Wells Fargo scams Customers. Wells Fargo was ordered by a federal judge in May 2013 to pay $203 million for a checking scam. The class action case accused Wells Fargo of imposing excessive overdraft fees and of misleading its customers in order to collect on more overdrafts. The bank stands accused of processing purchases from the largest to the smallest rather than in chronological order in order to trigger more overdraft fees, which were excessive anyway, at $25-$35 a pop.

Lawyer Richard McCune, who represented about one million current and former Wells Fargo customers in California, said, “Wells Fargo was profiting off its most vulnerable customers, and this (decision) holds the banks accountable.”

U.S. District Judge William Alsup on May 14 reinstated a penalty he first imposed in August 2010, ruling that Wells Fargo violated a California law that protects consumers against fraudulent misrepresentations. The decision punishes the nation’s fourth largest bank for what Judge Alsup called, “affirmatively misleading the class as to what (its) practice was, namely engaging in a practice likely to mislead the class to believe that processing would be done in chronological order.”

Bank of America paid $410 million and JPMorgan Chase paid $10 million to settle their portions of the nationwide litigation.

The case is Gutierrez et al v. Wells Fargo Bank NA, in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California.

by Matthews & Associates