Wells Fargo settles with California for privacy law violations

(Reuters) — A Wells Fargo & Co. unit will pay $8.5 million to California and five counties to settle charges that it violated customers' privacy due to not disclosing in a timely fashion that it was recording their calls, California's attorney general said on Tuesday.

Wells Fargo Bank broke the state's privacy laws, which require notifying customers at the start of a phone call that they are being recorded, California's attorney general said in a statement about its civil complaint against the bank.

Wells Fargo worked to change its policies once notified of the problem by investigators. The bank neither admitted nor denied liability, the state's attorney general said.