Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 439 posts

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#381

Post by exolymph »

lsiebert wrote: post #337
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…

Yeah. I already had an account with Charles Schwab (based in San Francisco), and I set up a roth IRA for this year in about 5 minutes by myself, online. So it's not that financial institutions can't be good at this, it's that the big banks fundamentally don't care about customers who aren't wealthy or institutional in nature. But there are definitely alternatives like credit unions, online banks, and brokerage firms…

Schwab is huge, so I'm skeptical that your good experience with them supports the thesis that you stated.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#382

Post by avaika »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #352
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…

Fines don’t seem to be preventing these cheats from ripping off consumers. When a bank cheats its customers, they should be prohibited from providing those services for several years. Shut down their mortgage division and force them to sell it off. That is the only real penalty that has teeth.

Well, that's shooting own leg for government and people: 1. This is a business which generates taxes 2. This is a business which generates employment 3. This is a business which provides a service to people and current clients will suffer from shutdown.

If you can simply fine it hard enough to make them stop cheating like that in future, that should be more than enough. Simple fines to make cheats unprofitable should do the thing.

Also the rule "to shutdown" the entire division might be misused on the wrong way or to blackmail the business. Once you shut down the division, it's much harder to reverse it, than simply to return a fine.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#383

Post by avaika »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #363
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…

Will fines dissuade future dishonesty? Not likely. But jail time of the guilty decision makers would. Steal a candy bar? Go to jail. Knowingly ruin someone's life? No problem. The shareholders pay for it.

Why massively put people in jail for everything?

In most countries jails are no good to prisoners. They are used to isolate people from society, not to help people to become a better person. And society is putting tones of money to support penitentiary system.

I believe for economical crimes people who took the decision should be fined a lot and banned from taking positions where they can do the same things again. No need to isolate them from society. At least for the first time. The same for other crimes where people do not hurt or threaten to hurt other people.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#384

Post by rbanffy »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #364
chiefalchemist wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will fines dissuade future dishonesty? Not likely. But jail time of the guilty decision makers would. Steal a candy bar? Go to jail. Knowingly ruin someone's life? No problem. The shareholders pay for it.

Actually there is a lot of real world evidence that fines dissuade honesty.

Were the decision makers involved adequately punished? Will they ever do something like it again?

Fines dissuade from making exactly the same thing but that doesn't seem to prevent different kinds of scam.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#385

Post by mleonhard »

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…

"You Need A Budget" is excellent budgeting software that works like this. You can make separate mini accounts for different types of purchases. It imports transactions from nearly every bank and Venmo. It works on web and mobile. And the company sells subscriptions so you are the customer.

https://ynab.com/referral/?ref=RhsyymvEwUvLaJTk (If you sign up with this link then we both get a free month.)

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#386

Post by tachyonbeam »

avaika wrote: post #383
chiefalchemist wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will fines dissuade future dishonesty? Not likely. But jail time of the guilty decision makers would. Steal a candy bar? Go to jail. Knowingly ruin someone's life? No problem. The shareholders pay for it.

Why massively put people in jail for everything? In most countries jails are no good to prisoners. They are used to isolate people from society, not to help people to become a better person. And society is putting tones of money to support penitentiary system. I believe for economical crimes people who took the decision should be fined a lot and banned from taking positions where they can do the same things again. No…

I would tend to agree with you because I feel the point isn't to ruin these people's lives, but to prevent them from causing further harm. Banning them from ever working in economics and seizing a large chunk of their wealth could be effective. That being said, it would also do society some good to actually punish these people and make an example out of them. The way they are just allowed to collect a bonus and keep going, at the moment, is terrible, it only reinforce's the impression on Wall Street that they are above the law (which they effectively are). Putting them in jail, like normal people, would serve to correct that.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#387

Post by Retric »

avaika wrote: post #382
MichaelApproved wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fines don’t seem to be preventing these cheats from ripping off consumers. When a bank cheats its customers, they should be prohibited from providing those services for several years. Shut down their mortgage division and force them to sell it off. That is the only real penalty that has teeth.

Well, that's shooting own leg for government and people: 1. This is a business which generates taxes 2. This is a business which generates employment 3. This is a business which provides a service to people and current clients will suffer from shutdown. If you can simply fine it hard enough to make them stop cheating like that in future, that should be more than enough. Simple fines to make cheats unprofitable should…

If it's sold off then the buyer is going to serve the costumers and pay taxes so no real loss for society.

The larger issue is it's a minimal impact on the company and the people who actually commit ed the crimes.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#388

Post by keganunderwood »

rbanffy wrote: post #384
freddie_mercury wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually there is a lot of real world evidence that fines dissuade honesty.

Were the decision makers involved adequately punished? Will they ever do something like it again? Fines dissuade from making exactly the same thing but that doesn't seem to prevent different kinds of scam.

ZTE apparently paid bonuses to 30+ people even though that were involved in some kind of violation. I bet Wells Fargo well also pay the CEO and the board very handsomely.

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#389

Post by perpetualcrayon »

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…

I think it could be looked at another way also. What amount of potential earnings did they lose out on over the course of several years because the public are now aware they are potentially a dishonest (at least extremely careless) company to be avoided?

I still don't fill my gas tank at BP stations...

Re: Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines

#390

Post by arca_vorago »

avaika wrote: post #383
chiefalchemist wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will fines dissuade future dishonesty? Not likely. But jail time of the guilty decision makers would. Steal a candy bar? Go to jail. Knowingly ruin someone's life? No problem. The shareholders pay for it.

Why massively put people in jail for everything? In most countries jails are no good to prisoners. They are used to isolate people from society, not to help people to become a better person. And society is putting tones of money to support penitentiary system. I believe for economical crimes people who took the decision should be fined a lot and banned from taking positions where they can do the same things again. No…

>The same for other crimes where people do not hurt or threaten to hurt other people.

Isn't that the thing though? Don't these bankers actually hurt more people, and hurt them worse, than any violent criminal could? So the person who hurts one family gets jail but the one that hurts thousands "doesn't get to work in the industry" anymore? That sounds like hogwash to me.

Has everyone just forgotten about the principle of equality under the law?

Post reply on HN