Wells Fargo, one of the leading private student loan lenders, is suffering from its illegal student loan practices.
Recently, the government found out about Wells Fargo’s illegal student loans practices. One such practice was when Wells Fargo charged illegal late fees to customers who made their payments on the last day of their grace period. Students usually receive a six-month grace period after graduating college before they have to start repaying their loans.
Additionally, Wells Fargo was found to maximize late fees on borrowers that had multiple loans.
Sometimes, the illegally charged late fees were never refunded. The information sent to credit reporting companies was never updated.
Wells Fargo told the Consumer Financial Protection Agency that it stopped its illegal practices. In addition, Wells Fargo reported that some of the illegal fees were charged by mistake due to a system coding error, which has been corrected.
Wells Fargo will pay $4 million for charging its consumers illegal late fees. The bank will pay $3.6 million to the Consumer Financial Protection Agency according to the settlement agreement. The remaining $410,000 will be refunded to its customers from 2010 to 2013.
Wells Fargo isn’t the only bank that suffered a penalty from Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In 2015, Discover paid a $2.5 million penalty and refunded $16 million to its consumers for its illegal student loans practices.
