The most recent cost to Wells Fargo & Co. arising out of its fake-account scandal is a $480 settlement with its shareholders. The settlement resolves the main class-action suit brought by shareholders targeting the bank’s allegedly deficient disclosures related to its sales practices. Continue reading “Wells Fargo Settles Shareholder Suit Over Fake Accounts for $480 Million”
Wells Fargo has been sued again, this time the complaint alleges that it bilked home loan borrowers by charging them extra fees when their applications were delayed — even when it was the bank’s fault.
A class action has been filed against Wells Fargo alleging that its Merchant Services misleads customers and charged excessive fees for its credit- and debit-card-processing services.
Continue reading “Class action filed against Wells Fargo Merchant Services for excessive fees”
According to a number of reports, Wells Fargo automatically signed up customers with auto loans for auto insurance, even if the customers were already covered by auto insurance.
Continue reading “Wells Fargo takes advantage of consumers again – this time for auto insurance”
Wells Fargo has agreed to pay $50 million to a class of more than 250,000 mortgage holders to settle claims that the bank improperly marked up fees for third-party home appraisals following loan defaults in California.
Continue reading “Wells Fargo settles class action over marked up fees for appraisals”
U.S. District Judge James Lawrence King ruled this week that Wells Fargo cannot force unnamed class members’ claims into arbitration in five lawsuits arising out of alleged improper re-ordering of overdraft fees that have been consolidated in multidistrict litigation in Florida.
Continue reading “Judge rejects Wells Fargo’s repeated bids to compel arbitration”
According to a story published in the Hill, Wells Fargo’s scandalous practice of secretly opening more than 2 million sham deposit and credit card accounts dragged on for at least five years, because Wells Fargo contract provisions blocked consumers from suing the bank in court. Continue reading “Wells Fargo got away with setting up sham accounts for 5 years because of forced arbitration clauses”
The Los Angeles Times reports that Wells Fargo customers are being forced into arbitration, even when bank employees fraudulently open accounts.
Continue reading “Even in cases of fraud, customers forced into arbitration”
Last month the plaintiffs of five Wells Fargo overdraft fee class action lawsuits won class certification for their cases.
Continue reading “Wells Fargo overdraft class action certified”
On June 8, the plaintiffs of five Wells Fargo overdraft fee class action lawsuits won class certification for their cases.
Continue reading “Wells Fargo overdraft class action certified”
U.S. District Judge William Alsup reinstated on Tuesday a penalty he first imposed in August 2010, saying the fourth-largest U.S. bank violated a California law that protects consumers against fraudulent misrepresentations.
Continue reading “$203 million verdict against Wells Fargo in excessive overdraft case reinstated”
Wells Fargo & Co. will pay nearly $13 million to put to rest a class action accusing it of receiving illegal kickbacks from its mortgage reinsurer, according to a deal signed off on by a Pennsylvania judge Friday.
The deal, which will amount to gross payments of $173 to each of the nearly 74,000 class members, resolves allegations that Wells Fargo accepted kickbacks from reinsurer North Star Mortgage Guaranty Reinsurance Co. in violation of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act of 1974.
Just as the holiday bills are about to come due, a federal appeals court Wednesday ruled that banks may post checking account withdrawals in a manner that allows them to garner higher overdraft fees.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously overturned a District Court injunction that prohibited Wells Fargo from charging Californians overdraft fees based on posting the most expensive debit-card transactions first. Continue reading “Ninth Circuit reverses District Court finding against Wells Fargo in excessive overdraft class action”
Accusing Wells Fargo & Co. of reneging on a sweeping mortgage-modification deal, a lawyer for troubled homeowners is trying to reopen a case involving risky “pick-a-pay” loans written during the housing bubble.
Legal filings last week claimed Wells Fargo failed to provide wide-ranging reductions of loan balances to delinquent borrowers as it had promised two years ago when it settled a combined national class-action suit. A bank spokeswoman strongly disputed the claim, saying it was riddled with errors. Continue reading “Wells Fargo not making loan modifications in accord with settlement”
A Kansas couple has filed a class action suit against Wells Fargo, accusing the nation’s largest mortgage lender of providing only “illusory trial loan modification programs” to borrowers facing foreclosure — without any intention of offering them permanent loan reductions.
The suit brings to light “dual-tracking,” a practice by lenders of offering mortgage loan modifications while initiating foreclosure proceedings against the same borrower during the same period. Continue reading “Wells Fargo faces class action over “dual tracking” practice”
According to a complaint filed in a federal RICO class action, Wells Fargo Bank and JPMorgan Chase charge homebuyers who go into default inflated fees and interest rates. Lead plaintiff Latara Bias claims the defendants, including Chase Home Finance, service almost 20 million mortgage loans, approximately 25 percent of the home loans made in the United States.
The class claims the defendants use an automated mortgage loan management system, and subsidiaries, to “fraudulently conceal their unlawful assessment of improperly marked-up or unnecessary fees for default-related services, cheating borrowers who can least afford it.” Continue reading “Wells Fargo Bank and JPMorgan Chase face RICO class action”
Judge King denied Wells Fargo’s motion to compel arbitration in the putative class action we have pending before him in MDL proceedings in the Southern District of Florida. The account agreements issued by Wells Fargo provided for permissive arbitration. That means if one party files in court, the other party has to immediately demand arbitration. These cases were filed in 2008, but Wells Fargo did not seek arbitration until April 27, 2011.
Further, Judge King had set a deadline in 2009 for Wells Fargo to file non-merit motions like motions to compel arbitration. Wells Fargo ignored this deadline.
The court recognized that the parties have done dozens of depositions across the country and have reviewed thousands of documents. This is a very good result for potential class members.
The court’s opinion can be found here: Wells Fargo Overdraft MDL.
A foreclosed homeowner filed a class action complaint on behalf of distressed homeowners residing in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The complaint was filed in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey against Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. and one of its principal foreclosure law firms. The caption of the Complaint, filed on October 24, 2011, is Giles v. Phelan Hallinan & Schmieg, LLP, 1:11-cv-06239 (D.N.J.).
The Complaint alleges that Wells Fargo and Phelan, Hallinan & Schmieg, a high-volume foreclosure law firm in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, engaged in a fraudulent scheme to “pile on” unlawful foreclosure fees from financially troubled families on the brink of losing their homes. The lawsuit contends that, to carry out the scheme, defendants systematically filed falsified complaints, affidavits and mortgage assignments to bring foreclosure actions in the name of parties without legal standing to sue. Continue reading “Foreclosed homeowners file RICO class action against Wells Fargo and its law firm”
Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and other banks may pay more to resolve claims over their alleged roles in the collapse of a $2.3 trillion mortgage-backed securities market if sophisticated investors are allowed to sue as a group with less savvy ones.
Class action status allows investors to pool financial and legal resources, giving them greater leverage to win larger settlements or verdicts. The banks, however, have a court ruling on their side that may help fend off such blockbuster cases. It says class status is barred because some investors are too sophisticated — in fact, because some of them are other banks, including JPMorgan. Continue reading “If class actions are certified, banks may pay more to resolve mortgage backed securities class actions”
In the latest legal fallout from the mortgage implosion, Wells Fargo & Co. has agreed to pay $590 million and accounting firm KPMG has agreed to pay $37 million to settle class action lawsuits brought by Wachovia bond holders and preferred shareholders centering on controversial “pick-a-pay” loans issued by Oakland’s World Savings and later Wachovia Corp. Wells Fargo purchased Wachovia Corp.
Wells Fargo and KPMG, which had audited the books of Charlotte, North Carolina-based Wachovia, said they had agreed to the settlement terms to avoid the expense and distractions of the litigation. Continue reading “Wells Fargo settles “Pick-a-Pay” loan class action for $627 million”
