LAWSUITS AGAINST WELLS FARGO - CLASS ACTION -- PERSONAL ACTION -- ADD YOURS TO THE LIST TO WARN OTHERS

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2011 Date	State Filed	Plaintiff	Case Type	. Result
Aug. 5, 2011	California	Chandler vs. Wells Fargo 11-cv-03831, U.S. District Court	Illegal Reverse Mortgage Foreclosures Heirs shut out	Filed
Jul. 26, 2011	D.C.	Department of Justice	Discriminatory Lending	"Lawsuit in Preparation"
May 13, 2011	Texas	Homeowners vs. Wells Fargo	Wells Fargo did not own the Note and thus had no standing to foreclose.	Texas Court of Appeals affirms Summary Judgment
May 4, 2011	Tennessee	City of Memphis, TN Memphis and Shelby counties	Predatory Mortgage Lending	Wells Fargo Motion to Dismiss denied "Plaintiffs have adequately pled"
Apr. 29, 2011	Nevada	Signature Developers Elko, NV	Illegal Foreclosure - Riverside Condominiums	WF must pay $9.5 Million $5.5 M for Fraud $2.5 M for Negligent Represent. $1.5 M for Breach of Contract
Apr. 25, 2011	Maryland	City of Baltimore	Predatory Lending	Wells Fargo Motion to Dismiss denied Case will proceed
Apr. 15, 2011	New York	Wells Fargo vs. U.S.	Abusive Tax Shelters	Wells denied $115M in tax deductions for 2002
Apr. 12, 2011	Pennsylvania	Desiree Morris	Flood Insurance Class Action 3 classes	Filed
Mar. 30, 2011	California	880 Los Angeles Borrowers	Predatory Mortgage Lending	WF must pay $3.5 Million
Mar. 7, 2011	California	Thomas M. Coleman	Motion to force arbitration Breach of fiduciary duties	Order affirmed - Respondent Coleman to recover costs
Feb. 22, 2011	Florida	Florida retiree	IRA malfeasance, excessive trading	Pending
Feb. 21, 2011	Georgia	Veteran's Class Action	Veterans were overcharged on mortgages	Wells Fargo must pay $10 Million
Feb. 15, 2011	Pennsylvania	Patrick Rodgers vs. Wells Fargo	Homeowner Forecloses on Wells Fargo Wells failed to answer mortgage questions	Wells Fargo had to pay $1,000
Feb. 2, 2011	California	Shellie Gordon vs Wells Fargo	Overtime Class Action Misclassified employees	Filed
Jan. 7, 2011	Mass.	Massachusetts Supreme Court	Illegal Foreclosures Improper/ incomplete paperwork	No more phony foreclosure assignments
2010
Dec. 20, 2010	California	California Attorney General	Predatory Loans Settlement Wachovia wrongdoing, primarily bringing about its collapse - Billions are owed to Californians	Wells Fargo has agreed in a settlement to offer home-loan modifications worth $2 billion, and will also pay $32 million in restitution to borrowers who lost their homes through foreclosures.
Oct. 27, 2010	Nevada	Alkimya Group	Fraud Breach of Contract Negligent Misrepresentation	Filed
Oct. 14, 2010	New York	New York Supreme Court Wells Fargo vs. A.D. Paneth	Fatal Defect Mortgage was NEVER assigned to Wells Fargo	Foreclosure denied
Aug. 11, 2010	California	Gutierrez vs. Wells Fargo	Gouging and profiteering -  phony overdraft fees	Wells Fargo must pay $203 Million
Jul. 19, 2010	Mass.	Homeowner Group	Loan Modifications Denied Breech of Contract	Pending
Jun. 30, 2010	Florida	Sarasota County	Improper Investment Advice	Suit seeks $40 Million
Jun. 3, 2010	Minnesota	4 Non-profits vs. Wells Fargo	Breach of Fiduciary Duty Violations of the Minnesota consumer fraud act	Wells Fargo must pay $30 million
Apr. 14, 2010	Tennessee	City of Memphis, TN	Predatory Lending	Pending
Mar. 10, 2010	New York	Wells Fargo vs. Stephen Tyson	Trespass (Foreclosure)	Wells Fargo must pay $155,000
Jan. 12, 2010	D.C.	Wells Fargo vs. U.S.	Improper Tax Deductions - SILO Improper deals with tax-exempt entities	Wells denied $115M in tax deductions
Jan. 7, 2010	Maryland	City of Baltimore, MD	Predatory Lending - Ghetto Loans	Dismissed - recession blamed Judge caves in to Wells
2009
Nov. 20, 2009	California	California Attorney General	Auction Rate Securities Fraud	Wells Fargo agrees to buy back worthless securities
Oct. 23, 2009	New York	Wells Fargo vs. Marchione et al.	Wells Fargo Loses Appeal	Assignments disallowed
Aug. 19, 2009	Illinois	Michael Hickman vs. Wells Fargo	Illegally Cut Home Equity Lines of Credit Did not provide notice Bogus software undervalued homes	Filed
Jul. 31, 2009	Illinois	Illinois Attorney General	Discriminatory illegal lending Blacks steered to sub-prime loans	-
2008
Oct. 30, 2008	California	6,600 Home Loan Consultants Class Action	Unreimbursed Business Expenses Improper deductions	Wells Fargo agrees to pay up to $10 Million
Oct. 3, 2008	Washington	Hagens Berman	Excessive overdraft fees Transaction resequencing	-
-		Duces Tecum	An investigative subpoena which compels a bank to produce documents, typically used to prove property ownership. Often, banks are unable to prove ownwrship, due to the fact that many mortgages have been buried in socalled "derivatives", and tracability is lost. This results in Wells Fargo (and others) trying to foreclose on thousands of mortgages that they DO NOT OWN.
		DIL FDPCA HAFA HARP MERS TARP TILA	Deed In Lieu Fair Debt Collection Practices Act Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives Home Affordable Refinance Program Mortgage Electronic Registration System Troubled Asset Relief Program Truth in Lending Act

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SO, WHAT ELSE IS NEW? WELLS FARGO WILL STEP ON ANYONE AND EVERYONE TO KEEP YOUR MONEY.

Wells Fargo’s Exit From Reverse Mortgages Done Right? Not Quite

July 13th, 2011  |  by John Yedinak Published in Commentary, News, Reverse Mortgage

“I can’t comment publicly, but all I ask is you give me an hour,” the Wells Fargo spokesperson said to me during a brief conversation about three hours prior to the official announcement. “We want to make sure we do this right.”

After getting over the initial shock of the announcement, I was expecting some sort of explanation of why such an industry mainstay was exiting the business. But only a few hours later did I realize that “making sure it’s done right” meant blaming the most important ally of the industry… The Department of Housing and Urban Development.

If you compare the way Bank of America and Wells Fargo each made their exit announcements, they couldn’t be more different.

Bank of America said the company was dedicating resources to other parts of the bank and Wells Fargo decided blame “unpredictable home prices” and restrictions that make it difficult for seniors to meet their obligations of the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM).

As Financial Insyghts CEO Peter Atwater wrote, “to exit a business today because of ‘unpredictable values’ suggests that the decision to enter the business back in 1990 was somehow based on ‘predictable values’ then, as in Wells Fargo believed in 1990 that it could predict home prices into the future. When things work out as we hoped, the outcomes are always ‘predictable’ and when they don’t, well, we use ‘unpredictable’ as the excuse.”

Lets not forget—the Federal Housing Administration insures Wells against the losses, which makes it all even more unreasonable.

But the real kicker was the way Wells began to blame HUD in the media for its exit because of the inability to assess borrowers’ financial health.

“We are not allowed, as an originator, to decline anyone,” said Franklin Codel, head of national consumer lending at Wells Fargo in an interview with the New York Times. We “worked closely with HUD to find an alternative solution and we were unable to find one with them, which led to this outcome.”

It’s no secret the industry has been working with HUD to develop the financial assessment, with Wells Fargo playing a large role in process, according to my sources. Did HUD decide not to move forward with the financial assessment? Nope.

RMD was the only publication—thank you Liz—to ask HUD if the assessment is still in the works, and the answer is…Yes.

So why couldn’t executives hold out and help move the process forward? Big players like Wells Fargo have that ability. What drove the decision to act now instead of waiting it out?

An email that was leaked to American Banker seems to suggest the decision stemmed from HUD telling Wells Fargo to foreclose on seniors.

“The last straw in our decision was the recent HUD decision to require servicers to initiate foreclosure on the Senior Reverse Mortgage customers [who] could not pay their taxes and insurance,” the email said. “When a product or program creates more reputation risk than value … well … you get the picture.”

No one wants to see seniors lose their homes, and I think Jeff Lewis, chairman of Generation Mortgage, said it best in a New York Times article.

“The idea of reputation risk is such a canard in the hands of these institutions that I don’t even know where to start,” he said. “They took the very interesting strategy of making the government the scapegoat for them deciding to abandon a market that desperately needs them.”

It’s hard to argue with that, but what confuses me even more is why would the largest “forward” lender of FHA loans—37% market share—decide to blast HUD in the media?

“You don’t just punch the government in the nose for no good reason,” said a CEO at one of the nation’s largest reverse mortgage lenders during a conversation a couple of days after the announcement.  It’s no secret that large banks have had their fair share of squabbles with the government over mortgage practices, and Wells’ decision to blast HUD feels like it’s taking a cheap shot at a government agency.

While in a statement, Wells said it “takes great pride in the exceptional work that its reverse mortgage team has done to build the HECM business over the past 20 years,” it clearly doesn’t care how it left the industry’s relationship with HUD.

Make no mistake, the industry is grateful for all of Wells’ support over the years. But blaming a government agency that has been incredibly supportive of the program over the last two decades is a horrible way to exit the industry.

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Related Posts
• After Wells Fargo Exit, HECM Financial Assessment Still Pending
• Wells Fargo, Largest Reverse Mortgage Lender to Exit Retail Business [Update]
• NY Times: Wells Exit Could Make Reverse Mortgages Harder to Obtain

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SUSPENSE ACCOUNTS WITH WELLS FARGO HOLD YOU IN SUSPENSE: WILL YOU EVER SEE THAT MONEY AGAIN? NOOOOOOOOOO.

Action Line: Wells Fargo tries to keep customer's interest money 

By Dennis Rockstroh

drockstroh@mercurynews.com

Posted: 07/09/2011 12:00:00 AM PDT

[Note from Kelly L. Hansen:  I've received several e-mails from Wells Fargo Mortgage Loan Customers awaiting loan modifications and threatened by foreclosure.  Wells Fargo just "keeps" thousands of dollars ($23,000 is the highest reported so far) they have held in the customer's "suspense" account; an account Wells Fargo sets up while the customer awaits a loan modification.  Once denied, Wells Fargo ignores all requests for the money to be returned. Click on the link below to read more about this troubling issue.]

http://www.bing.com/search?setmkt=en-US&q=suspense+account+Wells+Fargo

Q On Jan. 1, 2010, I opened two accounts and deposited $1,200 in each at the Wachovia Bank, a Wells Fargo company, at De Anza and Bollinger in San Jose.

One was in my name and the other was in my wife's name.

The contracts (I have copies) that were signed by a financial specialist at the bank call for a fixed rate of 5 percent plus an additional 2 percent if I leave my money in the accounts for a full year.

Wells Fargo now refuses to honor the agreement and will not pay the full 7 percent.

In response to my requests for an explanation, the bank has told me to "hire an attorney."

I hope you can help me.

Abe Bromberg

San Jose

A It turned out I could, Abe. Your report back: "The local bank manager called me and corrected the situation.

"I'm sure this happened because of your efforts, which I appreciate.

"I have told many of my friends of your successful intervention, and they are not surprised."

Recall

Dollar Tree is recalling 117,000 glass votive candle holders because they can shatter while in use, causing a fire and possibly cutting the user.

The company has received one report of a candle holder shattering. No injuries have been reported.

This recall involves frosted or clear glass votive candle holders with French vanilla-scented

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candles. The votive candle holders are 2½ inches tall. Model number 976127 and date code 1010 are printed on the bottom of the glass votive candle holder.

They were sold at Dollar Tree, Dollar Bill$, Deal$ and Dollar Tree Deal$ stores nationwide from December through April for about $1.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said that consumers should immediately stop using the candle holders and return them to the store where purchased for a full refund.

For additional information, contact Dollar Tree Stores Inc. at 800-876-8077 or go to www.dollartree.com

To see this recall on CPSC's website, including a picture of the recalled product, go to www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml11/ 11270.html.

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HOMEOWNER MAY NOT RAISE A NEW THEORY OF RELIEF FOR THE FIRST TIME ON APPEAL

REEVES v. WELLS FARGO HOME MORTGAGE

CAROL L. REEVES, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

WELLS FARGO HOME MORTGAGE, also known as Kimberly Biery; WELLS FARGO BANK NATIONAL ASSOCIATION, also known as Scott Holzemiester, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 10-50698. Summary Calendar.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

Filed: June 27, 2011.

Before: WIENER, PRADO and OWEN, Circuit Judges.

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PER CURIAM.^*

Carol L. Reeves appeals the denial of a temporary restraining order seeking to stop Wells Fargo Home Mortgage and Wells Fargo Bank National Association (hereinafter collectively referred to as Wells Fargo) from foreclosing on her home. Wells Fargo contends that we lack jurisdiction to review the district court's interlocutory order denying the motion for a temporary restraining order. In response, Reeves contends that the pro se motion should have been liberally construed as a motion for preliminary injunctive relief.

The district court's order denying Reeves's motion for a temporary restraining order is not a final order, nor does it come within any of the other categories that would make it immediately appealable. See In re Lieb, 915 F.2d 180, 183 (5th Cir. 1990). Therefore, we lack jurisdiction to review the district court's denial of the motion for a temporary restraining order, and Reeves's appeal of that ruling is dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. See Faulder v. Johnson, 178 F.3d 741, 742 (5th Cir. 1999).

The denial of a preliminary injunction, however, is immediately appealable if it is related to the substantive issues of the litigation. 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1);Lakedreams v. Taylor, 932 F.2d 1103, 1107 (5th Cir. 1991). Although the district court construed the pro se motion as seeking only a temporary restraining order, Reeves sought relief that, if granted, would have extended beyond the 14-day limit of a temporary restraining order. See FED. R. CIV. P. 65(b). Thus, the pro se motion, liberally construed, was also a request for a preliminary injunction, the denial of which is immediately appealable because it is related to the substantive issues in the case.

A movant for a preliminary injunction must demonstrate "(1) a substantial likelihood of success on the merits, (2) a substantial threat that failure to grant the injunction will result in irreparable injury, (3) the threatened injury outweighs any damage that the injunction may cause the opposing party, and (4) the injunction will not disserve the public interest." Lakedreams, 932 F.2d at 1107. The decision to deny a preliminary injunction is reviewed for an abuse of discretion and will be reversed "only under extraordinary circumstances." White v. Carlucci, 862 F.2d 1209, 1211 (5th Cir. 1989).

Reeves alleged that absent any proof that Wells Fargo was a holder in due course of the promissory note and deed of trust, it had no legal standing to foreclose on the property in question. She also alleged that foreclosure was improper because the note had been rescinded and rendered void by its separation from the deed of trust. In denying the motion, the district court concluded that Reeves had failed to show a substantial likelihood of success on the merits.

To the extent that the district court denied Reeves preliminary injunctive relief, she has failed to show that it was an abuse of discretion. See id. Reeves does not reassert her claim that the note had been rescinded, nor does she dispute the district court's finding that she had not made a payment on the note since November 2009. The district court reasoned that Reeves's suspicion that Wells Fargo was not the true holder in due course of the note, in light of documentary evidence to the contrary, was insufficient to relieve her of her obligation to pay that note. Reeves has failed to provide any law to the contrary. Further, Reeves acknowledges that she did not cogently articulate her claims before the district court but argues that "based on the facts as now more clearly understood and articulated," she has established a high likelihood of success on the merits. However, because her contentions that the foreclosure notice was flawed, that the assignment and transfer of the note and deed of trust to Wells Fargo was defective, that the undated endorsements were ineffective, and that there is no proof of a nominee agreement between the original lender and Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. (MERS) were not presented to the district court, we may not consider them on appeal.See Leverette v. Louisville Ladder Co., 183 F.3d 339, 342 (5th Cir. 1999) (noting that a party may not raise a new theory of relief for the first time on appeal). Likewise, to the extent Reeves relies on documentary evidence that was not before the district court, such evidence may not be considered on appeal. See Theriot v. Parish of Jefferson, 185 F.3d 477, 491 n.26 (5th Cir. 1999) ("An appellate court may not consider new evidence furnished for the first time on appeal and may not consider facts which were not before the district court at the time of the challenged ruling.").

APPEAL DISMISSED IN PART FOR LACK OF JURISDICTION; AFFIRMED IN PART.

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Footnotes

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* Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH CIR. R. 47.5.4.

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Listed below are the cases that are cited in the Featured Case. Click the citation to see the full text of the cited case. Citations are also linked in the body of the Featured Case. Cited Cases From F3d, Reporter Series • 185 F.3d 477 • 183 F.3d 339 • 178 F.3d 741 From F2d, Reporter Series • 932 F.2d 1103 • 915 F.2d 180 • 862 F.2d 1209

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•	IN RE ESTATE OF MARUN

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•	SMITH v. SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT LLC

•	DOUCETTE v. HALLSMITH/SYSCO FOOD SERVICES, INC.

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•	IN RE MARRIAGE OF CHOA YANG XIONG v. SU XIONG

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