Wells Fargo agrees to pay $108M over whistleblower claims

ATLANTA

The settlement award, disclosed by an Atlanta firm representing the whistleblowers, is the largest so far to result from the 11-year-old lawsuit. Two former metro Atlanta mortgage brokers sued eight banks or mortgage lenders on behalf of the government. The lawsuit was filed in federal district court in Atlanta.

"We're glad it's over, at least as to Wells Fargo," said whistleblower Victor Bibby. The other is Brian Donnelly.

In 2012, SunTrust Banks, JPMorgan Chase, Countrywide Home Loans and three other major lenders agreed to pay $162 million to settle similar allegations by the whistleblowers. Another lawsuit is pending against a St. Petersburg, Fla., lender, Mortgage Investors Corp. In 2013, the lender laid off hundreds of employees and stopped making new home loans, blaming tougher regulations under the federal Dodd-Frank Act.

A Wells Fargo spokeswoman said the bank changed its methods for handling Veterans Affairs refinancing loans several years ago to fix the alleged problems and settled the lawsuit to "put the matter behind us."

The San Francisco bank, which has a significant presence in Minnesota and Georgia, has been bruised lately in a number of legal skirmishes over its practices.

Last year, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and other agencies alleged that the bank's employees broke the law by opening more than 2 million credit card, checking and savings accounts without customers' knowledge, in order to meet sales quotas and win bonuses.

In the Atlanta case, which affected veteran homeowners across the nation, Bibby and Donnelly alleged that Wells Fargo illegally collected lawyers' fees and closing costs from borrowers who refinanced their mortgages, even though such charges were barred under the VA's refinancing program. The bank hid the fees by mislabeling them, said Atlanta law firm Butler Wooten & Peak, one of three firms that represented the whistleblowers.

The law firm said taxpayers also lost money because of the alleged fraud. Under the VA loan guarantee program, the agency paid Wells Fargo a portion of any loans on which the borrowers defaulted, even though the fraudulent fees would have negated the government loan guarantees.

On Friday, Wells Fargo spokeswoman Crystal Drake said, "Today, we are settling this long-standing lawsuit, which did not seek any refunds for individual veterans, in order to put the matter behind us, and to focus on restoring trust in Wells Fargo."

She said the bank had previously made compensation available to affected veterans.