Wells Fargo can rip off regular civilians all day long and mostly get away with it, but when they mess with military service-members, the hammer of justice comes down swift and hard.
Amid weeks-long scandal over their repeated defrauding of customers by over 5,000 employees, it has come to light that Wells Fargo violated military protection laws which require special permissions before a financial institution may repossess or seize property belonging to active service-members.
According to Bloomberg:
“Federal prosecutors and the bank’s regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, are planning to punish the San Francisco-based lender for alleged violations of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, said the people, who asked not to be named because the investigation isn’t public. A penalty of as much as $20 million is expected from the OCC, one of the people said. That’s an unusually large fine for abuse of this law, which in most cases requires that firms obtain court orders before seizing vehicles from soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who are delinquent on their loans.”
This is yet another blow to the now-struggling financial institution, and as it continues to be investigated by various regulatory agencies, we await to see how justice may (or may not) be served.
