Banks are federally regulated to protect both themselves and its customers. However, in Nevada, some bankers find it extremely hard to follow these regulations and make their bonuses every quarter.in order to receive their incentives, they bend the rules so they can get their bonuses and their customers suffer the consequences. How do I know this? I am a former employee of the company and was personally affected by this misconduct.
The 'trick' is simple, a customer comes into the bank to get a statement, inquire about an account or activate a debit card, the banker looks at the customer profile, immediately notices that the customer has been pre-approved for a line of credit so he/she decides that Mr. Customer needs it and submits an application without even informing the customer.
That alone violates many regulations, first the customer must always be aware of any credit applications submitted on his/her name, second, rates and disclosures have to be presented to the customer before summiting the application, and last but not least, the customer has to give authorization to have his/her credit report pulled.
Other great way bankers satisfy their loan requirements every week is with the famous solicitation calls. This happens on Thursday from 5:00pm to 7:00pm when bankers are required to stay after work to make outbound calls to existing customers to offer products and services they may need. A person or two at my old bank had a great technique to get customers to apply: they call the customer, introduce themselves and offer to mail information about a line of credit, if the customer agrees to receive that information the banker automatically submits an application, if the customer gets approved the line of credit is open and will remain open at a zero balance indefinitely, if it gets denied, it will be hard for that customer to know that an application was submitted (unless they check their credit reports). Usually bankers get a way to avoid denial letters, so the customer never finds out.
What about signatures? No problem, not need it for a personal line of credit since is a revolving trade (just like a credit card) only installment loans require closing signatures.
This issue is only the surface of many unethical things some bankers do. I invite people to check their credit reports and see if there are any unauthorized inquiries from Wells Fargo. If you dont want to go through the hassle of getting that report call a local office and inquire what accounts you have open with the bank or if there are any credit applications entered for you in the past (they will only go back 30 days on that, so getting the copy of your credit report is best). If there are any lines of credit, credit cards or accounts you didnt know about, report that branch. Credit is a serious issue and bankers need to respect the customers decision to obtain it or not.
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