Bank of America wound up with what many observers found to be a favorable settlement with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over repurchase claims on mortgage backed securities where the bank violated clear representations of the product. But Wells Fargo continues to maintain that they’re the “good” bank in all of this. Despite clear evidence that Xee Moua, a Wells employee, robo-signed thousands of foreclosure affidavits, they have yet to acknowledge the error or suspend foreclosure operations. And despite clear evidence that they engaged in the same poor securitization processes as BofA and others, which led to the repurchase demands from the GSEs, they won’t settle the claims.

Wells Fargo & Co. won’t seek a settlement with Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac on disputed mortgages, and terms offered to rival banks may not have been as generous as some portrayed, Chief Financial Officer Howard Atkins said.

“The quality of our securitizations was of a much higher caliber than all of the other large bank peers,” Atkins said today in an interview. “It doesn’t make sense for us to pay up to get rid of the remaining small amount of problems we have.”

This is just a falsehood. Wells has exactly the same problems as the other large banks, and virtually the same exposure. And ironically, Wells’ adamant stance may lead to an actual court case from the GSEs, which would expose them MORE than banks who took the settlement, and lead to a host of private claims from investors.

Incidentally, Wells Fargo was the servicer in the case of the family whose home I visited yesterday in North Portland. Connie and Michael Umphress sought a private modification from Wells as they were struggling to meet payments on their mortgage (though they remained current on the loan). Wells told them to skip a payment to qualify for a modification (not true), then strung the family along for 10 months with a trial modification, ruining their credit along the way, before rejecting them and demanding payment on the balance, or foreclosure. After the Wall Street Journal jumped on the story, all of a sudden Wells Fargo got very accommodating to the family, and helped negotiate a legitimate modification.

This activity mirrors pretty much every other servicer-driven default I’ve heard about. This notion that Wells is immune from all this is just laughable. Before long you’ll hear about Wells Fargo in cases like these:

Banks in recent weeks have been dropping hundreds of their Southwest Florida foreclosure lawsuits instead of facing defendants at trial, according to local attorneys and court records.

Opinions varied sharply on whether that means banks are just taking a breather before refiling with stronger evidence – or giving up for good on hopelessly flawed cases [...]

But eight voluntary dismissals were filed Tuesday alone by seven different banks including Bank of America, one of the largest filers of foreclosures in this area. Bank of America did not reply to a request for comment Tuesday.

At one court hearing alone, attorney Kevin Jursinski said, one of his associates watched as “50 in a row” were withdrawn.

“Can they re-litigate?” Fort Myers-based attorney Carmen Dellutri asked. “I don’t think so.”

This is highly unusual, by the way, and evidence that the banks have run into a brick wall with their fraudulent foreclosures and need to reassess their options.

And that includes Wells Fargo. This public front that they’re immune is just that, a front.