Wells Fargo loses overdraft fee case

Read our latest industry news where Art Olsen, InfinIT's Senior Business Consultant, processed all the data in the Wells Fargo overdraft fee court case.

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Written by: Aaron Smith

Published by: CNNMoney

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Wells Fargo was ordered to pay more than $200 million in restitution to California customers for manipulating and multiplying overdraft fees, a federal judge has ruled.

U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup of Northern California, in his 90-page ruling Tuesday, said Wells Fargo used "a bookkeeping device" that turned one instance of overdrawing an account into as many as 10, allowing the bank to multiply the number of fees it could collect from a single mistake.

"The bank went to considerable effort to hide these manipulations while constructing a facade of phony disclosure," he said.

The ruling said Wells Fargo (WFC, Fortune 500) must pay $203 million in restitution to California customers for its liberal use of $35 overdraft fees. This is a fraction of the $1.8 billion in overdraft fees that the bank collected in California from 2005 to 2007, according to the court.

"The revenue generated from these fees has been massive," wrote the judge.

The ruling concluded a two-week bench trial that ended May 7.

Wells Fargo spokeswoman Richele Messick said that her company was "disappointed" with the judge's ruling.

"We don't believe it's in line with the facts of the case and we plan to appeal," she said.

Paul Miller, analyst for FBR Capital Markets, said that Wells Fargo's handling of the overdraft fees was "always a questionable practice" that has been "going on for years."

But he said that in the future, bank fees are going to become "more up front than back door," especially in the wake of financial reform.

"I think with financial reform in general, a lot of these practices are going to change anyway," he said. "The government is going to take a really hard look at this stuff."  

InfinIT Partners With OCS / VOIP Appliance Provider StartReady

InfinIT has joined forces with StartReady to provide customers with modern communication technologies that offer organizations the ability to collaborate and interact regardless of time or place.

What is this partnership all about?

StartReady is a supplier of IT appliances, an integration of software and hardware, based upon Microsoft technology to provide you with the ability to use it instantly, without installation.  InfinIT will be working with StartReady to supply our iDNA customers with unified communications which enables the user and their co-workers to streamline their communications across different communication modes.

What does this mean for our customers?

Microsoft Office Communication Server uses the power of software to streamline all forms of communication between people and organizations, regardless of the medium, platform, device, or location.  InfinIT offers this solution as the Unified Communication (UC) hosted appliance: a ready-to-use solution which unites hardware, software as well as all underlying Microsoft licenses in one single product.  With iDNA Unified Communications offering, OCS installation, configuration, management and security are all included in the price allowing you to immediately start using all the OCS advantages, without time consuming and timely implementations.  Customers can start benefiting from InfinIT's iDNA UC offering using a virtual cloud-based infrastructure than integrates email, calendaring, instant messaging, voicemail, audio/video/web conferencing, and VoIP.

InfinIT Partners With Leading Online Backup Provider Blackblaze

InfinIT has expanded its CompleteCare+ online PC backup solutions partnerships with Blackblaze.

What is this partnership all about?

Blackblaze is an online backup service provider, offering a simple and hassle-free service where all data is automatically backed up onto their servers, and available for you to view and retrieve in the case of data loss.  InfinIT's partnership with Blackblaze will allow us to provide this online backup service with our CompleteCare+ package, providing customers with an unlimited cloud based storage to backup all of your employees' important data.

What does this mean for our customers?

InfinIT will be able to offer you a secure, offsite, and the only online backup that doesn't require you to select what files and folders to backup.  That means all of the data residing on your employees’ laptop and desktop computers will be backed up automatically, excluding only unnecessary operating system, application and temporary files.  By providing you with Blackblaze backup solutions, there will be no need to worry about losing your data on backup CDs or USBs and it will allow you to spend less time manually backing up your data and more time on important business matters.