A federal judge said that Wells Fargo manipulated the order of how it processed checks, debits, and other payments to drive up the number of overdraft fees. From the courts decision:

“The bank’s dominant, indeed sole, motive was to maximize the number of overdrafts and squeeze as much as possible”

The court told Wells Fargo to give back $203 million in fees. The judge said Wells’ conduct was all about increasing fees, by saying, “the supposed net benefit of high-to-low resequencing is utterly speculative. Its bone-crushing multiplication of additional overdraft penalties however, is categorically assured.”

We are calling on Wells Fargo to finally do the right thing for once: End All Automatic Enrollments Into Overdraft Programs!

Consumers should not be saddled with expensive short-term loans they did not ask for. Consumers Union along with a strong coalition of organizations and consumer activists were successful in getting the Federal Reserve Board to end the most egregious part of automatic enrollment in overdraft programs by making it illegal for a bank to enroll you in overdraft for your debit cards unless you ask for that. However, checks and automatic withdrawals, such as bill pay and recurring payments, are not covered by this new law.

We are calling on Wells Fargo to stop putting their customers into overdraft programs they don’t ask for.

What do you think? Tell us in the comments.

Click here for our letter to Wells Fargo and here for the judges decision(PDF).