Wells Fargo to charge $7 fee on more checking accounts

[truedelphi]

58. Some resources for your education:

From the Motley Fool

http://www.fool.com/investing/dividends-income/2008/10/21/why-wells-fargo-really-wanted-wachovia.aspx

Motley Fool also says that after the re-arranging of the balance sheets, WF acquired Wachovia for NOTHING. But then, what does Motley Fool know - they are after all, merely professionals who blog about such things as bank acquisitions for a living.


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Another article for your consideration
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/02/10/18707072.php?show_comments=1

printable version - fixed-width version
U.S. | Global Justice and Anti-Capitalism
Foreclose on Wells Fargo: So Many Reasons to Divest
by Jim Macdonald
Friday Feb 10th, 2012 10:10 PM

<snip>
I think everyone knows that Wells Fargo took over $35 billion in bailout money and is neck deep in the housing crisis – most recently being a party to a $26 billion settlement for a lawsuit brought by all 50 states regarding improprieties with foreclosures. What people don’t necessarily know, however, is Wells Fargo’s poor record on the environment, its ownership stake of corporations in the private prison industry, and charges it faces of discriminatory lending to African Americans and discriminatory practices against people with disabilities. Wells Fargo also spends a lot of the money it makes from your accounts on lobbying and political contributions.
<snip>

Let us take a look at some of the reasons why you should divest from big banks in general and Wells Fargo in particular. Wells Fargo Bank, headquartered in San Francisco, is the fourth largest bank in the United States and is the country’s largest mortgage provider. Last year, Wells Fargo’s net income was approximately $15 billion from $73 billion in gross profits.

Whatever you feel about profit, the bank ultimately is there not to serve its customers but to provide a profit for its shareholders. Therefore, there are often incentives for a bank to take actions that are not necessarily to the benefit of many of the bank's own customers.
<snip> In fact, in July 2011, the Federal Reserve levied an $85 million fine, the largest ever of its type, against Wells Fargo for falsifying documents and pushing borrowers to the high-interest subprime loans. Worse than that, there are charges that Wells Fargo has specifically targeted poorer, particularly African American, borrowers for these bad mortgages. The charges are serious enough that the Department of Justice is currently investigating Wells Fargo on those charges.

<snip>Wells Fargo received $36.9 billion in the bailout. Then, the government arranged the sale of Wachovia - a bank that was failing - to Wells Fargo in a sweet deal of about $1 per share. There were also relatively few legal consequences. An $85 million fine is nothing for a company that nets over $15 billion a year. Even a $4 billion share in a $26 billion settlement comes out to only $2,000 per person - a small consolation for ruining people's lives. It only amounts to one quarter of profits, and it was money the bank had already saved and accounted for.

The recent $26 billion settlement has to do with how Wells Fargo and other big banks dealt with foreclosing the properties of people who could no longer afford their homes because of high interest rates, a precipitous drop in home values, a lack of buyers, and the subsequent loss of jobs. Wells Fargo and other big banks often falsified foreclosure documents and repossessed homes with either fraudulent or incomplete documentation. WF has also been very slow at working with homeowners on reducing their mortgage payments - part of a federal program in which Wells Fargo is supposed to be participating called HAMP (Home Affordable Modification Program).

When Wells Fargo finally forecloses on a home, many of these homes sit vacant as real estate owned properties (REOs). While Bozeman Montana has a great shortage of space available for rent and a problem with affordable housing, Wells Fargo and other REOs sit vacant. Others are up for auction, and still others sit there with their owners waiting to be repossessed.

Most people, however, have some knowledge that Wells Fargo has been a big bank that's continued to profit despite hurting customers, particularly related to its mortgage business. However, there are even more things to consider that are less well known. <snip>

Let's start with Wells Fargo's record on the environment. When we think of banks, we do not typically think of environmental impact; nevertheless, because banks finance all kinds of projects, we can see what kinds of projects that Wells Fargo finances. <Snip> Wells Fargo is a large financier of the coal industry, a distinction that led one report to list Wells Fargo as the 19th worst polluting bank in the world. The Rainforest Action Network has criticized Wells Fargo for financing illegal logging projects in Indonesia. On the issue of natural gas hydraulic fracturing (or fracking), Wells Fargo has funded Chesapeake Energy all while being one of the leading lenders who will not give mortgages for homes with gas leases. They seem to know a home where fracking occurs is a bad investment all while funding the practice.

Wells Fargo also has the distinction of having an ownership stake in two private prison corporations. They have $120 million in investments in the GEO Group and the Corrections Corporation in America. If all that is not enough, last year Wells Fargo settled a case brought by some disabled customers. The suit brought by people who were deaf, hard of hearing, or have speech disabilities alleged that Wells Fargo refused to accommodate them in telephone services. This suit was settled for $16 million.

More at the URL printed in the article