Wells Fargo officials knew that auto insurance was hurting their customers, according to a lawsuit



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Wells Fargo admitted last year having paid hundreds of thousands of borrowers for auto insurance that they did not need. Some customers have even repossessed their vehicle because of unnecessary charges.

The members of Wells Fargo's Risk Management Executive Committee were alerted in April and July 2012 to "critical issues" regarding the insurance program known as Indirect Guarantee Insurance, or IPC, a complaint naked Monday by a judge.

"Although Wells Fargo's senior executives have known for a long time that the CPI system caused harm to customers, Wells Fargo only stopped it in September 2016," the class action lawsuit said. by the customers.

Executives who would have been informed of Wells Fargo's imperfect insurance program include David Julian, the former chief auditor of the bank.

Wells Fargo (WFC) announced last month that Julian had taken a leave. The bank gave little details of the sudden change except to say that the move was related to "ongoing reviews" by the regulators on the bank's retail practices.

By telephone Wednesday, Julian declined to comment on the allegations or to clarify why he is on leave.

The lawsuit alleges that former Chief of Administration Pat Callahan, former General Counsel James Strother, and former Risk Officer Michael Loughlin were also briefed on auto insurance issues. These executives, all of whom retired in the last three years, could not be reached.

Kenneth Zimmerman, former head of deposit products at Wells Fargo, was also cited in the lawsuit. Zimmerman took a leave early in 2016 and left in July 2017, according to the Wall Street Journal. Zimmerman could not be reached for comment.
The news of the unsealed complaint has been reported for the first time by Reuters.

In a statement, Wells Fargo pointed out that the bank had terminated the insurance program in September 2016.

"Since then, we have been reviewing customer accounts and developing a correction plan – which we hope to finalize very soon – to provide the affected customers with the compensation they deserve," the bank said.

Up to 20,000 cars taken

Wells Fargo reserved $ 241 million in the third quarter to reimburse customers injured by the insurance program.

The bank has been confronted with a series of scandals concerning customers, even employees, abused. Wells Fargo admitted to having opened millions of bank accounts and credit cards without customers knowing it. And Wells Fargo said he charged tenants mortgage fees they did not deserve. Earlier this week, Wells Fargo identified another 145 customers who lost their homes due to a computer problem.

The class action auto insurance lawsuit was brought by more than a dozen borrowers who had insurance after obtaining a car loan from Wells Fargo.

Wells Fargo said that nearly 570,000 borrowers had been billed for auto insurance without their knowledge. Nearly 20,000 of these clients may have defaulted on their car loans or have their vehicles repossessed in part because of these unnecessary insurance costs.

Samir Hanef, a clinical social worker from North Carolina, said his Honda Civic had been taken over, even though he had made monthly payments for his auto loan.

"My car was held for extortion," Hanef told CNN last year, "and I was forced to pay for Wells Fargo 's mistake.
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