The Oregonian | By Maxine Bernstein | September 03, 2019
An identity thief opened a Wells Fargo car loan account in the name of Matthew Sponer, bought a BMW at a used car dealership in Southern California in July 2016, was caught that fall and convicted several months later.
Despite repeated attempts by Sponer and his lawyer to get his bank to delete the $29,000 debt that his credit report showed he owed for the car loan, Wells Fargo didn’t do it for 14 months. They finally followed through after Sponer sued the bank.
The delay came despite a detective confirming to the bank the identity theft, the thief’s guilty plea and sentencing, the bank’s receipt of a police report and Sponer’s credit card statements that showed he was out of the country when the car was purchased.
On Tuesday, a federal jury awarded Sponer $101,000 in noneconomic damages, finding Wells Fargo Bank negligently and willfully violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act. But the eight-member jury didn’t issue any punitive damages.
Jurors deliberated for about six hours after a four-day federal court trial in Portland.
“A consumer should not have to sue a bank like Wells Fargo to get it to do what the law requires,’’ Sponer’s lawyer, Robert S. Sola, said during his closing argument. “They ignored all the information in their own record.’’
Sponer, a 43-year-old Sellwood resident who does computer work out of his home, was victimized twice, Sola told jurors: once by the ID thief and again by Well Fargo’s “credit irresponsibility.’’
Sponer and his wife cut short a long-planned sailing trip and returned to Oregon, fearing that his bank of 20 years would shut down his credit card, his lawyer said. Sponer had been in New Zealand when police contacted his brother trying to find him to let him know about the ID thief.
Sola urged the jury to send a strong message to the bank’s board of directors with a multimillion-dollar punitive verdict “to get it to stop’’ their corporate misconduct.
He argued that the bank failed to do a reasonable investigation and disregarded at least 10 notices of the alleged fraud, as well as personal letters Sponer wrote to the bank between October 2016 and November 2017.
“He tried over and over and over again, but he couldn’t make them listen,’’ Sola said. “He couldn’t make them do the right thing.’’
It was five weeks after Sponer sued the bank that he finally received notice that his ID theft claim was valid. The car loan account was deleted in January 2018.
Attorney Daniel C. Peterson, representing Wells Fargo, acknowledged for the first time during his closing argument Friday that the bank was negligent in not deleting the car loan account earlier and validating it as a fraud.
He also said the bank made a mistake when a January 2017 letter Sponer sent to Wells Fargo, which contained the police report on the identity theft and a fraud affidavit, was received but never transferred to its fraud department.
The bank’s auto loan credit bureau team handles about 370,000 consumer disputes a year, not only involving identity theft, according to court testimony.
“Mr. Sponer is unquestionably a victim in this case,’’ Peterson told jurors. “Wells Fargo has acknowledged there are things it could have done better.’’
But Peterson blamed human error and argued that no punitive damages were deserved.
Sponer’s frustration and emotional stress resulted from the identity thief and other purchases the thief made in Sponer’s name and not only from the fraudulent loan, the bank’s lawyer argued.
Sponer lawyer shot back in rebuttal, accusing the bank of “courtroom conversion’’ for suddenly admitting its errors at the end of a trial before jury deliberations.
The jury’s verdict showed that Wells Fargo “repeatedly broke the law,” Sola said. “That was our goal, to prove they willfully violated the law and hold them accountable. They gave fair compensation to Mr. Sponer for his damages. ‘’
Peterson said Wells Fargo respects the jury’s decision and appreciates the time and attention it gave.
As for Sponer, he said the ordeal was surreal.
“I never imagined being here,’’ he said.
