The Federal Trade Commission said yesterday that more than 450,000 borrowers who were charged excessive fees by Countrywide Home Loans when they fell behind on their mortgages will finally begin receiving the $108 million the company agreed to pay in a settlement, according to an article in today's edition of The New York Times by Gretchen Morgenson.

Most of the borrowers will get $500 or less, the article said, but 5 percent will receive $5,000 or more, and the number of consumers recovering money in the settlement is the largest in the commission's history and is double what the commission had estimated.

"It is astonishing that one single company could be responsible for overcharging more than 450,000 homeowners, which is more than 1 percent of all the mortgages in the United States" and Countrywide's "was a business model based on deceit and corruption, and they harm they caused to American consumers is absolutely massive and extraordinary," Jon Leibowitz, the commission's chairman, said in an interview for the article.

"To profit from property inspections, title searches and maintenance on homes going through foreclosure, Countrywide set up subsidiaries to do the work and marked up the cost of the services by more than 100 percent," the article said, adding that Countrywide was acquired by Bank of America in 2008.

In other developments, Wells Fargo & Company was reported by the Associated Press to have agreed to pay $85 million to settle civil charges that it falsified loan documents and pushed borrowers toward subprime mortgages with higher interest rages. The Federal Reserve said that the fine was was the largest in a consumer enforcement case ever.