December 12, 2008 - 2:57am
$150 million was being mailed out this week to nearly 740,000 customers of Wachovia Corporation. The money was sent to those consumers who may have been harmed by payment processors for telemarketers as reports the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The OCC reached an amended settlement with Wachovia Bank over the account relationships the bank maintained with telemarketers who used remotely created checks, or RCCs, to harm Wachovia customers.
As it is known an RCC is a check that is not created by the account holder, and the signature block on the check includes text such as "authorized by your depositor, no signature required." According to the OCC telemarketers obtained personal information of bank account holders over the phone in the course of supposedly selling a product or service. Afterwards the telemarketer directed the payment processor to generate a RCC. Money were withdrawn from a consumer’s account to make payment on the check and deposited into the processor's account.
The OCC reported a large percentage of the RCCs were sent back to Wachovia by account holders who said that the checks were never authorized or that the products were never received from the telemarketers. A spokeswoman for Wachovia stated that the company readily partnered with regulators to find the most optimum solution so as to redress the losses some consumers incurred through telemarketing abuses. The reimbursement checks from Wachovia are being mailed by the US Court Settlement Administrator, advises the OCC.
As it is known an RCC is a check that is not created by the account holder, and the signature block on the check includes text such as "authorized by your depositor, no signature required." According to the OCC telemarketers obtained personal information of bank account holders over the phone in the course of supposedly selling a product or service. Afterwards the telemarketer directed the payment processor to generate a RCC. Money were withdrawn from a consumer’s account to make payment on the check and deposited into the processor's account.
The OCC reported a large percentage of the RCCs were sent back to Wachovia by account holders who said that the checks were never authorized or that the products were never received from the telemarketers. A spokeswoman for Wachovia stated that the company readily partnered with regulators to find the most optimum solution so as to redress the losses some consumers incurred through telemarketing abuses. The reimbursement checks from Wachovia are being mailed by the US Court Settlement Administrator, advises the OCC.