Chutzpah: Wells Fargo Says Signatures It Forged Makes Contracts Legal, Victims Can't Sue

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I just read an infuriating article in Consumerist.

Remember that whole thing a year or so ago when we learned Wells Fargo opened a whole bunch of fake accounts so that employees could make sales goals?

People suddenly had Wells Fargo accounts that they didn't seek and didn't want, and were subject to fees on those accounts. Wells Fargo employees forged signatures of these customers to establish the accounts.

As you might expect and remember, this was a huge scandal. More than 5,000 low-level employees were fired, as were four executives. Even then, a lot of people understandably wanted further repercussions against Wells Fargo.

Another non-surprise is that people who had been signed up for these fake accounts are suing Wells Fargo, or intend to.

Here's where it gets infuriating. Most banking transactions -  credit cards, bank accounts, that type of thing - have contracts that have an arbitration clause.

What that means is when you sign up for an account or a credit cart through a bank, you sign a contract that says if you are dissatisfied, you agree to go through arbitration rather than sue the bank.

Of course, the deck is stacked against you through that system, since the arbitration is set up by the bank, which has an interest in siding with the bank if there is a dispute.

But that's not the heart of the infuriating thing here.

According to Consumerist, to fend off lawsuits over all those thousands of fake accounts, Wells Fargo says that since the contracts in the fake accounts are subject to arbitration, the victims have to go through that arbitration.

Remember, the victims didn't sign these contracts. Wells Fargo forged them. Wells Fargo is essentially claiming that the forged contract are legally binding, which is a novel approach to the law.

In a statement to Consumerist, Wells Fargo wrote this gem:

"Our goal is to do what's right for every customer and team member, every day. If we are unable to resolve a dispute directly, arbitration is a forum in which a customer or a team member dispute is heard and resolved with a neutral third-party legal process. Arbitration is generally faster and less expensive than litigation. It is a fair, efficient and effective forum availale for a customer and a team memger to purseu and resolve a legal claim."

Yep, Wells Fargo is telling the victims of the fraud that they're doing them a favor by trying to deny their day in court. And remember, Wells Fargo isn't offering the arbiration as a voluntary alternative. They want to require it.

Besides, as Consumerist points out, the legal trouble will involve a class action lawsuit. That means lawyers will handle things for the victims and the people who were defrauded by Wells Fargo will not have to go through the time ane expense of going to court, meeting with lawyers, depositions, etc.

If Wells Fargo requires arbitration, then each victim will have to go individually to arbitration, and gather up all their information and attend hearings and that sort of thing.  That's not exactly easier than the class action lawsuit, where the victims can just wait and home and see how the legal battle plays out.

Lawuits against the bank are on hold while judges decide whether they should be combined into one gigantic class action lawsuit, or whether everybody should be forced into arbitration, the way Wells Fargo wants.

The second question shouldn't even be up for consideration, but that's the way things are nowadays.  More often than not, corporations get to choose what they want, and the hell with the rest of us.

A consumer group called We Do Count is urging the courts to throw away this stupid arbitration effort.

Additionally, six U.S. Senators (led by Vermont's own Patrick Leahy, yay!) are urging Wells Fargo to knock it off with this arbitration idea.

I guess we have to wait and see whether corporate fraud wins in the end.

Chutzpah: Old Woman Alters Artwork, Now Wants Copywright On It For "Improvments"

An elderly woman "improve" a piece of artwork'
depicting a crossword puzzle and now shes'
claiming copywright control over it.  

The Nuremberg, Germany Neuse Museum recently had on loan a piece of artwork by 20th century artist Arthur Kopcke that depicts a crossword puzzle.

A 90-year old woman, identified only as Hannelore K. visited the gallery and started filling in the crossword puzzle on the artpiece becuase it bore the phrases "insert words" and "so it suits."

OK, I get it that a 90 year old woman might get confused a bit and not realize she's not supposed to touch the artwork in a museum.

So far, she hasn't gotten in trouble, though police are investigating her. The museum went to work restoring the artwork to its original condition. The piece had an estimated value of $90,000

However, according to Ars Technica, Hannelore lawyered up and, in a demonstration of pretty huge chutzpah, is now claiming copywright control over Kopcke's piece.

Hannelore's lawyer said she increased the value of the work by bringing the relatively unknown Kopcke to the attention of the public. And her "invigorating re-working," as the lawyer put it, of the exhibit increased its worth.

With that, the lawyer summed up, Hannelore now owns the copywright to the work, since she "improved" it.

Hannelor could technically, in theory,  have the backing, sort of, of the original artist. Ars Technica says that Kopcke was part of an art movement called Fluxus, which stated that museums really didn't have the authority to determine the value of art, and Fluxus art involved the viewer.

Hannelor certainly involved herself in the artwork.

Should I start going to musuems and "improving" artwork? Put a mustache on Mona Lisa? Make the subject of "The Scream" seem happier?

I could make a lot of money doing this, huh?

Ohio Man Learns You Can't Just Walk Into An Empty House And Call It Yours

This year's Chutzpah Award goes to a guy named Robert Carr in Ohio, who has decided that if nobody has been in a particular house for awhile, he can walk in, change the locks and claim it's his.

Robert Carr, who think he can just take houses for free.
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Apparently, he's been trying to do this for awhile, but the antics finally blew up in his face in the past couple of weeks.

A family in Springdale, Ohio, left town for a number of days to visit a dying relative, according to television station WLWT in Cincinnati.

When they came back, they discovered Carr had emptied their possessions from the house and changed the locks, according to WLWT. 

Carr seems to think that since the family hadn't been there in several days (or maybe even a few weeks) they "abandoned" the house and he could take ownership of it through a process called "quiet title"

"When you abandon a property, bam, walk away from it, 'I ain't never coming back. I don't want nothing to do with it,' right? Somebody can come in, 'Oh mine,' Carr told WLWT reporter Karin Johnson.

He says he can have the house for free.

WLWT said Carr has done this same tactic with at least 11 other properties. Carr says he's got a team helping him with this enterprise.

Well, it's not working out so well for Carr and his alleged team. After WLWT's story came out, Carr was charged with three counts of breaking and entering and three counts of theft. More charges could be pending.

You have to admire Carr's persistence, though. According to The Raw Story, Carr has responded to the charges by saying he "rejected" them and the "offer is not accepted."

Since when are criminal charges an offer? Police charge you with a crime and you say "No, thank you and the police go away? I don't think that's how it works.

According to Raw Story: "He also charged Forest Park, Ohio police with a lengthy, handwritten list of civil rights violations against him, including kidnapping "upon the inheritance of (his) free will as a man identified as a U.S. citizen."

Carr apparently belongs to a movement called sovereign citizen, in which they believe they decide what  laws to obey based on their interpretation of the Constitution.

Um, Mr. Carr? It doesn't work that way, either.  What if someone decided to commit a crime against you, say, robbery, and said I don't have to obey anti-robbery laws. What would you say to that?

Again, you have to admire Carr's chutzpah, but still.

Back to his house seizures:

There is actually a legal document called a quiet title, but it's not at all the way Carr envisions it. According to the Free Legal Dictionary, people can use a quiet title proceeding to remove a "cloud" from a potential property transaction.

A quiet title is basically a device to make it clear who owns the property and who the property is being transferred to.

The plaintiff has to prove he has a legal case to obtain the property, and it's up to the plaintiff to prove it.  So no, Mr. Carr, you can't just go into a house and say it's yours unless there's a compelling legal case that you are entitled to it.

So, just to review: If your next door neighbor goes away on vacation for a few weeks and nobody's in their house during that time, you can't just take the neighbor's house.

You have to find something else for a Christmas gift to yourself.