A federal judge in San Francisco decided this week that Wells Fargo Bank manipulated customer transactions to get the maximum overdraft fees.
He ordered the bank to pay $235 million in restitution -- and it may not stop there.
The Wells Fargo ruling may impact another case in federal court in Florida in which another 33 banks are accused of doing something similar.
Two of the three plaintiffs who challenged Wells Fargo live in the Redlands area. Erin Walker and Veronica Gutierrez brought the class action suit after becoming upset with the fees they found in their bank accounts.
This is what the bank did. It would process the biggest purchases first, so if some smaller purchases triggered the overdraft fee, the customer would be charged $35 for each instance.
Very soon, these would add up.
Wells Fargo earned $1.4 billion dollars from overdraft fees between 2005 and 2007.
Now, the judge wants the bank to give some of that money back.
But Wells Fargo says it will appeal the judge's ruling, so don't plan on spending that money anytime soon.
