False Credit Reporting by Wells Fargo

    Wells Fargo Home Mortgage is forced to pay over $750,000.00, according to the decision of a civil jury in Rancho Cucamonga, San Bernardino County, California proclaimed on the 6th of March 2007. The sum has to be paid in actual and punitive damages to Reed and Mary Ann Fisher of Oceanside. Their allegation has at its base a false credit reporting by Wells Fargo extended over a period of two years. The Fishers were denied credit and their their credit score was seriously affected. The Fishers were represented by Robert F. Brennan of Brennan, Wiener & Associates in La Crescenta, widely regarded as the leading consumer protection and credit damage law firm in Southern California.

Beacuse of land instability, Reed and MaryAnne Fisher's house in San Clemente was red-tagged in the spring of 2001. This was thought to be their greatest concern at the time, but facts proved otherwise.

    So that they wouldn't have to unnecessarily pay their mortgage while their house was red-tagged, the Fishers got a forebearance agreement from Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, their mortgage servicer. The mortgage was then transferred to Freddie Mac, the mortgage holder, who charged off the loan with a zero balance and no negative credit marks. The Fishers' mortgage payments were completely up to date, and their credit was absolutely spotless.

    Still, false negative credit information was reported by Wells Fargo to the credit bureaus. Wells Fargo claimed that the Fishers' mortgage payments had a delay between 30 and 90 days. In complete illegality, foreclosure proceedings were made by Wells Fargo on the Fisher's home.

    The Fishers had their lives turned upside down by the negative credit entries from Wells Fargo. Their false credit reporting had a huge negative impact on their lives and credit scores during the two years that Wells Fargo continued to do this. Wells Fargo adopted contradictory procedures, as they decided to send a letter to the Fishers stating that the credit information was being cleaned up, in the same time that they continued to report the negative credit information to the credit bureaus.

    The Fishers asked Robert F. Brennan of La Crescenta, one of the best Southern California consumer protection and credit damage attorney to file a lawsuit to  get Wells Fargo to stop the credit reporting. At the same time, their law suit also included obtaining their damages, given the fact that the two-years false credit reporting had ruined their lives.

Brennan declared: "This is yet another example of how the big players in the credit reporting industry really ignore and neglect the consumers they're supposed to protect. The Fishers tried for two years to clean up their credit by themselves, only to have the door slammed in their faces repeatedly. Only when they hired an attorney and filed a lawsuit did things start to improve. But by then a lot of damage had been done."

He also added: "So often in these cases, you see an attitude that big banks like Wells Fargo believe that a consumer's credit information belongs to the bank. It does not. If nothing else, I hope Wells Fargo learns from this verdict that a consumer's credit information belongs to the consumer, and a bank has a sacred trust to protect it from wrongful damage."

Mr. Brennan and his firm are the leading consumer protection and credit damage attorneys in Southern California. Mr. Brennan has been selected as a "Southern California Super Lawyer" for two years running, for both 2006 and 2007.