining them for everything indefinitely, when they run out of i…

Was mostly a sarcastic question ;) This pattern can be seen everywhere... 1) politicians regulate an industry with the best intentions 2) industry becomes a safe haven for "the big fish" that can pay to play 3) Rinse and repeat for a while, creating bigger and bigger barriers to entry into the marketplace. Politicians are happy, mega banks are happy. 4) Megabank inevitably does something reprehensible 5) politicians…

This a good analysis. It sums everything up without the bullshit.

The only thing I would correct in your "Financial Corruption Process Map" is the step after #3:

.

  3.5  "big fish" start buying up politicians and lobbying firms to legalize more and more "bad behavior"


  4.    Megabank acts legally to do something "reprehensible" since they lobbied to legalize it.


  4.5   financial collapse. scandal...then the hand wringing begins by walking corpses in Washington.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#148

Post by komali2 » Fri, Apr 20, 2018, 7:21 PM UTC

Someone1234 wrote: post #77

cspags wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I highly recommend checking out https://www.youneedabudget.com for the ability to do this and more. (No affiliation, just a very satisfied customer)

Does that require giving them your banking online login details?

If you want auto-import, yes.

Otherwise, it requires only an email (and that you pay them 5$/monthly somehow. Paypal, credit card, whatever).

If you don't want auto-import (which doesn't even work for my credit union anyway), you can uploads .csvs, or manually input your transactions.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#149

Post by komali2 » Fri, Apr 20, 2018, 7:22 PM UTC

jahabrewer wrote: post #120

Someone1234 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that require giving them your banking online login details?

Buy YNAB 4 (aka YNAB Classic). You'll have to import transactions manually, but I much prefer it to their subscription SaaS offering. I've used it for five years and love it. I use a python script to download most transactions from banks/credit cards. https://sites.google.com/site/pocketsense/home/msmoneyfixp1/... There are enough people who do this that you can figure out how to access the OFX endpoint for most fina…

I was in your same boat until the SaaS offering started really figuring out how to do credit cards. Now, it's finally the better of the two options for me.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#150

Post by aeorgnoieang » Fri, Apr 20, 2018, 7:23 PM UTC

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #137

bluGill wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it is so difficult to write good regulations. It is [nearly?] impossible to predict all the consequences of your regulation ahead of time. After the regulation is written there are many more people who have an incentive to figure out how to twist it to their advantage, and they get as long as they need to dream it up. Then they get a as long as they need to try various forms in small areas that you don't noti…

>It is [nearly?] impossible to predict all the consequences of your regulation ahead of time. Yes but why is the burden asymmetric? It is similarly impossible to predict the consequences of deregulation ahead of time yet proponents of deregulation are never held to the total unpredictability of the outcomes of their position.

> It is similarly impossible to predict the consequences of deregulation ahead of time yet proponents of deregulation are never held to the total unpredictability of the outcomes of their position.

What's an example of this? The deregulation of airlines? The repeal of Glass-Steagall? I've read a lot of bad takes about the latter's supposed outcomes, but none of them claimed that the outcome was unpredictable.