For years we have wondered why Wells Fargo, America's largest mortgage lender, is also Warren Buffett's favorite bank. Now we know why.
On Thursday, Wells Fargo was fined $185 million, (including a $100 million penalty from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the largest penalty the agency has ever issued) for engaging in pervasive fraud over the years which included opening credit cards secretly without a customer’s consent, creating fake email accounts to sign up customers for online banking services, and forcing customers to accumulate late fees on accounts they never even knew they had. Regulators said such illegal sales practices had been going on since at least 2011.
In all, Wells opened 1.5 million bank accounts and "applied" for 565,000 credit cards that were not authorized by their customers.
Wells Fargo told to CNN that it had fired 5,300 employees related to the shady behavior over the last few years. The firings represent about 1% of its workforce and took place over several years. The fired workers went to far as to create phony PIN numbers and fake email addresses to enroll customers in online banking services, the CFPB said.
How Wells perpetrated fraud is that its employees moved funds from customers' existing accounts into newly-created accounts without their knowledge or consent, regulators say. The CFPB described this practice as "widespread" and led to customers being charged for insufficient funds or overdraft fees, because the money was not in their original accounts. Additionally, Wells Fargo employees also submitted applications for 565,443 credit card accounts without their knowledge or consent, the CFPB said the analysis found. Many customers who had unauthorized credit cards opened in their names were hit by annual fees, interest charges and other fees.
According to the NYT, regulators said the bank’s employees had been motivated to open the unauthorized accounts by compensation policies that rewarded them for drumming up new business. Many current and former Wells employees told regulators they had felt extreme pressure to expand the number of new accounts at the bank.
And, since it is US government policy never to send a banker to prison, they thought that engaging in criminal behavior was not such a bad idea.
Federal banking regulators said the practices reflected serious flaws in the internal culture and oversight at Wells Fargo, one of the nation’s largest banks.
"Today's action should serve notice to the entire industry that financial incentive programs, if not monitored carefully, carry serious risks that can have serious legal consequences," said CFPB Director Richard Cordray. He added that "unchecked incentives can lead to serious consumer harm, and that is what happened here."
"Consumers must be able to trust their banks. They should never be taken advantage of," said Mike Feuer, the Los Angeles City Attorney who joined the settlement.
On its behalf Wells fargo issued a statement saying it "is committed to putting our customers’ interests first 100 percent of the time, and we regret and take responsibility for any instances where customers may have received a product that they did not request," the bank said in a statement adding that "at Wells Fargo, when we make mistakes, we are open about it, we take responsibility, and we take action."
As the NYT puts it, "this is an ugly moment for Wells Fargo, one of the few large American banks that have managed to produce consistent profit increases since the financial crisis." Now we know one of the reasons why.
As CNN redundantly adds, "the scope of the scandal is shocking."
And since nobody will go to prison, in a few months we will read another such "shocking scandal" perpetrated by another bailed-out bank.
#2
...I've got a bad feeling that this might just be the tip of the iceberg. If what they got caught for is this bad, the rest has to be far worse.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
09/09/2016 4:54 Comments ||
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#3
If the number of fraudulent accounts and fired employees is correct it appears to be more of a bad business practice and systemic issue from leadership that lead to this problem. For example: did their training show you how easy it is to open an account wth an email address created just 5 minutes ago? Did the person explaining the incentive program wink a few times when describing how much money you could earn just by opening an account?....
[BOSTONHERALD] An undocumented Democrat twice kicked out of the country -- and sporting a "Kiss My Ass" tattoo on his neck -- vowed to see his teenage daughter "in hell" as he shot her in the face and pumped her back full of bullets for snubbing him on Father’s Day, authorities said.
"It is disturbing that he’d been deported and came back into the country illegally, but he’s here," Bristol District Attorney Thomas M. Quinn III said yesterday after Walter Gomes DaSilva, a 45-year-old Brazilian, grinned widely as he pleaded not guilty "Wudn't me." to murder and firearm charges. "This is a very chilling set of circumstances -- a father being accused of killing his teenage daughter. We’ll just have to see how it plays out."
DaSilva had been deported in 1999, illegally re-entered the U.S. at an unknown date, and in 2002 was convicted of trying to kill his wife, according to Shawn Neudauer, a front man for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). DaSilva was released from prison in 2012 after serving a 10-year stint, then was deported again, Neudauer said.
New Bedford District Court Judge James J. McGovern ordered Walter DaSilva held pending an Oct. 5 probable cause hearing. When prosecutors informed the judge that ICE now had a detainer on him, McGovern muttered aloud from the bench, "I would hope so."
Police found the body of Sabrina DaSilva, 19, splayed in the parking lot of her apartment building the night of July 3 surrounded by 9 mm shell casings and the groceries she was taking out of her car when her father confronted her in a rage, according to prosecutors. She had a 2-year-old daughter and according to her family was fluent in multiple languages and studying to be an interpreter.
Sabrina DaSilva chose to attend a family friend’s 51st birthday party rather than see her dad on Father’s Day, but was planning to make it up to him later and never said an unkind word about him, according to the friend, Glecia Ribeiro.
"He’s a monster," she said of Walter DaSilva. "He came into the courtroom laughing. She was a wonderful girl, full of life and grace and happy. He has no defense."
A surveillance camera captured the carnage and the quarrel that led up to it, said assistant Bristol District Attorney Robert DiGiantomaso. The footage showed Walter DaSilva as he pulled out a semiautomatic and "proceeded to shoot Sabrina DaSilva, striking her in the face, and when she turned to run, striking her several times in the back," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/09/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
Some countries are going to refuse to accept deported citizens. What will Trump do? Whatever it is, to be successful, it would have to be a beach landing, drop off the illegals, then leave. They're not going to like it. Otherwise, we'll have to house them here. And pay for it.
As for this guy, I say he gets put in a maximum security prison and make sure the rest of the inmates know what he did. The problem will solve itself.
[GMA.YAHOO] Two men are still on the loose in reliably Democrat Chicago, aka The Windy City or Mobtown ... home of Al Capone, a succession of Daleys, Barak Obama, and Rahm Emmanuel,... today after robbing and shooting a senior citizen in broad daylight as the man was watering his front lawn.
A recording of the incident caught by a neighbor's security camera shows two men riding bicycles past 71-year-old Federico LaGuardia as he watered the lawn of his Marquette Park neighborhood home police said.
Shortly after the men pass, one of them turns around, wrestles LaGuardia to the ground and shoots him once in the abdomen after he fell to the ground. The man then rifles through LaGuardia’s pockets and takes his wallet before fleeing on his bike.
Despite his injuries, LaGuardia was able to stagger to his neighbor’s door and call for help. He was taken to Holy Cross Hospital and then transferred to Mount Sinai Hospital where he underwent surgery. Police said he is in fair condition but remains in intensive care.
"I heard the gunshot and I ran out here and he was, like, dazed in the street," said neighbor Lois Walker.
This is the latest attack in Chicago's deadliest summer in two decades, and community activists and members of the public are outraged.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/09/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
According to the dims there serial numbered bullet woulda stopped this.
Posted by: Punky Dark Lord of the Munchkins9523 ||
09/09/2016 4:10 Comments ||
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#2
We have to remember that we ARE talking about Chicago.
Chicago seems to be that sort of place.
[Daily Mail, Where America Gets Its News] While she may be a sex positive activist, Amber Rose is much more traditional in her own life. Yep. There's a statement just dripping with common sense.
The mother of one revealed in a sneak peek of her first Loveline podcast with Dr Donaghue that she left herself scarred after dabbling in a sexual escapade. My mother always used to tell me, "Son, don't dabble in sexual escapades."
The 32-year-old admitted that she felt the need to expand her sexual horizons due to her public role as an expert on the subject of the bedroom. I think we've all felt that urge due to our roles as experts on the subject of the bedroom.
'We kinda just got together it was a guy and a girl and it was f**king horrible,' Amber admitted to her co-host. No! Re-e-e-eally? You mean your Mom didn't lie to you?
'It was the worst. It was horrible. I am literally having sleepless nights,' she said regarding the experience. Yeah. The rest of us, too. I found the episode with the German Shepherd and the Jolly Green Giant creamed corn to be my personal worst, but I try not to think about it.
'I felt the pressure, getting older, to experience new things and I did it against my better judgment because I talk about sex a lot,' she said. Funny thing, as I get older my judgment seems to be getting better and I've been avoiding doing things that are degrading or blatantly stupid just to be able to say I've done them.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/09/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
Yeah. The rest of us, too. I found the episode with the German Shepherd and the Jolly Green Giant creamed corn to be my personal worst, but I try not to think about it.
Hmmmm? I've got to question myself about what kinds of folks I'm hanging out with at R-Burg.
[Gateway] FIRST there was Zika, and now it's Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever - but how much do you know about the disease sweeping across Europe?
Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF) is a virus primarily transmitted to people from ticks and animals. While it might not be a commonly-discussed disease, CCHF outbreaks - which causes severe viral haemorrhagic fever outbreaks - have a fatality rate of up to 40 per cent, according to the World Health Organisation.
Worryingly the virus is primarily transmitted to people from ticks and livestock animals - but human-to-human transmission can occur after close contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected persons.
There is no vaccine available for either people or animals.
The panic around CCHF is spreading fast after a man died in Spain from the disease.
#3
Well, I'm sure that CDC stands ready to defend us here...except that there's global warming to be concerned about...and guns...and people eat too much salt...and people are too mean to each other...and you know...the CDC is *busy* working on those things and those must take priority.
[Dhaka Tribune] A Faridpur tribunal on Wednesday sentenced a madrasa teacher to life-term imprisonment for sodomising a 10-year-old boy resulting in his death in the district’s Sadarpur upazila in 2012, reports UNB.
The convict, Nizamul Haque Janu Munsi, a resident of Bakhainchar village in Gopalganj’s Muksudpur upazila, was also fined Tk20,000, in default, to suffer three months more imprisonment.
According to the prosecution, on June 11, 2012; Munsi, teacher of a madrasa at Piajkhali union in Sadarpur upazila, sodomised the 10-year-old boy, a resident of the same union, at madrasa premises.
The boy with severe injuries was rescued and sent to Faridpur Medical College Hospital where he died there five days later.
The victim’s father filed a murder case with Sadarpur Police Station under the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act.
After examining the records and witnesses, Faridpur Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal acting Judge Mohammad Jahidul Islam handed down the verdict.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/09/2016 00:00 ||
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so a life sentence PLUS three months? Ewwwww
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/09/2016 8:28 Comments ||
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Hovik Abrahamyan, Armenian prime minister, resigned, Interfax reported Sept. 8.
“We need new approaches,” Abrahamyan said at a Cabinet of Ministers meeting commenting on his resignation. “We must think about the future and form a new government.”
Abrahamyan also had a farewell meeting with the members of the Cabinet of Ministers Sept. 7.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/09/2016 00:00 ||
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[NYPOST] Kim Pudge Jong-un ...the overweight, pouty-looking hereditary potentate of North Korea. Pudge appears to believe in his own divinity, but has yet to produce any loaves and fishes, so his subjects remain malnourished... is making jokes about him no laughing matter.
The diminutive dictator banned North Koreans from making sarcastic comments about him or his regime.
Government authorities gathered citizens in mass meetings to warn them of the latest ban, according to Radio Free Asia.
"One state security official personally organized a meeting to alert local residents to potential ’hostile actions’ by internal rebellious elements," an anonymous source told the station. "The main point of the lecture was ’Keep your mouths shut!’"
The ban is reportedly in response to two phrases that have become popular throughout the totalitarian state: "This is America’s fault" and "A fool who cannot see the outside world."
The former implies criticism of North Korea when said ironically -- their version of the US’s "Thanks, Obama." The latter has been used to mock the isolationist leader since last year, after Kim was absent from celebrations in China and Russia -- both of which marked the anniversary of the end of World War II.
In 2014, the dictator banned the use of his name, and issued a temporary ban on weddings and funerals in May.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/09/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
...In other words, ol' Pudge sees it.
And he's scared.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
09/09/2016 5:01 Comments ||
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I'd love to see this fat piggy roasting on a spit.
[DAWN] KHAIRPUR: Three people on a cycle of violence were killed in an ambush by a group of person or persons unknown near the Khairpur-Larkana bridge in the jurisdiction of Mehboob Kalhoro cop shoppe in Gambat taluka early on Wednesday.
The victims were identified as Ghulam Hussain Sheikh, 40, his son Ali Raza, 27, and nephew Himmat Ali, 22. Another man identified as Abid was said to have been maimed in the attack.
They belonged to the same family and were going towards Larkana from Razidero area on cycle of violences when they came under attack.
Himath Ali sustained serious wounds and was taken to Chandka Medical College Hospital, Larkana, where he breathed his last while the bodies of Ghulam Hussain and his son Ali Raza were taken to a government hospital in Gambat for post-mortem.
The relatives of the victims later staged a demonstration on the Khairpur-Larkana bridge by placing the bodies on the road, suspending vehicular traffic on both sides of the road.
Talking to news hounds, the protesters claimed that the attackers, who belonged to Siyal clan, were on cycle of violences and demanded early arrest of the killers. They dispersed peacefully after a few hours when Khairpur city ASP along with the local police held talks with them and assured them of the killers’ arrest.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/09/2016 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] LARKANA: Two suspected cases of polio ...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set... were detected in Haitam Sohu village in Nasirabad town and samples of their stool were sent to the National Institute of Health (NIH), Islamabad, for confirmation of the disease.
Sources told Dawn on Wednesday that legs and arms of two-year-old Falak Naz Khokhar and her cousin Moazzam Ali had become so crippled they could not make any move.
The parents informed the district health officials of Qambar-Shahdadkot about their condition and they subsequently collected the samples of both children for further investigation.
Dr Shah Alam Solangi, polio eradication officer of WHO, confirmed sending stool samples the children to NIH for analysis. "The results of the samples are being awaited," he said.
He said: "This is a case of acute flaccid paralysis and that’s why the samples have been sent to the NIH." In total, 40 samples of suspected cases had been referred to NIH in 2016 and so far results of 36 had been received but none of them was positive, he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/09/2016 00:00 ||
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While the directive was issued two years ago, the issue of electronic voting has become a hot button topic in this year’s presidential election amid fears digital voting systems can be compromised.
The online voting plan was contained in a 67-page hacked file detailing the September 29-30, 2014 Open Society U.S. Programs board meeting in New York.
A significant portion of the board meeting was dedicated to methods the Foundation’s U.S. Programs (USP) could use to further the use of President Obama’s executive action authority to bypass Congress during Obama’s final two years in office. The Open Society, together with partner grantees, assembled a general list of potential presidential executive actions on numerous issues. Significantly, the Soros-backed group zeroed in on the expansion of online voting.
States the document:
"USP will continue to fight against efforts to restrict voting rights, while supporting steps to improve voter participation and modernize voting procedures, such as on-line and same-day registration and expanded early voting. The Brennan Center, Demos and other grantees have engaged in litigation to expand access to registration and improve ease of voting."
The document listed a number of executive action steps that the Obama administration could take to "ensure greater participation by eligible voters," including online voting:
• Direct Health and Human Services to ensure that the federally facilitated health-care exchanges created as part of the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") incorporate voter registration opportunities as required by the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA or "Motor Voter Act"), and direct federal agencies to find ways to increase voter participation nationwide.
• Issue guidance interpreting the Americans with Disabilities Act with respect to accessibility of polling places, privacy when voting, and competence requirements.
• Assist states with voter registration modernization efforts, including statewide database improvements, vote by mail, online registration and voting, and same-day registration.
• Direct the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) to develop new data collection points that provide greater insight into county-based Election Administration and the ways in which voters interact with electoral systems (i.e., number of votes cast, type of voting machines used, provisional ballot statistics, etc.)
In January 2014, Obama’s 10-person Presidential Commission on Election Administration released its recommendations for reforming the U.S. election process, including transitioning to voting via tablet computers and other technologies.
The commission recommended:
Software-only products can be integrated with off-the-shelf commercial hardware components such as computers, laptops, tablets, scanners, printers, and even machine-readable code scanners and signature pad products.
Tablet computers such as iPads are common components of these new technologies. They can be integrated into the check-in, voting, and verification processes in the polling place.
The commission highlighted new technologies in which the voter can "pre-fill" sample ballots at home to be scanned later at the polling place.
Obama’s presidential panel dismissed concerns about hacking. The commission stated:
"The fact that a tablet or off-the-shelf computer can be hacked or can break down does not mean such technology is inherently less secure than existing ballot marking methods if proper precautions are taken."
Those concerns may have been dismissed too soon. Two weeks ago, NBC News cited intelligence officials revealing hackers purportedly based in Russia recently attempted to breach state voter registration databases twice. One of the hacking attempts resulted in the lifting of up to 200,000 voter records in Illinois, according to the officials.
The breach prompted the FBI to issue an unusual nationwide "flash" alert warning states to take immediate measures to beef up the security of their online voting-related systems.
Last month, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson held a conference call with state election officials related to the matter. Also last month, Johnson was quoted as saying during a media conference call hosted by the Christian Science Monitor that DHS should consider whether to designate the U.S. election system as a "critical infrastructure."
"We should carefully consider whether our election system, our election process, is critical infrastructure like the financial sector, like the power grid," Johnson said.
"There’s a vital national interest in our election process, so I do think we need to consider whether it should be considered by my department and others critical infrastructure," he added.
On Thursday, however, Johnson downplayed concerns that hackers could alter the ballot count during the presidential election.
"It would be very difficult through any sort of cyber intrusion to alter the ballot count, simply because it is so decentralized and so vast," Johnson said. "It would be very difficult to alter the count."
The Hill poured cold water on Johnson’s optimistic assessment. The publication contended:
Despite Johnson’s claims, however, hackers would not necessarily need to alter a particular vote count in order to inject chaos into the U.S. electoral system. Merely tainting the integrity of the voting system might be enough to sow discord in the U.S on Election Day. In other words, even if hackers do nothing, simply claiming to have altered the results could cause the public to doubt the results.
And hackers might be able to alter ballot counts in swing districts where the outcome might have oversized importance.
Meanwhile, this is not Soros’s only attempt to meddle in U.S. election affairs. A May 2014 USP board meeting document discussed the goal of expanding the U.S electorate by "at least 10 million voters." The document, first publicized by the Washington Free Beacon, stated the voter expansion goal would be accomplished "by lowering barriers to voter registration through the various forms of modernization and increased ballot access while sustaining and expanding the franchise by establishing strong protections against vote suppression, denial and dilution."
Ten million new voters are low ball numbers. The Soros-funded Brennan Center was mentioned in the September 2015 board meeting document reviewed by Breitbart News as engaging with other Soros grantees "in litigation to expand access to registration and improve ease of voting."
Brennon’s website has an entire section dedicated to "Voter Registration Modernization," explaining its goal is to use voter modernization to add 50 million more voters to the rosters.
The website states:
The Brennan Center’s signature proposal to modernize voting would harness proven technology to ensure that every eligible voter is permanently registered. The move would add 50 million to the rolls, cost less, and curb the potential for fraud. Already, 48 states and the District of Columbia -- without fanfare or partisan wrangling -- have implemented important elements of the plan.
Mr. Soros wants electronic voting, and he wants his toadies, er, state attorney generals, to control the means of counting those votes.
As Joe Stalin said: "It's not the people who vote that count. It's the people who count the votes."
Or, to be more local, Boss Tweed: "As long as I count the votes, what are you going to do about it?"
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Daily Mail, Where America Gets Its News] While she may be a sex positive activist, Amber Rose is much more traditional in her own life.
North Korea
[DAWN] KHAIRPUR: Three people on a .jpg)
[DAWN] LARKANA: Two suspected cases of 
