Washington DC - The US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has ordered Wells Fargo bank to pay billions of dollars as a part of a settlement for their mismanagement of mortgage, auto loan, and deposit accounts.

The CFPB announced on Tuesday that the bank will pay $2 billion to redress more than 16 million affected consumer accounts, and a $1.7-billion civil penalty for legal violations, totaling $3.7 billion.

"The bank's illegal conduct led to billions of dollars in financial harm to its customers and, for thousands of customers, the loss of their vehicles and homes," the statement said.

"Consumers were illegally assessed fees and interest charges on auto and mortgage loans, had their cars wrongly repossessed, and had payments to auto and mortgage loans misapplied by the bank."

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Customers with deposit accounts were also charged "unlawful surprise overdraft fees," and the bank "applied other incorrect charges to checking and savings accounts."

Wells Fargo's CEO Charlie Scharf reportedly said in a statement, "We and our regulators have identified a series of unacceptable practices that we have been working systematically to change and provide customer remediation where warranted."

"This far-reaching agreement is an important milestone in our work to transform the operating practices at Wells Fargo and to put these issues behind us," he added.

The company has seen a handful of legal cases and consumer violations brought against them in the past decade, including claims of fraud and abuses.

The CFPB continues to urge consumers to report ongoing problems with Wells Fargo on their website.