Wells Fargo has sort of been on my s**t list for a long time, ever since as a new and unwary credit customer, I realized that my debt to them was creeping up because the minimum payment was set at less than the amount required to prevent that from happening.It's not much surprise now to learn that they also illegally pushed borrowers into subprime mortgages and falsified loan documents.
The penalty for these procedures, which surely must involve multiple felonies, is to pay a fine that amounts to a tiny fraction of the bank's recent yearly profits.
In a free market, business ethics are fostered because a reputation for integrity is good for business, and being caught ripping off your customers is very bad for business. Government bail-outs have removed that natural and internal control mechanism, and token penalties for blatantly criminal behavior now reinforce the message to financial institutions that they are so important that they are allowed to do whatever they like (kind of like the later and most decadent Roman emperors).
Mrs. D. now belongs to a credit union, and no longer deals with banks at all if she can help it.
