Wells Fargo illegally repossessed 413 service members' cars

Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/09/30/wells-fargo-illegally-reposses.html

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Sounds like someone forgot the Repo Code.

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And illegally repossessing service member cars is more reprehensible/illegal than normal illegal repossessing?

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Ripley: ”How do we kill it, Ash? There got to be a way of killing it. How – how do we do it?”
Ash: ”You can’t.”
Parker: ”That’s bullshit.”
Ash: ”You still don’t understand what you’re dealing with, do you? The perfect organism. Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility.”
Lambert: ”You admire it.”
Ash: ”I admire its purity. A survivor, unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality. ”
Parker: ”Well, I don’t. I’ve heard enough of this, and I’m asking you to pull the plug.”
[Ripley moves to turn Ash off, but he interrupts]
Ash: ”Last words.”
Ripley: ”What?”
Ash: ”I can’t lie to you about your chances, but…you have my sympathies.” [he smiles]

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Service members are always where the outrage is because they’re our living war totems, but this means they must have also repossessed thousands of other vehicles illegally. Again, where’s the jail time?

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When people are deployed, they don’t always have access to resources that they need to make payments and manage their money. The law is intended to make creditors wait for them to return and give them a chance to fix things before going into repo mode.

The case in the story confuses me because it sounds like he was still in the US and thus his car was fair game for repossession. In fact, isn’t it a violation of UCMJ to not pay debts?

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To clarify, these repossessions are illegal BECAUSE the cars belong to service members. Back in the WWII time frame congress passed a special law giving extra protections to service members from creditors. Because of that, repossessing cars from service members on active duty requires that the stiffed lender go through extra legal hoops. Now the bank SHOULD keep track of this, in the same way that they SHOULD file deeds of trust instead of forging mortgage documentation, It’s not like these are new laws.

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That’s not a lot of cars, is it? It’s about fifty a year. How many cars do you suppose Wells finances? Even one mistake is bad, but this isn’t exactly Subprime Crisis II.

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At this point shouldn’t WF slogan be “Wells Fargo, we’ll treat you honestly when we are court ordered mandated because otherwise that will cut into our executive compensation and you don’t want crappy executives.”

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I suspect the purpose of posting this information is to point out additional illegal activity by a bank already in trouble for all the fraud they’ve been committing. No market bubbles are hinted at or implied here.

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There definitely are news bubbles; this activity should have been reported when it happened but instead we had to wait until they did other wrongdoing before we find out about it.

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Economic bubbles, but your point about more timely reportage very much still stands.

On a side note, that is an excellent soundtrack.

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Jail Wells Fargo CEO and Chairman John Stumpf! - by Nomi Prins

Fines mean nothing, it’s the cost of doing business. Jail time gets their attention.

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Wells Embargo

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Only if the debt is valid and not fraudulently generated, I’d assume.

Shut. Them. Down.

Didn’t they receive support in the financial fallout of the two-ots???

I would excoriate them if I could. I would shut them down.

But I’m just a human, so there’s that.

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So you have fewer and less well-enforced rights than a legal fiction.

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Ayup. I am less effective than fiction. And I’m real, promise. pinch Yep, still sentient with nerve endings.

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We all are.

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