Bank of America Under Investigation By The CFPB For Potential Unauthorized Account Opening

Bank of America (BoA) is currently under investigation by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). CFPB is trying to determine if BoA opened accounts without authorization back in 2014 to meet sales goals. In 2016 Wells Fargo was ordered to pay $185 million in fines and fired 5,300 employees due to a similar issue, Wells Fargo then settled a class action for unauthorized account openings and paid another $142 million.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency investigated more than 40 banks, including Bank of America after the Wells Fargo saga came to light and no charges were laid. Because of this BoA have requested that the CFPB investigation be modified and that information kept confidential. A spokesperson for Bank of America has stated:

In previous reviews, we have worked with regulators to confirm we have the right processes and controls in place to govern our sales practices, and that we have not experienced any systemic issues. We will continue to cooperate with the CFPB, and look forward to wrapping up this investigation and demonstrating what prior reviews confirmed

 
    William Charles
  • On September 23, 2019, 15:00

View Comments (35)

  • Happy to hear the CFPB is looking into this; it proves that filing a legitimate complaint is beneficial to all consumers and particularly the followers of the good Doctor Of Credit!

  • BREAKING NEWS: Bank of America is a sleazy, shitty, dishonest bank! But next up, is the Pope really Catholic?

    • Do you have any money on deposit with them? Do you actively use the accounts with them? If not, that's probably why.

      • just several thousand in their savings and 2 CCs. How much do you have with them and how many CCs do you have that has activity in order to get the good promos? thanks!

        • I've got preferred rewards (platinum, aluminum, cesium? I don't know) and spend thousands a month on my cards. Not sure how many cards I have - a bunch of personal and bunch of business cards, multiple business vehicle loans and they used to have the mortgage on my house, plus checking and savings accounts.

          So I'm probably not the typical BoA customer, but I'll share what the banker told me when I first opened my account years ago and questioned why they wanted a good credit score for new accounts. He said they weren't interested in a customer with a checking account that had $10, or just a savings account with a few bucks in it.

          They wanted customers who had checking, savings, vehicle loans, mortgages, investments and credit cards with lots of spending with them, so as long as they give me lots of points and bonuses, that's what I try to do.

  • This was reported last week at least 5 days ago. Old news.

    There is always going to be minor amount of fraud in any institution. There is a difference between a few people and a few accounts being created and what happened at Wells Fargo unknown to the top executives and shareholders.

    As long as no one loses money or is harmed and the bank makes things right I fully stand behind them.

  • So there 40+ banks in addition to BoA, and they're all being investigated because they might possibly have done what WF did. But are there any actual facts that suggest this happen, or is CFPB just doing its due diligence by checking?

  • They haven't approved me for a cc since 2017 so here's hoping they haven't opened one on my behalf without my approval.

  • Laws mean nothing without consequences for breaking them. Lets see if they get a slap on the wrist as has been the running trend lately for these mega corps...

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