(Reuters) - Wells Fargo will pay at least $386 million to settle class-action claims by customers who said the bank signed them up for auto insurance they did not want or need when they took out car loans.
Wells Fargo has been beset since September 2016 by a series of scandals over how it treats customers, including wrongly charging an estimated 600,000 auto loan borrowers for insurance.
In April 2018, Wells Fargo agreed to pay $1 billion to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to settle U.S. probes of the San Francisco-based bank’s auto insurance and mortgage practices.
Wells Fargo is taking steps to rebuild customer trust, but remains unable to expand under restrictions imposed in February 2018 by the Federal Reserve until the bank, now the nation’s fourth-largest by assets, cleans up its culture and oversight.
Thursday’s proposed settlement covers Wells Fargo customers charged for “collateral protection insurance” between Oct. 15, 2005 and Sept. 30, 2016.
The complaint said Wells Fargo’s wrongful practices caused nearly 275,000 customers to become delinquent, and nearly 25,000 vehicles to be illegally repossessed.
Through Thursday, Wells Fargo’s share price had been little changed since the scandals broke, while the KBW Nasdaq Bank Index had risen 33 percent.
The case is In re Wells Fargo Collateral Protection Insurance Litigation, U.S. District Court, Central District of California, No. 17-ml-02797.
