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Wells Fargo to pay $3.7B for mistreating customers

finance.yahoo.com

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Re: Wells Fargo to pay $3.7B for mistreating customers

#321
post #150

Wells Fargo is the worst repeat offender in American consumer financial services. There should be serious discussions around withdrawing their banking license. It's incredibly difficult to get a banking license in this country, and it does not serve the public good to have this predatory institution operating under the aegis of the American government. Pull their license, let some new entrants into the market.

I agree their charter should effectively be revoked at this point. A de novo bank (i.e. being granted a new charter) is a near impossibility in the US. Something this difficult to obtain should be just as easy to lose. Unfortunately, the FDIC can't just waltz in and shut down the whole damn bank without causing a nation-wide panic attack. Similar to failed banks, something like this would need to be dealt with using…

> Similar to failed banks, something like this would need to be dealt with using a special procedure to prevent bank runs.

You could, I suppose, use exactly the same procedure you use for a failed bank, which is force them to auction off their assets and liabilities, rolling their depositors into other, better-behaved banks.

Re: Wells Fargo to pay $3.7B for mistreating customers

#322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really true that previous generations didn't have to sacrifice to buy homes? That seems patently false to me. First, previous generations were significantly more thrifty which meant more cash on hand. Don't believe me? Let's say you save 30 bucks a day starting at 20 (most of us can easily do that by controlling how much we eat out) - that means you have 110k in your bank for a down payment on your 30th birthda…

> Is it really true that previous generations didn't have to sacrifice to buy homes? That seems patently false to me. Take a look at average home price by year: https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/research/average-house-price... Now compare that to average wages: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/awidevelop.html

Now look at the double digit interest rates they paid on those mortgages. You pay the monthly payment, the top line number is largely irrelevant.

https://www.atlanticbay.com/knowledge-center/history-of-mort....

Re: Wells Fargo to pay $3.7B for mistreating customers

#323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First, you have a tech industry salary, which is probably at least twice as much as the median wage, if not more. This is exactly his point. If he can't make it with what he has going for him, who can? > You only options are to accept that and adjust your budget/income/location appropriately, or opt to rent forever, which is not at all a bad thing since owning a primary residence is never an investment. (Although t…

what about people that dont pay taxes i.e. every other chinese, saudi, indian, russian, EU and LATAM millionaire that owns several properties in miami, orlando, nyc, LA, dallas, houston, phoenix, etc. What about banks and REITs that are passthru entities for the same folk above ? What about SV out-of-staters that don't pay state taxes but work remote at places like LV, Salt Lake, or Boise ? You want to fleece your ow…

If coercing the wealthy on housing issues constitutes “fleecing”, then I’ll take several sweaters, please.

> but others you let just... walk in ?

My guy we can do both, we can fleece all the third and fourth home owners, foreign and domestic, it’ll be glorious, join us

Re: Wells Fargo to pay $3.7B for mistreating customers

#324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this is true, who is going to fix it and where will they come from? If this is not true, then ... well then you're just wrong.

I’m leaving for Western Europe, all of the tools I need for advocacy and accountability work just fine from over there (laptop and mobile device are all that is required). I’m unable to run for office, I am not an ideal candidate for various reasons. I want the country improved long term, but am unwilling to suffer in the short term because of, for lack of a better words, the malevolent and troglodytes. In the case o…

I don’t anticipate taking advantage of the advice, but can you share any references on navigating such a long term move to Europe? I’ve been told Portugal is a good starting point.

Re: Wells Fargo to pay $3.7B for mistreating customers

#325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are not talking about "90%+" here. This thread is in response to someone who "can't afford a house on a tech salary." Tech comp has been over 100K/year out of college for a while now, and even on somewhat less you should either be saving a ton or have much fat to trim in your expenditure.

OK well tech comp is very much not that high in the UK, so I guess we're not all in the same boat here. But the fact remains that things are objectively, numerically harder for us, and getting a lesson in life from those who had it easier is not very convincing.

// But the fact remains that things are objectively, numerically harder for us

So I never dug into this before but I found this interesting chart from the US government [1]

It does seem like a relatively smaller percentage of young people own homes today vs 40 years ago - but not as shocking as you'd imply:

Percentage of people Percentage of 35-40 who own a home: 1982: 70% 2021: 62%

So while the trend is down - it still seems like over a third of people under 35 own a home, and over 60% of those 35-40 do.

That sounds very far from impossible.

[1] https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/data/charts/fig07.pdf

Re: Wells Fargo to pay $3.7B for mistreating customers

#327
post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought my first two houses over the last 10 years and each time I thought we were at the peak, and I was way wrong. First mortgage had over 5% mortgage rate and 2nd was the same. Outside of closing costs mortgage rates are temporary (can always refi). Land is a finite resource. It should continue to go up.

You really think the people who got a <3.5% interest rate loan will let go of their properties in the next 5 years to purchase a 5%+ mortgage for a more expensive monthly payment? What incentive do they have?

I just let go of my 2.25% mortgage to move out to the boonies at 7%. It's painful but still makes sense given the cost of living difference between here and the insane Bay Area. I am admittedly gambling that rates will come back down to something at least in the middle within a few years, but who knows?

Re: Wells Fargo to pay $3.7B for mistreating customers

#328
post #9

I feel so much cognitive dissonance realizing that there are hard working people literally losing their home and shelter wrongly while I might be sitting across from them at any time, expecting them to behave within normal social boundaries. Imagine a family with a new born, working 50+ hours at a physically demanding job, making $80k/yr combined, and then losing their home for no reason... and then being expected to…

I don’t know how to say this that isn’t going to come off judgmental, but I’ll try: thank you for trying to see past your role and understand the people who are affected whether you could have any impact or not. It’s more than most people do.

Re: Wells Fargo to pay $3.7B for mistreating customers

#329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$30 a day is almost $1000 per month, that's completely unrealistic for 90+% of under 25s, most people don't hit that kind of saving power til they are 30. And I don't see any evidence in your post that previous generations did that? My parents certainly didn't, they started saving at 30 on teacher's salaries and bought a house three years later. That house (in Cambridge, UK) is now worth £800k, I can't afford that, d…

We are not talking about "90%+" here. This thread is in response to someone who "can't afford a house on a tech salary." Tech comp has been over 100K/year out of college for a while now, and even on somewhat less you should either be saving a ton or have much fat to trim in your expenditure.

It is true that good money can be made in tech, and that some companies pay > 100K/year out of college, but it's worth pointing out that even in the US this isn't true in general or in the majority of cases. There are a lot of people in tech making less than that even years out of college - it's largely a function of where you live and whether you land your first job at a handful of particular companies.

You can refer to https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/..., or https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/... - those people are all in tech, and most aren't new grads. Median salaries for "computer programmers" and "software developers" are 91K and 107K respectively.

Re: Wells Fargo to pay $3.7B for mistreating customers

#330
I’ll never see a single penny from WF, but I’ll also never forget they helped turn a smallish life catastrophe into a decade of my life being chaotic hell. They were not the root cause. They weren’t even systemically the worst challenge I faced. They were the gigantic multiplier on both though.

I had a persistent medical issue I couldn’t treat because it was determined by insurance companies that treatment would be elective. Not my insurance, mind you, I couldn’t afford any. But they got to decide whether I’d be able to get surgery on debt versus paying up front.

After months trying to find a solution, family footed the bill, somewhat gofundme style but strings attached. And I was expected to go fund them back. I dutifully obliged, as soon as I could go back to work. I sent the first check, 10% of the surgery…

That check sat gathering dust for over a year. I’ll never know why it got deposited, but WF knew it was illegal to honor it. They knew it didn’t matter what I had already been through, the check was expired and they could not legally honor it.

I had of course forgotten the check was written over a year later. When I got hit with compounding overdraft fees I couldn’t opt out of, they would not discuss the fact that they illegally processed my check. I’m supposed to be good for my checks, they said. So for a decade I was guilty of “fraud” because WF illegally debited my account and then hit me with recursive fees for illegally charging me money they couldn’t charge. My only recourse was to just hunker down and manage my money carefully as I always had, for ten years. 1/4 of my life so far was set back because they knew I couldn’t afford a lawyer to do anything about the law they admitted knowing they broke.

And that’s nothing compared to what they did to most of these victims.

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