These days that tactic can backfire spectacularly. A couple of Facebook mentions, a few notices dropped to local reporters, and Wells Fargo gets millions in negative publicity. Better to pay them off quickly to make it go away.
Yeah, ex-post facto laws are a huge no-no in most every legal system (at least, when they are detrimental to the accused), for rather obvious reasons.
Sounds a lot like sheriff Joe Arpaio in Arizona, I have seen many claiming that he is not doing anything wrong as he as not been indicted (they may had a point in the sense that all those settlements out of court for abuses of power are paid not by Joe but by the state of Arizona).
Indeed, the solution many of those in power that are abusive is to drag it in court and force a settlement, with the perpetrator usually denying any wrongdoing. The good news is that as the media is on it, that settlement will not be cheap for Wells Fargo.
Wells Fargo is still going to be one of the largest banks in the United States. The couple who own the home are still going to be lacking their photos and other personal belongings that cannot be replaced easily if at all. I don’t see how this can end up with Wells Fargo hurting more than the Tjosaases.
Jesus the Christ. You really need to stop embarrassing yourself. Your posts are in this thread are unbelievable. How hard is it to comprehend that unless someone intended to screw over that poor couple, nothing criminal happened here?
Do you really think that this is possible? You really need to study up on how shit works. There has to be grounds to appeal. There is no new law being decided here. If WF makes a reasonable offer, it’s all over.
Wells Fargo screwed up and did so badly and should pay this couple a lot of money but only what the stuff is worth and a big penalty on top of that for negligence. This is one of those things where there wasn’t one person responsible. It was a series of mistakes that led to a giant cluster fuck. They need to figure out how this happened and devise a way such that something like this never happens again. End of story. WF took the blame immediately and is attempting to make an offer. It was a horrible, horrible mistake but they, at least initially, seem to be doing the right thing to fix it.
For me, and I suspect many people, there is a figure that could make up for losing all my personal belongings. I mean, if someone showed up at my door and offered my family a check for, say, $50 million, to walk away from every single thing we owned, I’d take that in a heartbeat. Things are important, but they are just things. Hell, I’d do it for a $1 million, and think I came out ahead in the deal.
IANAL either. I don’t know if any crime was committed in this case. But I’m pretty sure a crime can be committed even without a specific “intention” to screw those people over–there are such things as “criminal negligence” and “reckless conduct”.
One hopes the family gets at least a few million. But whatever they get, it’ll probably be less than the Golden Parachute the bigshot rolled-head at Wells Fargo gets for making the blunder, even assuming a head rolls.
Yes. If this exact sort of thing happened regularly or if one person saw the mistake and said, “screw it. I’m not going to fix it. I don’t want to stay late tonight.” That doesn’t seem to be the case here. A tragic thing happened one time and most likely it wasn’t one single person’s fault.
Of course some people think that because a mistake was made the entire corporation should be liquidated and over 250,000 innocent people should be put out of work.
A couple million seems about right to me. It’s very unlikely that a corporate fat cat was anywhere near this. It was probably an inattentive low level clerk or two that started the ball rolling.
I call it the Bhopal Slow Mo, the time between when an award is made in such a case, and the day when the first check is actually cashed. Twelve parsecs is optimistic.
Nah, those 250,000 people now just have new bosses.
Shareholders, on the other hand, fuck those guys.
A parsec is a unit of distance.
WF is taking full responsibility. I bet that this is settled within a year unless the couple gets ridiculous and asks for a billion dollars or something and I see no indication they will do that.
Very good point. I’m not normally an eye for an eye, but in this case, I think it appropriate that the couple be allowed to have the contents of the homes of the board of directors of Wells Fargo, family photos and all.
You’d be properly amazed how fast Wells Fargo (and pretty much every other major bank) foreclosure/property policy would change if that were to occur. All it would probably take is one or maybe two times.
Just like the couple suffered.
Regards,
-Bouncer-
PS: And if the CEO etc want to appeal the ruling, they are immediately evicted and locked out of their property until the ruling makes it way ALL THE WAY to the supreme court. In fact, evict them first without posessions, and THEN notify them of the decision. Wouldn’t want them sneaking back in to steal valuables now owned by this couple.
You honestly think that the Board of Directors should be punished because one clerk out of over a quarter of a million employees made a mistake and probably didn’t follow policy? It’s not like they were aware of it and allowed it to happen anyway. (If that was the case I would change my mind.) You seriously are lacking in a sense of perspective.
It was probably already calculated by corporate actuaries as to how much a policy making sure this kind of thing wouldn’t happen and how much they’d actually have to pay out in real court costs.
I doubt very much a couple million would be acceptable by WF to pay off a bunch of used furniture and moving costs. It would probably be cheaper to fight establishing a precedent and let the victims try to lay legal seige.
Doubtful. It doesn’t work that way. That whole Pinto thing in the 70’s did away with that line of thinking. It was a fuck-up by a couple of low level people.
Bullshit. This will be very unlikely to see a courtroom. WF’s lawyers are smart enough to know to pay them what will be an undisclosed settlement.
If anyone needs to be punished, then it’s the employee who fucked up. They need to be fired and if anyone’s heirlooms are to be taken, it’s the employee’s.
I always love your turn of phrases, you are definitely a wordsmith. However, in the US, you do have some recourse, like seizing all of Bank of America’s furniture and cash on hand.
If Banks is peeps, then we oughta be able to seize their shit too. N’stuff. Be amazed how fast they come up with the cheddah when the po-po come through the corporate HQ door.
Regards,
-Bouncer-
Now that was righteous. Totally agree with what happened in that case.
Warren Buffett if Wells Fargo’s largest shareholder, with a 7.7% stake:
Anyone besides me think it would be sending a worthwhile message
to the pigs of corporate America if as a result of this fiasco Buffett
got a couple of days and nights in the slammer?