The Wachovia Corporation agreed on Friday to pay as much as $144 million to end an investigation that accuses the bank of allowing telemarketers to use its accounts to steal millions of dollars. The settlement, one of the largest penalties ever demanded by the federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, concludes an 18-month inquiry into Wachovia’s relationships with schemes that investigators say stole from thousands of victims, many of them elderly. Though Wachovia did not admit or deny wrongdoing, the investigation found that Wachovia, one of the country’s largest banks, engaged in unsafe practices ? failing to conduct suitable due diligence, failing to monitor accounts used by telemarketers and failing to follow normal procedures that would probably have uncovered the thefts.
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