[HN Gopher] Wells Fargo to pay $3.7B for mistreating customers
___________________________________________________________________
Wells Fargo to pay $3.7B for mistreating customers
Author : DocFeind
Score : 185 points
Date : 2022-12-20 16:03 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (finance.yahoo.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (finance.yahoo.com)
| runako wrote:
| 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.
| sitkack wrote:
| Who went to jail for these crimes? People lost their houses and
| their transportation to work.
|
| I am all for a corporate death penalty.
| jimt1234 wrote:
| Can't we just "put these issues behind us"? Sheesh.
| </sarcasm>
| bob1029 wrote:
| 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 a special procedure to prevent bank runs.
|
| I think the best course of action would be to vacate the Wells
| Fargo board (and all officers), replacing them with members
| sourced from other US financial institutions.
| moloch-hai wrote:
| So, still no indictments of executives responsible?
| smm11 wrote:
| WF needs to go away. They pretend to be good and do good, and
| they just can't help but scam everyone.
| ProAm wrote:
| WIth two massive scandals within 5 years I think this bank should
| be broken up as part of its punishment. It's clearly too big to
| run an honest consumer safe business.
| fabianhjr wrote:
| What do you mean broken up?
|
| It should be seized and either converted into a credit union
| (give ownership to the affected people) or a state run non-
| profit banking service. (And also implement the proposals for
| the postal service to offer banking services)
|
| That would avoid both a lot of smaller wells fargos doing worse
| things and further financial damage to the economy, clients,
| and workers of splitting up a private company.
| twblalock wrote:
| If people really think nationalization is a reasonable
| solution, I'd rather not punish banks at all.
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| > WIth two massive scandals...
|
| Oh, honey
| [deleted]
| twblalock wrote:
| What about the 268,000 employees who work at Wells Fargo, 99%
| of whom had nothing to do with this?
|
| Most of those employees are just normal people trying to make a
| living, and it would be wrong to screw them because their
| bosses, who they never met or had anything to do with, did
| something wrong.
|
| Shutting down a company is the nuclear option -- it hurts many
| people who did nothing wrong, including most of the employees
| and the shareholders. It is not justice.
| ProAm wrote:
| 1) Breaking up does not mean shut down. They just need to be
| split into smaller pieces.
|
| 2) A vacuum provide ample opportunity for these people to
| start a new, honest bank as if there will be a need for it.
|
| 3) Sometimes evil just needs to be shutdown, Im sorry these
| people are working for a criminal organization, someone
| should have spoken up (Whistleblower money is huge for these
| types of things).
| johnny_b_g wrote:
| > "What about the 268,000 employees who work at Wells Fargo,
| 99% of whom had nothing to do with this?"
|
| Boo-fukken-hoo. They were all part of the problem - the
| grease of the machinery if you will; something _this_ bad
| doesn 't go unnoticed by _so many_ people. This was clearly
| an "inside job" with many, _many_ people involved
| internally.
|
| I would have no sympathy for any of them, even if they'd end
| up losing their own homes as a result (sweet, sweet irony
| that would be!)
| pksebben wrote:
| I'm more worried about their 70 million customers than the
| relatively paltry 300k employees
| theptip wrote:
| Broken up != shut down.
|
| Without advocating for/against the proposal, to clarify:
| typically this means either business units are spun out as
| smaller companies, or sold off to competitors. You'd expect
| some job losses due to consolidation but it's not like you
| are closing down all of the branches and sending everyone
| working there home.
| twblalock wrote:
| How exactly would you break up Wells Fargo into a subset of
| businesses that had a chance of surviving on their own?
|
| This is especially bad for a bank. Customers would freak
| out and leave. I can't find a single historical example of
| a bank breakup that didn't result in the destruction of the
| entire business.
| kodyo wrote:
| Customers freaking out and leaving would be awesome.
| twblalock wrote:
| Destruction of jobs and services != justice.
| kodyo wrote:
| The availability of jobs should be a symptom of good
| business, not an end goal that justifies the ongoing
| depravity of a business.
| ProAm wrote:
| > Destruction of jobs and services != justice.
|
| But it does send a message to the broader industry.
| Sometimes a few rouge cancer cells can kill the entire
| host. And this is the second time around for them.
| roywiggins wrote:
| It's not that they _deserve_ to lose their jobs. There
| were probably lots of honest people working at Theranos!
| That 's not a good reason to have kept Theranos around,
| though.
|
| Like, asbestos miners losing their jobs was a necessary
| result of shutting down the asbestos industry. It's not
| that it's fair, but it's not a reason to keep mining
| asbestos. Obviously _ideally_ Wells Fargo could be
| reformed somehow, but the "corporate death penalty"[0]
| exists for a reason!
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_dissolution
| michaelmrose wrote:
| It's assets should be liquided. Shareholders should be given
| exactly nothing. Let people consider that when choosing who to
| do business with.
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.ph/cjnkX
| obblekk wrote:
| 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 do
| everything else right while dealing quietly.
|
| Incidents like this make it easier for me to understand "protest
| voting" against the system politically. Not sure of constructive
| ways to prevent this more broadly.
| mistermann wrote:
| > Incidents like this make it easier for me to understand
| "protest voting" against the system politically. Not sure of
| constructive ways to prevent this more broadly.
|
| One useful thing a person could do is try to come up with a
| means of teaching a larger percentage of the population to have
| the ability to think in the manner that you have here. It is a
| very tricky problem space, but the payoffs could be huge.
| walrus01 wrote:
| > 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.
|
| It makes one realize that if you were put in such a disastrous
| position in life, the theoretical concept of an armed marxist
| uprising is not the most absurd thing ever conceived. And what
| root causes might possibly motivate groups of people towards
| such a thing.
|
| The other poster replying to the same thread here says:
|
| > " The fact that people experience this and then somehow don't
| say "burn it all down" is miraculous. "
| willcipriano wrote:
| I'm reminded of this song by the late Trevor Moore:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TMHCw3RqulY
| pksebben wrote:
| what an incredible loss. he was a national treasure.
| mymacbook wrote:
| I agree, but why do we need to make it 50+ hours? What if they
| only worked 35 hours a week with horrible shifts at different
| times and no consistency at a non-physically demanding job?
| Work is still work unless you're living your passion, the
| mainstream outside of tech work to put food on the table and
| they put up with a lot compared to the worst days we have in
| tech. Anyway just frustrated lately with this idea you have to
| work 60 or 80 hours a week instead of strategically.
| pc86 wrote:
| Not the GP but I use 50+ hours as an example often because
| most people have worked unpaid overtime at one point in their
| life. Most people haven't done your strangely specific multi-
| job 35 hour thing.
|
| It's about having a relatable example, that's it.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _then losing their home for no reason_
|
| Do we have more detail on how these homes were lost? It sounds
| like Wells Fargo refused, improperly, to modify a mortgage.
| mbg721 wrote:
| The fact that people experience this and then somehow _don 't_
| say "burn it all down" is miraculous.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| I just watched a younger man bring his elderly and
| handicapped father into a Planet Fitness to take a shower
| because they were both homeless.
|
| I am homeless as well.
|
| That fine should all go to ending homlessness. And if you
| vote for the D or R you are voting for the same party; the O
| Party, as in Oligarchs.
| azemetre wrote:
| I'm sorry but if one thing America should have learned over
| the last six years is that the two parties are nothing
| alike, equating them as the same and making a poor faith
| effort that voting is useless is extremely moronic.
| pxc wrote:
| Neither party is willing to solve homelessness by
| _actually fucking housing people_ , and you're calling a
| homeless person a moron because their assessment of the
| two parties which, to avoid disturbing the existing
| economic order, mutually assent to that _permanent state
| of crisis_ , doesn't include enough conciliatory language
| for you about how Orange Man Bad? Jesus Christ.
| water554 wrote:
| So to be clear, you are saying my tax money should be
| used to house the homeless, at exorbitant rates, while I
| cannot afford to buy house myself.
|
| I don't agree with this. I don't think homelessness can
| be solved by building more housing. Not sure if you have
| lived near homeless encampments before. If you know you
| know.
| kelipso wrote:
| It's like Maslow's hierarchy of needs...if you're wealthy
| enough, you can afford to distinguish between the two
| parties; if you're not, the two parties are the exact
| same.
| Zigurd wrote:
| I sympathize with that view, but nearly every decision
| you make, every day, at every price level, about
| everything, is a choice between flawed alternatives.
| sophacles wrote:
| They often do say "burn it all down".... But in the process
| of losing their home and car they end up homeless or in
| public housing. Since "everyone" _knows_ folks on the streets
| and on welfare /assistance programs are just scum who are
| gaming the system to take away what hard-working, honest
| people earn (in the form of taxes), their pleas are ignored.
|
| Ever wonder why the rich folks are often the loudest about
| that sort of framing? It's (in part anyway) because it lets
| them get away with the sort of shenanigans Well's Fargo just
| got slapped on the wrist for.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I was unable to obtain a government backed mortgage for a
| decade because LexisNexis Risk Solutions was reporting a
| judgement inaccurately on my risk profile that they would not
| remove until I had a lawyer file suit against them and
| notified the CFPB. I received a $600 check as part of a $21M
| class action settlement [1]. I was lucky, and had the means
| to obtain creative financing (non-QM) when needed. Others are
| not so lucky.
|
| I share this story because once you have experienced
| something like this, it is _totally_ understandable why
| people want to burn parts of the system down. Sometimes,
| they're not wrong. There is a special place in hell for the
| people behind these corporate transgressions, who seemingly
| never face sufficient punishment for the harm they cause.
|
| [1] https://www.lienandjudgmentdisputes.com/lang/en/
| mbg721 wrote:
| I agree 100%; what can a layman like me do to fix it?
| [deleted]
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| You're not going to like my answer. _I_ don't like my
| answer. It's never ending work.
|
| Always vote, run for office if you can, and/or become and
| stay engaged as a citizen activist. See something? Report
| it to regulators. Think something's up? Go digging.
| Engage with other folks who are doing the same and
| provide logistical support if able to.
|
| I spend thousands of dollars a year on FOIA fees and
| attorney opinion and correspondence costs, but I have the
| means and the time. Overarching thesis is "Find someone
| to help and help them." -DeviantOllam [1] of "Lawyer.
| Passport. Locksmith. Gun." Saintcon talk fame [2].
|
| [1] https://twitter.com/deviantollam
|
| [2] https://youtu.be/6ihrGNGesfI
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| I don't know if this is what you intend, but it sounds
| like you're baiting an answer about vigilante style
| "justice" to the executives/board members of these
| misbehaving corporations.
|
| That would be counterproductive and probably only cause
| them to treat us with less empathy than they do already.
| johnfn wrote:
| I'm not advocating for "vigilante justice" either, but if
| that's the clearest / first thought you have when someone
| authentically asks "what can I do," that's probably a
| problem :P
| FunnyBadger wrote:
| hdhdhdh88 wrote:
| If possible, leave USA. There are political systems
| around the world that aren't broken and there are some
| that are actually being fixed by voters (e.g. Australia).
| But USA is broken for at least our lifetimes.
|
| You only live once.
| gretch wrote:
| The reason those other places around the world aren't
| broken* is because people had the mentality of putting in
| hard work toward the future. If everyone shared what you
| thought and fled at a moment of hardship, the whole world
| would go to shit really fast.
|
| *your opinion, not mine. I don't think USA is that bad of
| a place and I don't put Australia on a pedestal.
| Kye wrote:
| The CFPB is so good. It's one of a small number of federal
| agencies that actually has teeth. I went 30 rounds with PNC
| after they devoured what was left of Simple before someone
| suggested filing a CFPB complaint. Basically, I received
| some mail for the account despite being assured it was
| closed _before_ the Simple closure.
|
| I asked for a letter stating in no uncertain terms that the
| account was closed and that I wouldn't be liable for
| anything if they screwed up. They _bombarded_ me with
| emails and calls for a week trying to avoid working through
| the CFPB before finally answering the complaint with what I
| asked for. I was adamant that it happen with the CFPB so
| their statement would be on file. Now the PDF is there if
| the bank gives me any trouble.
|
| People report similar success filing FCC complaints to get
| action from phone companies and ISPs that otherwise ignore
| them.
| Meekro wrote:
| I get what you mean, but what's the alternative? How _should_
| you behave if you 're exempt from normal social boundaries
| because of your personal tragedy? Shout at random people? Throw
| things? Punch some guy in the face?
|
| Seems to me it's better to try and be kind, and treat others
| right despite your horrible situation. The person you're
| treating cruelly because of your personal trauma could easily
| be going through a trauma worse than yours.
|
| Apologies if I misunderstood what you were getting at, though.
| I wasn't clear on which social boundaries you'd propose to
| exempt people from.
| obblekk wrote:
| Good question, but I don't know. I'm not trying to recommend
| anything. Not sure it's even solvable.
|
| Reading this article prompted this observation about myself.
|
| I do wonder how often I have been wrong to get frustrated
| with someone, rather than extend more grace. I'll try to
| remember to consider this in the future.
| aschearer wrote:
| No clue why you're being downvoted, what you say is the
| correct response. Suffering is all around us and deep, but
| that's not license to inflict more of it on others.
| kodyo wrote:
| Banks would rightly collapse if people took their business to
| credit unions. No random violence required.
| pksebben wrote:
| the issue is that it's really, really hard to get that
| message out to everyone and have them understand the
| importance and the reasoning.
|
| to paraphrase Frank Herbert, it is the mark of a human that
| they will remain in the trap, that they can kill the hunter
| and thus remove a threat to their species.
| dimitrios1 wrote:
| Credit unions are all the rage when the economy is roaring,
| but they are typically the first to run into issues or fold
| on first sight of troubled waters. Their history is full of
| examples of having to be rescued by the federal government,
| including all the times commercial banks had to be rescued.
|
| The main difference in my view is struggling commercial
| banks get absorbed, where as struggling credit unions
| close.
|
| I am not sure which one is better, but I am wary of all the
| calls to go all in on credit unions. They've been available
| for almost a century now. They have a noble goal in that
| they've always tried to serve those in need, but I am not
| sure they are the solution.
| kodyo wrote:
| I did a thought experiment. If FDIC and NCUA deposit
| insurance didn't exist, would I trust a bank of a credit
| union more with my deposits? I landed with credit unions
| due to the overt malfeasance of banks.
|
| The FDIC exists to keep banks afloat, because they're
| untrustworthy on their own.
| LastTrain wrote:
| If everyone moved their money to credit unions, they'd
| become just as bad as banks.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| I don't consider size to be the primary determiner of how
| banks operate re: good or bad. I consider the ownership
| model to primarily determine incentives and behavior.
| They are, of course, are not uncorrelated, but rather
| when attributing primary cause, I see credit unions
| incentives aligned with their clientele because they are
| one and the same. Whereas banks have a larger discrepancy
| between owners and customers.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| A bank exists to serve the interests of their
| shareholders, a credit union exists to serve the
| interests of their members. Unless you happen to be a
| significant shareholder in your bank, credit unions are
| more aligned with your interests.
| pwinnski wrote:
| I don't think much of this is true. While _corporate_
| credit unions did participate in TARP[0], for example,
| that 's not the common perception. Not only were they
| primarily _corporate_ credit unions rather than consumer
| credit unions, far fewer of them participated in the
| program than banks: around 20% as many.
|
| For people, credit union accounts are federally insured
| just like bank accounts are, but credit unions are
| typically much more resilient than banks given the
| additional restrictions on how much leverage they can
| engage in. They close less often than banks, and also
| seem to be more likely to merge than close[1], contrary
| to your claim.
|
| You're welcome to keep banking elsewhere, but it's all
| credit unions for me and my extended family.
|
| 0. https://thefinancialbrand.com/news/bank-culture/tarp-
| on-cred...
|
| 1. https://www.bankrate.com/banking/credit-unions/list-
| of-faile...
| dimitrios1 wrote:
| Perhaps I summarized incorrectly, I was getting most of
| that information from here https://ncua.gov/about-
| ncua/historical-timeline
|
| (your linked sources are horrible sources just in case
| you were not aware: both are paid media fronts designed
| to drive revenue through clicks, not reliable sources)
| vkou wrote:
| The alternative is to hold the institutions that inflict this
| suffering on people proportionately accountable for it.
|
| One of the reasons we don't, is because the socially required
| reaction to this abuse is to suck it up, and suffer in
| silence.
|
| What is the equivalent of a bank having its home wrongly
| taken away from it? Locking the doors on one of its branch
| offices and boarding it up for a few months?
|
| There's an enormous level of asymmetry in the damage a large
| institution can inflict on a person, either by accident, or
| malice, compared the reverse. And that's not okay, and we
| shouldn't consider it to be okay. We need to do better.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| The solution is to weaken the liability limitation of LLCs.
| If a company willfully breaks the law, its shareholders
| need to be held responsible, in proportion to their ability
| to affect change in the the company.
| muffinman26 wrote:
| My understanding was that the GP wasn't saying that people
| _should_ commit violence in the face of such a severe
| personal and institutional tragedy, but that we have this
| idea that people in tough enough situations reach a point
| where they 're no longer in a place to act rationally. The
| surprise is that more people don't snap.
| techsupporter wrote:
| > I get what you mean, but what's the alternative? How should
| you behave if you're exempt from normal social boundaries
| because of your personal tragedy? Shout at random people?
| Throw things? Punch some guy in the face?
|
| I don't mean to put words in obblekk's mouth (text box) so
| what I perceived them as meaning is: I don't think the person
| you're replying to was advocating for direct person-on-person
| action. When we see people protesting or pushing back against
| or loudly saying "this is wrong and I won't have it and
| neither should you" kinds of things, we should consider how
| our personal situation could rapidly change to be like
| theirs. And, in a lot of cases, _would_ have been like theirs
| but for some skill at leveraging a few strokes of
| uncontrollable luck.
|
| To me, it's like when people complain that "those damn
| unionized trash truck drivers are making $90,000 with a lot
| of overtime and a pension." Why is the response to try to
| tear them down, when the correct, to my mind, question is
| "why don't I have that, too?"
| rayiner wrote:
| > To me, it's like when people complain that "those damn
| unionized trash truck drivers are making $90,000 with a lot
| of overtime and a pension." Why is the response to try to
| tear them down, when the correct, to my mind, question is
| "why don't I have that, too?
|
| Because if total salary income were uniformly distributed
| across the population, the average would be like $80,000 a
| year.
| badrabbit wrote:
| It is with bitterness and misery people learn that sometimes
| violence is neccessary.
| sizzle wrote:
| I can't even afford a home right now on a tech salary with sky
| high rent paying off my landlords 2% refi'd mortgage and
| student loans making it impossible at 6-7% fed interest rate
| hikes and inflated home prices after the insane COVID housing
| price bubble increase.
|
| I feel like life won't start for another 5+ years for people
| like me, unless we gamble on being underwater on an inflated
| mortgage entering at the peak of the housing market paying more
| for a fraction of the home you could get just 1-2 year ago. You
| can't even refi an underwater mortgage, anyone have anny advice
| for people in my unenviable position?
| nerdponx wrote:
| Same here. I wasn't financially prepared to buy a house at
| insanely inflated Covid prices while interest rates were down
| in the 2% range, and I'm not excited to to buy a house at 7%
| while prices are still substantially higher than pre-Covid
| levels. Meanwhile rentals for anything other than a tiny box
| are just as expensive as a mortgage at those rates.
|
| I don't understand how people who do not have 6-figure tech
| salaries are expected to have anything other than a poverty
| lifestyle when housing is so expensive.
|
| I also don't understand these well-dressed young families
| parading around Boston and New York with their expensive baby
| carriages and $75k SUVs. Did I miss a memo on how to get rich
| at 30? Are they all going broke living like that? Did they
| all inherit a lot of money? Do they live in tiny apartments?
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| I wish people would stop referring to 'pre-Covid levels'.
| We're never going back to that. At this point, it's been
| years. The government inflated away everyone's wealth &
| debt, what we got was rampant inflation. There is no 'undo'
| button on this.
| rayiner wrote:
| You would be surprised at how much family help those
| families often have. I'm not talking generational wealth.
| Often just upper middle class parents who saved prudently
| and did well in the real estate market who can afford to
| gift $500,000 for a house.
| algog wrote:
| You and me both. Please share the memo when you it.
| __derek__ wrote:
| > an inflated mortgage entering at the peak of the housing
| market
|
| We are _well_ past the peak of the housing market.
| pcorsaro wrote:
| Houses aren't selling in hours anymore, sure. A ton in my
| area are sitting for days, but prices haven't come down all
| that much.
| __derek__ wrote:
| Median days on market is up, sale-to-list is back below
| 100%, price drops are a thing again, etc. Come spring, we
| should see the first normal housing market since before
| the pandemic.
| sieabahlpark wrote:
| bityard wrote:
| I don't mean to marginalize your frustration, but I feel like
| you may have unrealistic expectations.
|
| First, you have a tech industry salary, which is probably at
| least twice as much as the median wage, if not more. Not only
| is it white-collar work with practically no risk to your
| physical safety (assuming you exercise, eat right, etc), but
| monetarily this puts you _way_ ahead of most people right out
| of the gate.
|
| If you literally can't find a home to buy (assuming you want
| to buy one), then either you live in an HCOL area (in which
| case, owning property was _always_ a fantasy even among the
| highly-paid), or you aren't looking hard enough.
|
| As a landlord, I can assure you that landlords have never
| gotten 2% mortgages on their properties, unless
| landlord==bank or some ridiculously well-connected
| billionaire.
|
| Except for 2008, the housing market has _always_ been at a
| peak. Prices may flatline if we head into a (worse) recession
| but they are not going down to where they were again. 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 there is room for
| nuance here that I won't get into.)
|
| In the US, the vast majority of people _never_ pay off their
| mortgage until late in life, if all at. This is because the
| "normal" thing to do is to buy a house and "upgrade" two or
| three times until retirement. When interest rates were low,
| it didn't even make financial sense to pay off a mortgage
| because the money could be put to better use buying
| investments.
|
| Even with my high-paying jobs, I didn't manage to get above
| $0 in net worth until I was about 40. I think that's pretty
| good in a society where an increasing number of people have
| to work their whole lives for a number of factors, not all of
| which have to do with wall street and a broken government.
|
| I don't know your age, but it sounds like you're still closer
| to the beginning of your career. Either way, life has
| "started" for you already, it's happening right now, and it
| will be even better if you make a concerted effort to
| understand the world and your place in it right now, and
| figure out which decisions you need to make that will benefit
| you the most in the future.
|
| Since you asked for it, my advise is to live well under your
| means, save aggressively, set goals, and never stop learning.
| If you want to challenge yourself, look into a concept called
| "early retirement." Good luck.
| moneycantbuy wrote:
| spoken like a true landlord. "good luck" defending your
| property when more and more people can't afford renting or
| owning, and are starving yet armed.
| dvt wrote:
| > Since you asked for it, my advise is to live well under
| your means, save aggressively, set goals, and never stop
| learning. If you want to challenge yourself, look into a
| concept called "early retirement." Good luck.
|
| Ah yes, glamorizing the hustle. You'll surely make it if
| you just "work hard enough," wink wink. Working a 9-5
| career is (and has been) a net negative ROI for at least 2
| decades, if not more. To be completely honest, this is why
| I'm on HN: doing your own startup is one of the few
| relatively low risk gambles one can take.
|
| Thinking that it's okay for an entire generation
| (millennials), scratch that, two generations, (also gen-Z
| now)--that literally can't afford housing where they work
| is beyond societally harmful. Birth rates will continue
| plummeting, among other things.
|
| This is all happening because Obama didn't have the balls
| to just let the shoddy banks crash and burn, and we
| continued QE for around a decade to alleviate blowback from
| 2008. This, combined with other factors (a lax policy
| w.r.t. foreign investments in real estate), will screw us
| in the long run.
| kneebonian wrote:
| So an important point that people seem to be always
| ignoring in the housing discussion is that of the
| boomers, and I don't mean as in "the boomers bad they
| screwed us" sense. I mean in a demographic sense.
|
| The boomers were the largest generation of Americans and
| also are close to retiring or starting to retire, at the
| same time their children's children are entering the
| workforce, all of which were still relatively large
| demographics. This has created a temporary situation
| where we have a lot of people currently in the property
| market, because the boomers haven't quite retired and
| left their homes at the same time the millenials and
| zoomers are entering the market.
|
| In another 10 years as the boomers begin to move to
| retirement homes, and assisted living centers, and die
| off (the move to sedentary office work along with poor
| dietary habits led to this) we'll see the pressure on the
| housing market ease as the massive generation currently
| occupying homes, the boomers, cease to occupy these homes
| and put them back into circulation.
|
| The biggest risk in this case is that investment firms,
| such as Goldman and Berkshire try and steal the housing
| without ever intending to release onto the market.
|
| If that happens I would say "reasonable men [will end up
| doing] unreasonable things", Madame Guillotine becomes a
| popular political figure, and trees start getting watered
| and "Wo unto them that join house to house, that lay
| field to field, till there be no place, that they may be
| placed alone in the midst of the earth!"[1]
|
| 1. Isaiah 5:8
| [deleted]
| Merad wrote:
| > [...] doing your own startup is one of the few
| relatively low risk gambles one can take.
|
| I was under the impression that around 90% of startups
| failed. Was I mistaken, have the numbers changed, or do
| we just have very different thresholds for "low risk"?
| dvt wrote:
| High failure rate [?] high risk. Everything with a high
| upside will have a high failure rate, but working 10
| hours on your own startup a week is definitely lower risk
| than gambling with options (which is what
| /r/wallstreetbets is doing) or gambling with crypto (even
| higher risk).
|
| I know people that made low 7 figures last year flipping
| NFTs, but the risk profile (to me, at least) was
| untenable. At least in Vegas you get free drinks.
| bill_joy_fanboy wrote:
| > 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 there
| is room for nuance here that I won't get into.)
|
| You only list two options: (1) budget better, (2) give in
| to renting forever. I agree that, if the above poster wants
| a better shot, he should do his best to budget well.
| However, he should also help support policies that tax the
| dickens out of people who own more than their primary
| residence and maybe 1-2 other properties. There is more at
| stake here than just his own situation.
| rayiner wrote:
| Figure out some way to opt out of the insanity of American
| knowledge-work metro areas. My wife and I rage quit DC back
| in 2016 and bought a house in an exurban county. In part
| because the mortgage payment on our 3,000 square foot
| waterfront house begins with a "1" we had two more kids and
| my wife quit her job to start a business. Hopefully with
| remote work becoming more accepted that will be a more
| practical option for more people than it used to be.
| bequanna wrote:
| The Fed was responsible for low mortgage rates because they
| were purchasing MBS.
|
| Mortgage rates are currently back to something more
| historically normal.
|
| If you're upset about anything, it should be a about rates
| being so low for so long, which drove up home prices.
| shitlord wrote:
| If you're living in a tech hub and really want to own a home
| in the short term, get a remote job and move somewhere
| cheaper. It sucks, but these places aren't going to get
| cheaper anytime soon. Meanwhile there's plenty of property in
| the rest of the country that's more affordable. When the
| market recovers, you might be able to sell your home for a
| profit and move back.
| kneebonian wrote:
| Seriously, now that starlink is out there are wide swathes
| of the country that become a lot more feasible to live and
| work in.
|
| I am in a growing town that is quickly turning into a
| sprawling suburbia that I wanted to escape from originally
| and already have my eye on a little town that is a lot more
| slow paced and remote.
| mrtksn wrote:
| I have a question, do people really protest in designated areas
| in the US? I know sometimes there are riots but from what I can
| see on the media it looks like people gather somewhere close to
| the subject and chant and wave banners.
|
| I find it strange because in Europe the norm is to disturb the
| daily life. Farmers spray policemen with milk, train operators
| stop working, the younger and more anarchist ones burn cars and
| clash with the police, the more pacifist ones tie or glue
| themselves to something making a huge scene.
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| In the US, the police (and people not involved in the
| protests) will happily beat you up, run you over, or shoot
| and kill you for disruptive protests.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| While police violence is a problem, this comment is wildly
| off base.
| sophacles wrote:
| Be fair. They'll do that for peaceful non-disruptive
| protests. Usually the term riot is applied after the cops
| start tear-gassing and the news can re-frame footage of
| people running away as "dangerous rioters".
|
| Fun fact: most people arrested at protests end up arrested
| because they try to follow police instructions to disperse.
| The police keep directing them into a closed off area (aka
| bottling) and then arrest them in for failure to disperse.
| AYBABTME wrote:
| I mean, they won't just happily do _all_ of that. You're
| exaggerating a bit and using extreme cases as if they were
| the norm. In particular you may say this with a straight
| face only if you're unaware of how this actually is the
| common reality of other countries.
|
| We've all heard of cases of police running over crowds in
| some circumstances, or of the odd shooting (actually
| when?). But that's not what the average protester in the US
| will realistically, honestly deal with on the average
| protest.
| sophacles wrote:
| I've participated in quite a bit of peaceful protesting.
| I've never been shot at, but the number of times I've
| been teargassed for being in a park or on a sidewalk
| during the "permitted hours" and in the "designated zone"
| is much higher than the expected 0.
| feet wrote:
| In the US I bet any farmer who sprays police with milk would
| be instantly shot
| bombcar wrote:
| Considering the inability of US police to successfully
| shoot farmers who spray police with _bullets_ I think your
| bet might fail.
| feet wrote:
| But consider this: what if the farmers have a darker skin
| color
| xyzzyz wrote:
| Two years ago, we had protesters literally set police
| precinct on fire, and not only nobody got shot, but in fact
| nobody faced any consequences.
| sophacles wrote:
| This is a lie. They were convicted and sentenced to
| prison: https://www.police1.com/george-floyd-
| protest/articles/man-se...
|
| Also worth noting that the people who started the fire
| were there because they thought people protesting police
| violence was bad - they weren't dangerous liberals or
| antifa or whatever other nonsense you'll spew: they were
| far-right "bugaloo boys"
| zdragnar wrote:
| They didn't just set it on fire, they literally burned it
| to the ground. I watched live streams of the police
| abandoning the precinct building.
|
| Elsewhere, people were firing fireworks mortars into
| occupied federal buildings, with little to no recourse.
|
| "Good" protesters were overshadowed in media coverage of
| "bad" protesters, but I also saw a grocery store get
| completely ransacked for no reason other than people
| decided they could. There was so much damage that the
| store was closed for months to renovate, turning a poor
| neighborhood into a food desert.
| sophacles wrote:
| Those "bad" protesters were from the "pro police" side:
| https://www.police1.com/george-floyd-
| protest/articles/man-se...
| karaterobot wrote:
| > I have a question, do people really protest in designated
| areas in the US?
|
| No, people can protest wherever they want as a rule, under
| the freedom of assembly clause in the first amendment. It's
| pretty clear, and is well established (as are the
| exceptions). The wording of Article 12 in the E.U.
| fundamental rights charter is, by my reading, purposefully
| more restrictive than how the Supreme Court has generally
| interpreted "Freedom of Assembly" in the U.S., but I am not
| an expert on that.
|
| In practice, you sometimes see things like "Free Speech
| Zones", which are indeed Orwellian, but also controversial
| and exceptional. You shouldn't think of them as the rule,
| because you also see things like the CHOP in Seattle.
| threads2 wrote:
| Reminds me of It's a Wonderful Life.
| aschearer wrote:
| A long time ago someone wrote, "they have nothing to lose but
| their chains" and predicted massive social upheaval as a
| result. That person felt this was an inevitable consequence of
| capitalism and its tendency to concentrate wealth. I suspect
| they were imagining people like in your example, only worse
| off.
|
| Maybe redirecting that anger against another segment of society
| is a way to avoid social upheaval while maintaining the status
| quo? That anger does seem prone to being co-opted, though.
| groffee wrote:
| That "person" was Rousseau and his writings contributed to
| the French Revolution.
| aschearer wrote:
| Close. It was Marx I was thinking of. Not endorsing him,
| but it's interesting to consider historical materialism and
| today's events -- especially in light of the parent's
| comment.
| johnny_b_g wrote:
| Gotta love the WF fanbois here upvoting twblalock and downvoting
| everybody else.
|
| Oh noes! I talked about voting! That troll pvg will no doubt be
| here in short order to whine about it (in complete violation of
| the rules too!)
| game_the0ry wrote:
| Great, now WF management will lay off staff, most of which were
| not involved in any king of wrong-doing. And management gets to
| keep their bonuses.
|
| Penalizing Wells Fargo _as a company_ will not solve the problem
| of institutional-scale bank fraud, but clawing back the
| compensation of executives _will_.
|
| Accountability and skin-in-the-game need to make a comeback.
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| No prison?
| snakeboy wrote:
| Not 100% pertinent to this thread, but does anyone have
| experience changing US bank account while living overseas? I
| currently have my old account linked to my parent's address, and
| I'm worried it would be a huge headache to try and open a new
| account from abroad without a proper address. This is the only
| thing that is stopping me from closing my WF account.
| jimt1234 wrote:
| I used to be a Wells Fargo customer, just before all the news of
| shady "operating practices". One day I was trying to login to
| their online banking web site, but my password wasn't working and
| the reset functionality also wasn't working. I called their
| customer support, and the rep told me to make sure I was using
| the correct password. She then _read my password to me_. Later
| that day I drove to the branch and closed my account. I 've been
| with my local credit union ever since.
| calibas wrote:
| Some good reading on Wells Fargo: https://www.theroot.com/ghetto-
| loans-for-mud-people-17908695...
|
| And a little story from my own experience. I was completely
| broke, and they slapped me with a big fine for not having enough
| money in my account. Then the teller smugly explained that I
| should be thankful because they could have fined me even more if
| they wanted to... I closed my account at that point.
|
| And for people who don't know what it's like being poor, here's
| an article on how expensive it actually is:
| https://finmasters.com/cost-of-being-poor/
| indy wrote:
| Reminded of the Louis C.K. sketch about being broke:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3jLufZx3IM
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| How in the hell is it legal to charge someone a fee for having
| a balance below $X?
| rqtwteye wrote:
| How far do these companies have to go to be closed down as
| criminal organisation? I wonder the same about the Catholic
| Church. How many crimes have to be uncovered before they get
| marked as beyond rehabilitation?
| supernova87a wrote:
| After so many incidents with Wells Fargo, doesn't this point to
| something deeply ingrained in that company's culture? Such that
| even executives cannot change something about the system at the
| company that they have created?
|
| There must be some bad, little, everyday incentives permeating
| working at WF that causes the people there to produce these bad
| behaviors year after year. You can blame and change the execs,
| but they're not even in control of (or maybe even aware of?) the
| systems that are making people behave the way they do?
| ectopod wrote:
| Why on earth would you think this? The executives don't change
| the system because it continues to make them money and they
| suffer no consequences for the company's malfeasance. Maybe
| this fine is enough to rebalance the equation but I doubt it.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| I worked for a Wells Fargo joint venture when I was younger,
| doing credit research for mortgages during the early 00's
| bubble.
|
| I very quickly came to the conclusion that all of their quality
| assurance rules were designed to whitewash, not catch, fraud,
| let alone simple mistakes. No one cared if what was going on
| our reports was total nonsense, so long as it was nonsense that
| fit the rules the underwriters had.
|
| Basically the job was to research negative items on credit
| reports, and if I could get the creditor to say one of a dozen
| things, I could take it off the report and get it rescored. So
| a lot of phone calling.
|
| There was a guy in my unit that'd been there years. He made
| less than 1 or 2 phone calls a day, but yet cleared the exceeds
| expectations number of reports consistently. I realized he was
| just never calling anyone, and writing up total fabricated
| notes on the files. But because the quality assurance sampled
| random calls, not random files, this was totally accepted.
|
| This was great for WF: workers would commit fraud, but only in
| the direction that got more loans sold, and if it ever got
| noticed, they could just fire the call center worker and claim
| it was a "bad apple."
|
| When I saw the story about WF branch managers opening accounts
| in customers names without permission I wasn't surprised in the
| slightest.
|
| I believe the entire company leadership is consciously behind
| this sort of winking internal corruption that just so happens
| to increase the bottom line and bonuses for everyone involved.
| kodyo wrote:
| There is nothing forcing anybody to bank with Wells Fargo.
| Their customers are clearly content, because they're still
| Wells Fargo customers.
|
| Edit: shit, someone else pointed out that they buy mortgages.
| Nevermind.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| A previous company I worked for also used them for 401Ks, but
| I believe they've since sold off that business unit.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| My oldest credit file is a credit card that I don't use
| anymore but it is owned by WF.
|
| If I close it, my credit score is negatively impacted by
| losing a decades old credit line. I don't particularly care
| about my credit score, and this sort of lock-in is pretty low
| friction, but changing banks can have costs.
|
| I hate them, over the years that I banked with them, they
| have consistently been a bad bank. I think I have at least
| two complaints that went to the CFPB with them (both ended in
| my favor). I switched my banking activity to another
| institution years ago, but I do still have accounts open with
| them.
|
| I'm a financially saavy rich white dude with a degree, and I
| still find it hard to sever the relationship. Imagine how
| lesser advantaged people feel. If you're choice is between WF
| and BOA because of geography or whatever, and you're used to
| financial institutions being shitty, why bother switching
| from one predatory institution to another?
| bena wrote:
| I was about to say, Wells Fargo was sold my mortgage
| literally the day after I signed it. I originated the
| mortgage with a local-ish bank and it still wound up in
| their hands.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| Yet they can STILL operate as a bank I cannot get a loan because
| I have outstanding medical debt?????
|
| (looking for my pitchfork...)
| willcipriano wrote:
| My father taught me that if you are going to steal from someone
| you never steal his tools or his vehicle, because those are the
| means he uses to make a living and you dont want to be
| responsible for his kids going hungry. Given this history of
| Wells Fargo this isn't a one off accident. It's often said but
| people really need to go to prison for this, not club fed either,
| send them to be with the other carjackers.
| LastTrain wrote:
| My dad told me not to steal.
| klyrs wrote:
| Nice anecdote. What does the data say about abstinence-only
| education?
| bill_joy_fanboy wrote:
| Gonna need to see the data on why I need to show you data.
| humanizersequel wrote:
| The idea of treating sex and theft in the same class of
| human inevitability is laughable.
| tourist2d wrote:
| So it's better to teach children what targets they should
| rape/murder instead? Your take is quite brain-dead.
| googlryas wrote:
| A hierarchy of things to steal is a weird father-son lesson I
| must say.
| bombcar wrote:
| It's probably more along the lines of "never mess with a
| man's means of providing for his family, because that will be
| when you push him so far he has nothing left to lose."
| klyrs wrote:
| There are greater sins: we have a military, you know. Raising
| a child means teaching nuance in ethics. I've had similar
| conversations with my kid, arising from questions like "why
| do robbers exist?" "Why are some people homeless?" "Why do
| murderers exist?"
|
| Ethics is _full_ of gray areas, and refusing to engage in
| hard conversations increases the risk that your kid will make
| the wrong call if they ever find themselves in a shitty
| situation.
| googlryas wrote:
| You can teach these lessons without engaging in an explicit
| discussion of "If you're going to steal, steal X and not
| Y". Just the intersection of "stealing is very bad unless
| absolutely necessary" and "some things are more important
| to people than other things" seems good enough to
| understand this.
|
| I've never stolen anything, except for a few hearts, and
| was taught to never steal, and yet I can somehow piece
| together that it is better to steal something trivial to a
| person rather than the means of their survival if need be.
| klyrs wrote:
| Teach kids to connect the dots. But on the important
| stuff, connect the dots. Repetition is also important,
| and jarring imagery is a memory aid.
| willcipriano wrote:
| First off so far I haven't had need to steal something so
| it hasn't come up in the literal sense. But I have found
| wisdom in the general principle there. Let's say we are
| playing cards and I'm winning, I'd walk away rather than
| let you put the deed to your house on the table.
| Sometimes in life you may need to hurt someone, before
| you do think about everyone else who is going to be hurt
| as well and make sure it's worth it.
| bumby wrote:
| I agree that they main point of ethics is providing a
| decision framework in the grey areas (if they were clear-
| cut, there would be no discussion).
|
| But that seems off-place here. It leads to the question
| about "when is it okay to steal?" There's an obvious
| "defense of necessity", but that doesn't stop at stealing
| someone's means to a living. If it's legal to steal food in
| a disaster, it doesn't matter if that food comes from a
| neighbor's pantry or the bakers shelfs. The colloquialism
| described seems like one of those heuristics that feels
| true at first glance but quickly breaks down on further
| inspection (which is what a lot of ethical debate seeks to
| accomplish).
| klyrs wrote:
| It's important to discuss alternatives, teach problem
| solving, etc. But at the end of the day, teaching your
| kid to starve to death because stealing is always wrong
| is only going to erode their trust in you.
|
| This isn't something that I brought up with my kid, btw.
| He led the conversation, he was asking honest and
| innocent questions. Shutting the door in his face loses
| the opportunity to discuss nuanced ethics when he's
| receptive to the conversation. If I drive, then it's just
| an abstract lecture.
| bumby wrote:
| > _But at the end of the day, teaching your kid to starve
| to death because stealing is always wrong is only going
| to erode their trust in you._
|
| This is a misinterpretation of my point, though. When I
| brought up the "defense of necessity", it was a direct
| acknowledgement that sometimes stealing is ok (or is at
| least, the more moral action).
|
| However, communicating vague heuristics based on shaky
| principles can set the ground for rationalization that
| leads to immoral behavior. When we read about abhorrent
| behavior (like in the featured article), it's more often
| than not the result of a line of rationalizations rooted
| in human biases rather than a principled moral stance.
| All I'm saying is the OP's guideline of "don't steal
| tools or a vehicle" isn't a particularly good first
| principle (for one, as the previous example shows, it
| could still result in starving).
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| Not really. It was probably a father telling his son, "I got
| you. Someone steals my means of taking care of you, don't be
| surprised I go stomp some ass."
| tcmart14 wrote:
| It can be. My dad would tell me growing up about home
| protection something along the lines of, "if someone breaks
| in and just wants the TV in the living room (or other living
| room type items), it ain't worth it to put my body in harm's
| way to stop them over a $300 TV. If they start coming back to
| the bedroom area of the house, its a different ballgame
| because they aren't looking just to steal something." Now as
| an adult with a two story town home, I have the same line of
| thinking. If someone breaks in is just staying down stairs,
| it ain't worth it. Once they hit the stairs to come to the
| bedrooms, its a different ballgame.
|
| And yea on stealing things. I remember someone locally was
| stealing Cadillac symbols on cars, it made big news, and my
| dad telling me something like, "don't assume the person is a
| bad person. They could just be feeding their kids." This was
| during the 2008-crisis and with an emphasis of, yea they are
| stealing, but it is rather benign in comparison to what they
| could be stealing.
| pertymcpert wrote:
| Why did your father say that to you?
| bb88 wrote:
| That's awesome that WF is paying $3.7B. Unfortunately the victims
| will likely never see any of that. That money will just go into
| the treasury.
|
| I would personally like to see the CPFB have the power to sue
| banks on behalf of customers to get financial redress. This money
| needs to get back to the people who suffered the most.
|
| Hell, paying only $3.7B with a pinky promise you won't do it
| again would still be profitable if you made $5B on the scheme.
| conanbatt wrote:
| If they did not get the money into their treasuries, they would
| not have incentives to do this at all.
|
| This very same thing happens with the SEC - they just keep the
| fines. How do people not think this is robbery is beyond me.
| nequo wrote:
| > That money will just go into the treasury.
|
| My reading of the article is different. This reads as though
| $2bn of the $3.7bn was to go directly to the consumers whom
| Wells Fargo harmed: a $3.7 billion settlement
| with federal regulators, including a record $1.7 billion fine
| [...] The agreement with the Consumer Financial Protection
| Bureau includes more than $2 billion in "redress to consumers"
| [...] The CFPB is ordering Wells Fargo to refund billions of
| dollars to consumers across the country.
| bb88 wrote:
| And that will be pennies on the dollar for what consumers
| lost. There should be 1:1 redress + damages. Not just
| "refunds".
| nequo wrote:
| I agree that there is a lot more harm caused than the sheer
| monetary side of it. Don't do business with Wells Fargo if
| you can avoid it. But as far as the scale of the redress
| goes, the CFPB announcement[1] has an assessment of the
| total harm caused: Wells Fargo had
| systematic failures in its servicing of automobile loans
| that resulted in $1.3 billion in harm across more than 11
| million accounts.
|
| Also a detailed list of how much Wells Fargo is to pay for
| which group of harmed consumers:
| Specifically, Wells Fargo will have to pay:
| More than $1.3 billion in consumer redress for affected
| auto lending accounts. More than $500 million in
| consumer redress for affected deposit accounts, including
| $205 million for illegal surprise overdraft fees.
| Nearly $200 million in consumer redress for affected
| mortgage servicing accounts.
|
| [1] https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-
| order...
| Tempest1981 wrote:
| So what's the least-evil bank that has a network of cash machines
| everywhere? (Yes, still need cash for certain things)
|
| Edit: also with a non-buggy mobile app? My credit union has the
| _worst_ app. They don 't seem capable of improving it... probably
| outsourced.
| runako wrote:
| Many small local banks will refund ATM fees nationwide. I
| prefer small banks because it is much more possible to build a
| relationship with them to get better service.
| ProAm wrote:
| Credit Unions
| downrightmike wrote:
| USAA
| Tempest1981 wrote:
| Can non-US-military join? I thought not.
| nullc wrote:
| For many years USAA banking was open to everyone, but it
| isn't now.
|
| I'm not sure how great a loss it is-- USAA's formerly
| amazing quality of service has declined dramatically in the
| last two years, at least on the banking side.
| threads2 wrote:
| You could use a credit union.
| bushbaba wrote:
| Bank of America. That is if you have 20k+ of funds with them to
| get their preferred rewards.
| https://promotions.bankofamerica.com/preferredrewards/en
| Arrath wrote:
| https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/11/feds-bank-
| of-a...
|
| I'd hardly call BofA a good group.
| boring_twenties wrote:
| For cash Schwab is the best, they refund all ATM fees
| worldwide. There is no catch, except you have to open a
| brokerage account, but there is no minimum deposit.
| acchow wrote:
| Charles Schwab will refund your ATM fees from any ATM.
|
| So will First Republic. So will TD Bank. Many Credit unions do
| the same.
| rcpt wrote:
| Schwab for everything only problem is that sometimes I need
| cash and don't want a bunch of 20s
| acchow wrote:
| Find another bank's ATM that spits out a choice of
| 20/50/100s
| reducesuffering wrote:
| Capital One has no-charge partner ATM's everywhere (7/11, CVS,
| gas stations, there's like 100 in a 10-mile radius of me), some
| of the best interest rates (currently 3.3%), some of the best
| credit cards (3% cash back food/entertainment w/ 0$ annual),
| and best software tech / mobile app (#1 bank app on iOS, 4.9/5
| rating). I'm not affiliated in anyway, I just am pleased with
| all their products for the last 10 years.
| trap_goes_hot wrote:
| The new kids get arrested (SBF) but the old institutional dudes
| continue to rob us blind.
| ourmandave wrote:
| The fine was levied by the Consumer Fraud Protection Agency
| (CFPB).
|
| Republican senators want to move CFPB under congressional annual
| funding and a five-member commission.
|
| Which sounds a lot like Defund the Bank Police.
|
| https://www.cucollaborate.com/blogs/republicans-urge-quick-p...
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| I haven't had any account frozen due to "suspicions" so far, but
| read about many such horrific cases. Hopefully, this fine will
| make financial institutions think twice before twiddling with
| people's accounts.
| Tempest1981 wrote:
| Also here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34069579
| dang wrote:
| That one was later so we'll merge it hither. Thanks!
| obblekk wrote:
| Out of curiosity, do you union upvoters set for merges, or
| something similar? Not sure if that would be good, just
| curious.
| dang wrote:
| Happy to answer but I don't understand the question!
| ourmandave wrote:
| I wonder if anyone is keeping score of the fines levied for all
| their f _ckery.
|
| Hey, there is!
|
| https://violationtracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/wells-farg...
|
| _Current Parent Company Name: Wells Fargo
|
| Penalty total since 2000: $22,081,458,643
|
| Number of records: 229
| tambeb wrote:
| I haven't been with Wells Fargo for a few years now, but I did
| get a check for about $200 in the mail the other day due to some
| fees that had been processed in an "unintended manner"
| apparently.
| naikrovek wrote:
| finally a somewhat sizeable fine for these turkeys.
|
| they will continue until it is not profitable to do so. large
| fines are basically the only leverage that the CFPB has that can
| really hurt, and historically fines for this thing have been very
| low, to my knowledge, which has not done a lot to deter the
| behavior that they are trying to deter.
| silisili wrote:
| Why is it -always- Wells Fargo. There are thousands of banks out
| there, and Wells Fargo is not even close to being the biggest.
| But why are they in the news every year for some illegal
| dealings? It feels like they should be broken up or something at
| this point.
| throwayyy479087 wrote:
| Ghetto Loans for Mud People should have resulted in the
| corporate death penalty.
| silisili wrote:
| I had to Google that one. Why would anyone do business with
| these people?
| e40 wrote:
| Leadership (or lack of).
| twblalock wrote:
| The other banks are better at not getting caught. Wells Fargo
| has more scrutiny too, because of some previous times they got
| caught.
|
| BofA or Citi or Chase are no different, they are just better at
| getting away with it.
| justin66 wrote:
| The last time they had a big-ticket punishment [0] for their
| psychotic corporate behavior, it was because they had created
| _millions_ of fraudulent accounts. There is no way to keep
| that quiet or "get away with it," they just assumed they
| would not be meaningfully punished.
|
| What you've posted is completely wrong, but it's the answer
| to a question I had, which was _why the fuck does anyone
| still bank with Wells Fargo?_ There must be a lot of people
| cynical enough to think all banks are that bad.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_Fargo_cross-
| selling_scan...
| briffle wrote:
| In the previous case, the company was fined $185Million.
| The CEO was personally fined $20M in a later lawsuits.
|
| The former CEO's total compensation was > $130M. That
| sounds much more like a cost of doing business, and a great
| risk. Heck, fines are classified as an expense for taxes.
| justin66 wrote:
| I agree that management wasn't taking the punishment
| seriously, but the CFPB's fine was just part of what the
| company suffered. I'm pretty sure they've been attacked
| via pretty much every means of civil or criminal
| enforcement there is, deservedly so.
|
| _Nothing that should keep you from banking with them,_
| mind you... ahem.
| throw101010 wrote:
| On one side of the transaction you see _cost of business_
| in these fines, on the other side I see governments
| deliberately sizing the "fines" so these businesses can
| keep hurting citizens year after year, and the same
| governments bailing out the same banks when they
| compeltely mess up the global economy with their
| unlimited greed (see the 2008 crisis, and the upcoming
| debt crise*s*).
|
| At some point these are not fines, they just represent
| the governments' way of taking their share on the
| criminal revenues of these banks while they are guiding
| us straight into the next iceberg. And there is no
| incentive on either side to make it stop.
|
| When it comes to solutions, I'm reading that the system
| has to burn to the ground or worse even on HN now... I'm
| personally of the mind that systems can only change when
| incentives exist in alternatives. As much as HN dislikes
| crypto, Bitcoin is one which has taken a principled
| approach from the start and its community and incentives
| always presented it as a way to opt-out of the current
| financial system backed by central-banks/governments
| (powered by traditional banking). If banks stop being
| provided with ways to infinitely create debt with
| politicians behind them promoting it to be able to
| pretend that everything is fine economically under them,
| you might see things change... but for this we can't
| continue playing their game by their rules. We need to
| opt-out.
|
| If other radical but non-violent ways to solve this
| exists I am willing to listen and study them... crisis
| after crisis, I'm becoming more and more cynical about
| it.
| [deleted]
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| > Why is it -always- Wells Fargo.
|
| And why are they still in business!?
| paxys wrote:
| > and Wells Fargo is not even close to being the biggest
|
| Wells Fargo is the 2nd largest mortgage lender in the USA
| (after Quicken), #4 bank in terms of assets under management,
| #3 by market cap, #2 in number of branches. It is absolutely
| massive.
| silisili wrote:
| Fair point. I didn't mean to imply they were just some dinky
| little bank - they are quite large. But they are AFAICT third
| or fourth largest, and nearly 3x smaller than Chase. But
| Chase (nor the other top 3) don't have a fraction of the
| illegal dealings that WF seems to come up with.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| I don't understand why anyone still does business with Wells
| Fargo.
| efsavage wrote:
| I doubt many people really _want_ to use them, any more than
| they really _want_ to use any other megabank. A lot of people
| just use the bank that 's closest to their house/work, thinking
| (and often not wrong from a retail point of view) that banks
| are fungible.
|
| As a former "customer", in many cases, like ours, it's because
| they use their capital/position to buy loans from other
| businesses, and there's nothing the borrower can do about it.
| rabuse wrote:
| I refuse to ever use their products, after their numerous
| scandals.
| etchalon wrote:
| I didn't have much of a choice. They bought our mortgage.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| Example number ten thousand of why the "vote with your
| dollars and don't do business with them" defense of
| capitalism fails completely in practice.
| whartung wrote:
| When the opportunity presented itself, I refinanced our
| mortgage with Chase.
|
| A key goal was to get out from underneath WF.
|
| Every mortgage that I've had has ended up in WF. WF is a
| mortgage black hole, they buy everything and it's pretty
| clear that a vast majority of the mortgage industry is to
| act as service bureaus for WF. I completely understand both
| business models, I just don't want to play.
|
| When I got the new mortgage, I mentioned to the person
| handling our application that I was hopeful they would not
| be selling my paper to WF. Chase is not a mere broker,
| they're the whole kit. He said he couldn't guarantee they
| wouldn't sell the paper, and I understood that. But loans
| are Chases business too, so far they're holding on to it
| (typically they're sold in the first few months).
|
| So, for the moment I'm out from underneath WF, and have
| been for several years.
| twblalock wrote:
| > Example number ten thousand of why the "vote with your
| dollars and don't do business with them" defense of
| capitalism fails completely in practice.
|
| Example number ten thousand of how everything bad is blamed
| on "capitalism." It's a lazy, shallow, knee-jerk reaction
| that is plaguing this site and ought to be forbidden by the
| guidelines.
|
| When you apply for a mortgage you are informed in advance
| that it might be sold. In fact, when I got mine I was told
| it _would_ be sold. This information is given to every
| applicant as a legal requirement and people who don 't like
| it don't need to go through with the application.
|
| There are also significant legal requirements for mortgage
| servicers (such as Wells Fargo) which constrain them to
| such an extent that they are pretty much interchangeable.
| This is far from a free market. If you have a beef with
| this system, you should take it out on Congress and the
| CFPB, not "capitalism."
| johnny_b_g wrote:
| > "When you apply for a mortgage you are informed in
| advance that it might be sold. In fact, when I got mine I
| was told it would be sold. This information is given to
| every applicant as a legal requirement and people who
| don't like it don't need to go through with the
| application."
|
| Ah yes, the good ol' American practice of victim blaming:
| _" Well, we specifically told you we'd screw you over;
| look, it's in paragraph 151, subsection 15, article G of
| the document you signed as we hovered over you
| impatiently that time you came in when we didn't tell you
| we were closing 10 mins after that appointment we setup
| the day before the deadline to sign... so it's really
| YOUR fault!"_
| twblalock wrote:
| If you agree to something, you are not a victim, you are
| a participant.
|
| Don't agree to things you don't like and claim to be a
| victim, unless you had a gun to your head. We should have
| higher expectations than that.
|
| Don't like the mortgage process? Don't get a mortgage.
| Pay cash, or rent. The world doesn't owe you the exact
| terms you want. That's not the fault of capitalism, it's
| as bad or worse under any other system.
|
| You also seem confused about how the process works.
| Nobody hovers over you under time pressure. Escrow takes
| like 30 days, and during that time the lenders will freak
| out about any reason to _prevent_ you from getting the
| mortgage. They are more worried about getting screwed
| than the applicants are.
| techsupporter wrote:
| > If you agree to something, you are not a victim, you
| are a participant.
|
| If you cannot give informed or willing consent, you are
| not a participant, you are a victim. Impenetrable, hard
| to read terms are not informed consent, particularly when
| the terms are in a contract of adhesion.
|
| > Don't like the mortgage process? Don't get a mortgage.
| Pay cash, or rent.
|
| Couple of points here. First, I take it you've never read
| a modern leasing contract. In most jurisdictions,
| especially where the large corporate landlords have
| almost entirely conquered the market, they are just as
| opaque. Landlord associations promulgate so-called
| "standard leases" that contain myriad difficult to
| comprehend terms.
|
| > The world doesn't owe you the exact terms you want.
| That's not the fault of capitalism
|
| Perhaps it does not, but yes, it is the fault of
| capitalism. When all of the participants in a market
| operate in virtually identical ways because the optimal
| path, under capitalism, is to legalese first and ask
| questions later, that is absolutely a failure caused by
| the capitalistic system. It all stems from the idea that,
| under capitalism, an individual or group's highest and
| best course of outcome is to feverishly grab for every
| single available resource to hoard it against use by
| others. Along the way, some of those resources are (often
| temporarily) lent out at an inflated rate to ensure that
| more resources are grabbed.
|
| This works fine when it comes to a mobile phone device or
| a book or a toy. Those are optional, often called
| "luxury", goods that we can leave or take as we desire.
| Housing, water, food, transportation, energy; we need all
| of these to live as humans, yet that's where capitalism
| extracts its most gains because the more desperate
| someone is for one of these, the more resources they will
| throw in to fill the need they must fill.
| johnny_b_g wrote:
| LOL, whatever you say Japetto!
| pksebben wrote:
| your analysis of the situation as being interchangeable
| is rendered invalid by the story you're responding to,
| and claiming "you should have read the fine print" is
| clearly bad faith in an era where EULAs are a half mile
| long. Also, to say "don't buy it if you don't like it"
| ignores a whole ton of a nuanced and complex situation,
| where there might not be better alternatives.
|
| I would be more than happy to discuss why it is some of
| us have beef with capitalism, if you're open to a level
| headed discussion.
|
| The idea that a free market allows the creation of
| opportunity and choice is powerful, but what I think many
| of us have seen happen is that a free market doesn't
| remain free, as wealthier interests will move to cement
| power through use of funds. The banks are the most prone
| example of this I can think of.
| njdvndsjkvn wrote:
| twblalock wrote:
| I never said anything about reading the fine print. I had
| to sign a short, readable form by hand which was
| explained to me in person by the lender. They are very,
| very up front about this (which is also required by law,
| which means everyone else in the US who got a mortgage in
| the past decade or two has also signed this form).
| kmeisthax wrote:
| >When you apply for a mortgage you are informed in
| advance that it might be sold.
|
| Ok, and where can I go get the mortgages that won't be
| sold and have comparable financing terms to the ones that
| do?
|
| Oh wait, those don't exist (or cost way more)? Hmm. I
| see.
|
| Here's the thing: free markets can only ever hope to work
| in a world where people have total freedom of
| association. If I can't take my business elsewhere, then
| I'm not dealing with a private corporation anymore. I'm
| dealing with government with extra steps.
|
| Likewise, capitalism and free markets aren't
| interchangeable terms. Free markets are a system of
| resource allocation, and capitalism is just private
| ownership of an enterprise. There's been plenty of
| examples of brutally repressive regimes which still had
| private capital ownership, free markets be damned.
| Because free markets _do not actually maximize profits_
| for capitalist owners.
|
| So I think it's fair to blame capitalism, even if there's
| some government floating around in there, too. Consider
| them joint-and-severally liable.
| IronWolve wrote:
| They also buy loans, sometimes you just end up with them.
| sophacles wrote:
| I didn't have a choice. I got a mortgage from a local credit
| union who immediately sold it off to wells.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| Many wealthy people are inclined because they'll have the
| lowest mortgage rates caused by a 0.5% interest rate deduction
| with a temporary asset transfer of $1m. Some people will take
| the 5% as opposed to 5.5% and save $300/month, because whoever
| originates your mortgage may just sell it to WF anyway.
| phaedryx wrote:
| A story from when I was in college:
|
| My backpack got stolen and it had my checkbook in it. I went
| into Wells Fargo (I became their customer because they bought
| my regular bank) to figure out what to do. I was told that I
| had to close my account (connected to the checkbook) and open a
| new one. Kinda weird, but I went with it. They sent me a new
| checkbook and new ATM card. Landlord only took payment with
| checks so I wrote a check with my new checkbook; it bounced. It
| was really surprising because I thought I had the funds. I
| check with my balance with my new ATM card; plenty of money. I
| call customer service to figure out what was going on. It turns
| out that they had created _two_ new accounts for me. One was
| connected to my checkbook and one to my ATM card. The one for
| my checkbook had a bunch of fines for the bounced check and
| fines for not paying the fines. The one for my ATM card had
| plenty. They tried several times to open _another_ account to
| combine the two accounts together, which would have forced me
| to indirectly pay the fines that weren 't my fault; I objected.
| In process of all of this they canceled my new ATM card
| accidentally.
|
| I went into my local branch and withdrew all of my money and
| canceled all of my accounts (I had somehow ended up with 4). I
| ended up paying my tuition, rent, etc. with cash which was a
| huge pain.
|
| It is the worst experience I've had with any bank and it was
| with many different employees.
| my_usernam3 wrote:
| Ouch, I have a similar anecdote where they signed me up for a
| completely incorrect account when I was young. Some 100k
| minimum trading account when I was a broke 19 years old
| looking for the simplest type of bank account possible that I
| could access from hometown and college. Saw $15 monthly
| charges, went in, found out the problem, took my money and
| business elsewhere and haven't looked back.
| yborg wrote:
| This was directly caused by their policy of incenting new
| accounts which was the last thing they were sanctioned for.
| [deleted]
| yborg wrote:
| https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/wfc/wells-fargo/gr...
|
| ~5% of their 2021 gross profits. A hearty laugh goes around the
| Wells Fargo boardroom, and some new scheme will be devised to
| defraud their unwitting customers. Without criminal liability,
| this is no disincentive at all.
| conductr wrote:
| > "Wells Fargo's rinse-repeat cycle of violating the law has
| harmed millions of American families," CFPB Director Rohit Chopra
| said in the statement. "The CFPB is ordering Wells Fargo to
| refund billions of dollars to consumers across the country. This
| is an important initial step for accountability and long-term
| reform of this repeat offender."
|
| > Shares of the company rose 0.7% to $42.11 at 9:57 a.m. in New
| York.
|
| Sooo... the market likes this slap on the wrist
| Max-q wrote:
| The market had probably expected a worse punishment.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| more_corn wrote:
| But not to the customers themselves. God forbid the mistreated
| party ever see anything from the fines.
| cornstalks wrote:
| > The agreement with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
| includes more than $2 billion in "redress to consumers," [...]
|
| Looks like funds have been allocated specifically for that.
| Whether $2 billion is enough or not, I don't know.
| tyingq wrote:
| Though perhaps this makes a civil suit more likely to succeed?
| miguelazo wrote:
| No fine is enough for these giant banks that repeatedly engage in
| this behavior. They should be broken up, disbanded, and the
| responsible officers tried on criminal charges.
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