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Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

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Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#311

Post by tzs »

heurist wrote: post #38
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…

> 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.

This part probably can reasonably be handled with a spreadsheet at home, so if you can't find a bank that supports it you can still get the benefits. Plus, that handles money that is not at your bank, too. For instance, many people prefer to use specialized firms for investments rather than their bank. For example, an index fund from Vanguard probably has lower fees than a fund using the same index from a bank.

> 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.

I can't think of a good way to handle this at home without bank support, at least automatically. You might be able to do something using prepaid reloadable debit cards. E.g., you give your wife a prepaid reloadable debit card specifically for groceries, and you handle loading it from the grocery virtual account.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#312

Post by tstrimple »

henrikschroder wrote: post #266
dd36 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. There are no loan assumptions in US. Seller’s mortgage holder is irrelevant.

Ok. Good. :-) So why was Klathmon's friend bothered by it?

Because now his friend is forced to be a customer of Bank of America unless he goes through a refinancing process. Even then, unless he's very careful, he could end up refinancing with a company who turns right back around and sells the mortgage back to Bank of America. The same thing happened to me. I've had two mortgages through other banks who then sold my mortgage to Wells Fargo forcing me to have to deal with them and I had absolutely no say in it.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#313

Post by bitexploder »

Bye_Felicia wrote: post #229
djsumdog wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I deleted all my Mint stuff years ago just because of the security concerns. If you mention the security concerns on Hackernews, a Mint employee typically replies with a link to the wikipedia page on their patented security model. Still, I'd rather not type all my bank passwords into an Intuit website. I like your concept of the multiple credit/card style budgeting. That makes a lot of sense. There are even some of t…

There won't be any reward for you, or opportunity to say I told you so, after Mint reveals the shocking news they were hacked X number of years from now. So, I'm giving it to you now. This is just smart and logical. You do not need technical proficiency to reason out the risks, or the daily "12yo exploits MOST-SECURIST-EVER IOT device in 20 minutes" articles. With that said, without public support, and government law…

> Equifax data breach: The number of victims may be impossible to know

Just assume all of them. Every last customer. Probably closest to the truth.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#314

Post by kn0where »

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 use Wells Fargo for one purpose: obtaining foreign currency. I keep my actual money in savings and checking accounts with Ally, and the minimum $300 in my Wells Fargo 0.01% APY (lol) savings account (so they don't charge me $5/month fees).

In exchange for this, if I'm traveling out of the country and don't want to rely solely on ATMs and credit cards, I first transfer some money into my WF account, and then I can go to the bank and pick up some, say, Canadian dollars, only paying the exchange rate (which last time I did this was equivalent to the rate on ATMs and credit cards). If it's not CAD/Euros/Pesos, I just call and they can order it for me.

When I was a teenager, my WF account was my main account, and every single time I went into the bank they tried to sign me up for a checking account. Wasn't surprised one bit when the scandal hit. (Fortunately, they never created any accounts for me.)

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#315

Post by sillysaurus3 »

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…

Cars are really essential things: lose your car and you may be unable to take a child to school, unable to shop for food, or even unable to get to work. It's a pity that can't be undone.

There's an app called Getaround (https://www.getaround.com/) which works really well for this, if you live in a big city.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#316

Post by s73v3r_ »

djschnei wrote: post #219
dumbfounder wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Conscientious objection" to taxes means you wouldn't pay taxes, it doesn't mean you just complain about it. You can't do that and stay a US Citizen and not go to jail.

I guess I just don't care enough to ruin my life over it. It's a pretty interesting thing to think about, actually. To think that a bloody revolution was sparked over much less than what we put up with today... It's almost like Stockholm Syndrome.

That revolution was fought because there was no representation in the body that levied the taxes. We do have representation in the body that levies taxes now.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#317

Post by dgzl »

tzs wrote: post #311
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…

> 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. This part probably can reasonably be handled with a spreadsheet at home, so if you can't find a bank that supports it…

I don't agree that managing a spreadsheet to keep track of money folders is reasonable, when we live in the modern day off technology. I too have longed for having custom bank accounts with the strict purpose of keeping certain money separate from other money. My savings account keeps money for several purposes, but anyone looking at it would just see a single sum.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#318

Post by gnopgnip »

ohples wrote: post #259
Karunamon wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Workaround for both of these things are postal money orders. PMO's are basically checks in every way that matter, to the point where I've yet to find anyone who won't let me use one if they accept checks. $1.95 per $1000 is pretty reasonable as far as fees go. If you want to deposit cash, you just get a money order for the amount, make it out to yourself, and use their photo check deposit. Funds available next busine…

Yeah except a lot of debit cards have a $500 daily transaction limit.

They usually have a limit for withdrawing cash, but not a limit for POS purchases.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#319

Post by coliveira »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #273
coliveira wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banks don't do anything useful that cannot be provided by other means. They are completely useless. The only thing that banks do is to provide credit against things you already currently own, like mortgages and commercial loans. But these things could very easily be provided by an official agency. For example, if you don't pay your monthly mortgage you just lose the house and an official agency will deal with the sal…

So... Your alternative to banks is banks, but public sector, and you expect this to improve the bureaucracy level?

It doesn't need to be the public sector directly. What I mean is that banks are not using their own money to do what they do, so it does't make sense to let them charge interest. There could just be a set of regulated institutions that charge fixed fees (independent of the amount of the operation) to perform these tasks, which basically consist of converting one form of wealth (real state or business assets) into monthly obligations.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#320

Post by pwinnski »

ddingus wrote: post #174
ghostly_s wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not my job.

Yes, but there are two issues here. One is getting your trouble resolved. Sadly that means doing some work you shouldn't have to at present. The other is sharing all those experiences so that we can garner momentum to change things.

Both problems can be resolved by moving your accounts to a credit union, and encouraging others to do the same.
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