This is an outrageous conclusion to a massive fraud.
Millions of customers suffered and WF is only fined a few billions?
When the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Los Angles Consumer Protection Bureau informed me that WF had misbehaved with my personal data, WF refused to admit any wrongdoing. So, I closed my checking account and when I tried to pay off my home mortgage, the local WF branch stalled, obfuscated and just plain refused to process my request. So I finally paid off the mortgage by going to another WF branch.
The result of this massive fraud is that WF paid a few billions in fines, but none of the dozens/hundreds? of WF executives have been jailed. Why not?
Anyone who continues to deal with WF is a fool.
24
Wells Fargo is the absolute worst. I will NEVER bank there ever again. NEVER. They rooked me with so many hidden fees and charges and gimmicks and scams. NEVER.
5
Surely the $64,000 is why Tolstedt and Stumpf haven't been arrested and charged with running a fraud.
1
Who are the recipients of all these settlements? How are the victims compensated? Why is Wells Fargo still in business?
Until CEOs and other executives are given significant jail time in a non-country club prison for their criminal financial activity no amount of settlement is meaningful.
History, hopefully, will tell the outrageous story of how the Obama administration, especially Eric Holder, stole the hard earned assets of millions of Americans during the 2008 financial crisis. That Obama and Holder were the enabling agents of the .01% financial titans is criminal. According to Felkerson, James (2011). "$29,000,000,000,000: A Detailed Look at the Fed's Bailout by Funding Facility and Recipient". SSRN Electronic Journal. The bottom line: a Federal Reserve bailout commitment in excess of $29 trillion. And Eric Holder couldn't manage to prosecute one financial executive!
Not only did Obama throw American citizens under the bus, he and his AG gave a free pass to the preparators, and missed a golden opportunity to rethink aspects of financial system sorely in need of reform.
Obama simply allowed the consequences of the of cabal of Bill Clinton, Robert Rubin, and Sandy Weill and their breathtaking repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which sowed the seeds of the 2008 recession, continue to unravel our economic system at the expense of citizens.
Obama lacked the courage, imagination, and character to reform a broken financial system.
9
And who is going to jail? No one. If an individual behaved this way, they would be in prison for the rest of their life. These corporate criminal pay the fine with corporate dollars and keep going.
5
Given such behavior, why does this company exist?
6
This is the same bank that received $25 billion in TARP money during the financial crisis... and billions more in Federal Aid..
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/u-s-sues-wells-fargo-yet-another-bailed-out-bank-accused-of-fraud-242163/
5
Wells Fargo will reimburse as et all from the settlement?
We are still their custumer at list 25 yrs ,and had morgage and bank account with them.
Thank you Elizabeth
$3B? Are you kidding me? That’s couch cushion change for WF. Where’s the jail time?
6
And Madoff was the one they put in jail...
1
Another wrist-slap for the Big Bank Corporatocracy!
Goddess Bless the Land of The Free (old, white, rich robber barons)!
1
What, no jail time? This is ridiculous. Just a slap on the wrist. Banks like this are why I have used ONLY credit unions for the past 38 years.
1
I have one word, scumbuckets!. I hope these managers never get a good sleep ever again in their life.
1
I like the way China deals with the corrupt directors of major enterprises: "termination with extreme prejudice" I guess it is called in the movies...
3
No criminal charges. That’s for little people.
2
Let the apologists for vulture capitalism make excuses or claim this is somehow "aberrant" corporate behavior. This is what precisely what the "hugest" subsidy of "limited liability" results in. No "liability" for the criminals. Jail time is absent. One can dislike the Chinese Communists ---generally-- while supporting how they punish economic criminals. Executing a few bankers isn't such a bad idea. We needn't worry about racial prejudice in the decision to execute. What's a few executed bankers, more or less? And take their lobbyists with them.
2
Do we notice that $2.5bn is going to Securities and Exchange Commission and only $500MM to the folks who were defrauded and actually suffered the losses? Typical. Like Trump tariffs and equivalent “punitive damages” - it’s systematized theft carried out under the guise of righteous punishment.
2
Back in the early 2000s we we slipped in to a sub prime loan that we were never told about at WF. We didn’t even know it was subprime till we tried refinancing out of it. It cost us dearly. We were qualified for and should have gotten a prime loan. Of course we knew nothing of this criminal behavior until later. When we wanted and asked for copies of our loan docs to compare them to our copies, they couldn’t find them. Crooks and criminals -the lot of them. They should have been in prison but Comey let them -criminal bankers -skate. He did succeed in imprisoning Martha Stewart, however. I guess she was contributing to the wrong people. WF should be broken up, sold off, and their executives imprisoned.
4
Virulent, poorly-regulated, American-style capitalism will be the destruction of this country if we do not smarten up quickly. This is just one reason why the current crop of Republicans must be driven from office. But, alas, with oligarchs having gained control of the country, it may not happen.
4
Wells Fargo criminals finally got what they deserved: their shareholders will pay their fine and no one will be tried for criminal activity.
God I love this country and the freedom of rich and powerful to have others buy their way out of trouble!!
That should be the 11th Commandment:
Thous shalt not prosecute or hassle the rich and powerful!!
The congregation will now stand and say Amen!!
2
Wells Fargo banksters DON'T go to jail.
1
In 2013 my husband USAF active duty in Iraq had direct deposit paychecks at Wells Fargo. We found WF was depositing into an employee account! My husband KIA and I go homeless because I can’t get WF to give back the money!
Got a lawyer on contingency- he got 60percent of 250 k settlement But took 3 yrs and an NDA! And still WF promotes to all US military families to get a discount on fees...
6
It's ridiculous. Wells Fargo should be out of business, never allowed to be a bank again, and exec's should be in jail. If you are caught stealing jellybeans and the fine is a small percentage of the jellybeans you stole, that would seem to make the statement," Crime Pays". More jelly beans will go missing. I thank my lucky stars I never got involved with this so-called 'bank'.
2
Want to stop this type of crime overnight? Jail time.
2
You really have to wonder why anyone in their right mind would voluntarily do business with this company.
4
Buffet didn’t drop Wells Fargo stock for nothing two weeks ago, he knew this was coming.
Hard to find a comment supportive of Wells Fargo. So I would like to say that I kind of liked the old TV show.
And Wells Fargo is still allowed to be in business?
1
Shut them down. They will forever be a reminder of bank greed and themGreat Recession. They're smarmy ad about being reborn is gone, and so should they; to finally give us a fresh start.
1
And who went to jail? Stumpf? Anybody? Who says crime doesn't pay.
Wait a minute. Is this still criminal activity in the eyes of Trump? This is the behavior that Trump wants to legalize. After all, he's destroying all of the regulations that are supposed to prevent large corporations from robbing their customers and rendering them bankrupt.
1
Jail time for these thieves. It is the lack of punishment that makes the risk worth it. Rob a 711 of 200 bucks and you will do a few years. Steal billions pay a fine from the banks' assets.
2
Class warfare has been waged by the powerful and wealthy for thousands of years.
It continues the same, but with different disguises of cultural institutions and conventions.
Obviously, if it is not severely punished and discouraged, there is no reason to believe that it will not continue: apparently, the status quo, the establishment must be allowed to continue to hold power.
Wells Fargo has, for many years, occupied one corner of a major intersection in my community, opposite another major bank which failed during the financial crisis.
This is America? We retain these monuments of corruption for what--for our shame, for our obesience?
Perhaps we will actually have some democracy some day, if we act and exercise some of our choices.
2
In all countries that aren't Banana Republics or Tin-Pot Dictatorships, there is government oversight of things like how banks operate or how jet airliners are built. That way you don't have hundreds of people dying in airplane crashes or thousands and thousands of people getting ripped off by fraudsters posing as a bank.
Elizabeth Warren came up with the idea to create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2007, when she was still a professor at Harvard Law School. The Republican majority in Congress prevented President Obama from appointing her to lead the CFPB, so she ran for Senate - and won. Then the new Republican President Donald Trump buried the CFPB by eliminating the budget and firing the staff. Now Senator Elizabeth Warren is running for president....We’ll see how this ends in November. But don't get your hopes up. The CFPB isn't an issue in the election. Apparently Trump's latest tweets are way more important to the American people - and the NYT.
2
Why is this bank still in business? Or why is anyone still doing business with them? All our banking is with credit unions. In 35 years, we’ve not missed commercial banks once.
4
The worst bank I have ever dealt with. I have had so many issues with this bank over the past twenty ( I finally closed my account last year) it amazes me they are still in business. Why did I continue to business with them? Because I live in a rural area, they were the only bank around, I only maintained a smaller "convenience" account, and the staff were unfailingly nice in resolving the various issues.
But cheating their customers has done nothing to alter the rapacious behavior of the corporate headquarters. Wells Fargo is a prime example of why Elizabeth Warren deserves to be president. Our capitalist system has gone off the rails but is nonetheless being kept on life support by corrupted political officials and the big money donors that game the system.
Time for a reset and for these people to experience some of the pain they have been visiting on the rest of us for so long.
6
This is precisely why my wife and I bank with several small, local, banks. Even they require monitoring: fee schedules are revised regularly, and always upward. But there's a level of trust in dealing with the small locals that doesn't exist with the monster banks. One wonders of Well's $3b will actually change anything. A bank that's big enough to absorb a hit that large is not a bank I would want to do business with, especialy when no one went to jail.
9
Some of us have mortgages thru them and it's not worth it to refinance. I put 25% down on my current home and have a conventional loan. No PMI, no late payments, no debt other than the mortgage. My LTV ratio is about 70% well below the 80% they insist they have to have, but they say they have to collect escrow for 24 months anyway.
When I hit one year, in the same month they simultaneously sent me a partial escrow refund AND a letter telling me my escrow was underfunded so they were raising the escrow payment. Sure made me feel confident.
In the 24th month, they sent me another letter telling me I might be able to eliminate escrow. When I called they agreed I had met the requirements - except I was 10 days short of hitting 24 months. They refused to do anything. My next payment wasn't due for 30 days, my insurance wasn't due for 2 months and my taxes weren't due for 8 months. There was nothing else to be paid before the 10 days. But they told me to call back on the 10th day, President day - when they were closed.
I've owned 4 homes before this - the last one for 10 years - and never this much trouble with any lender.
5
This is a perfect example of why the concept of business ethics is more than just some “do-gooder” virtues. Corporations that try to cheat their way to bigger profits may find that they accomplish just the opposite - such as a $3 billion fine off their bottom line and a public relations nightmare. No way I’ll ever do business with them.
5
Awww, look at what good job the SEC and DOJ are doing.
Wells Fargo still has a banking charter, the criminals are not in jail, the injured MAY get some semblance of justice.
What a wonderful system, almost makes one proud to be in A Great America Again!
May the best crooks win.
9
What I can not understand is why ANYONE would still do business with this company. Why would anyone with even a modicum of sense still bank at such a place? Incredible!
8
@Rick
Some people don't have a choice. After all, Wells Fargo created accounts for people without their knowledge.
Please be aware that when stress to sell is high, and commissions are paid, that fraud is often present. Wells Fargo isn't that unique. They're just large and they got caught.
4
$3B fine - and they made $20B last year alone. For the 14 years this shenanigans went on, that amount to a mere $200M per year out of annual profits of $10B to $20B. A slap on the hand. The fine most likely was less than the bank made on the illegal activity.
The article does not mention if the "settlement" also included the standard "no admission of guilt". If that was the case, Wells Fargo gets to deduct the "settlement" from earnings and gets the accompanying income tax break, presumably 21%. So in truth, the settlement is actually less than $2.4B.
And not a minute in jail for anyone from Wells Fargo, nor a criminal record.
12
@Winemaker
"That's the way uh-huh uh-huh we like it!"
Well we may not exactly like it but we sure do swallow it easily enough...
from both the Democrats and Republicans.
GO BERNIE!!!!
In 2001 they opened two accounts without my permission or knowing. I had opened a checking account at the River Oaks branch in Houston, TX. The banker I was working with was aggressively pushing me to open a savings account as well. I was very insistent that I only needed a checking account for convenience reasons and otherwise had checking and savings accounts with USAA. Later I discovered that not only had the banker opened a savings account, but also opened a money market account in my name as well.
6
Without criminal trials and likelihood of prison time, mere billion dollar penalties without complete restitution to those defrauded is simply a small federal tax on criminal income.
10
You should mention here that the Consumer Financial Protection bureau is the idea and result of Elizabeth Warren efforts.
12
Have to wonder how many others played or are playing the same game.
3
Wells Fargo is a modern panacea for criminal managers driving ethically barren employees. In my opinion, fines should be multiplied by 10, and jail sentences enforced on all managers who knowingly defrauded their customers. The bank should be driven to the brink of bankruptcy as an example of what should happen to an institution that systematically, callously and criminally abused its customers.
16
Banking institutions need a charter to start. Why didn't the authorities revoke Wells Fargo's charter?? The government should have taken over the bank and carefully broken it up like they did to all of the Savings and Loans during that scandal in the 80s. Fines to the bank simply become another annoyance in the cost of doing business.
13
@MRM agree 100%. These fines are pocket change to these financial behemoths. Makes me physically ill to read about what they have been caught doing and what they haven't been caught with yet.
5
$3 billion is like a parking ticket for businesses like Wells Fargo. Unless some top executives get prison sentences this type of chicanery will continue unabated. Why shouldn't it, it is profitable.
13
I will never ever never bank at Wells Fargo. Somehow I cannot help think that there are millions of people thinking the same thing!
7
I went to Wells Fargo. I started what I thought was a checking account to pay my bills. This guy told me about a great deal Wells Fargo was promoting. When I got my next statement I found out they put all my money in a savings account and none in a checking account. They then charged me a service charge for all the checks that I wrote that they had bounced. This is nothing short of criminal.
20
AynRandism at its worst, not to mention oppression of labor. Glad Ms Flitter is staying on it and that the Justice Department still has U.S. Attorneys who see both civil and criminal violations in it. Bringing back lost bank regulations will be a job for an aroused Congress, including a Democratic Senate majority, and an executive branch stripped of all who think, like Rand, that selfishness is a virtue.
10
Understand that Wells Fargo was bought by Norwest in 1998. Wells Fargo was slowly strangled to death by the sales culture that Norwest was built upon. The rapacious banality that begat the scandal so described was something awful and indicative of the new world of Google, Apple and it’s ilk. I was a WF employee for 25 years and intimately watched the decline. Hannah Arendt was not somebody well known there. Bigger is not better. Bigger is the enemy.
18
I have been a Wells Fargo customer at least a decade if not longer..
I want to Caltech - some 5 decades back. In those days, I remember it was actually difficult to open an account with Wells Fargo as their entry deposits were large enough to scare away a poor student.
So, I opened my account with Crocker Bank which I think subsequently was bought by Wells Fargo after a series of merger.
I don't live in America so rarely go to their branches in America.
Hard to read a comment below that Well Fargo employees almost accosted a customer in opening a savings account.
The brief history of its run ins with the law confirms that even lawyers now rank higher in esteem than these banksters.
We had sent Milliken to jail - but not one bankster out of any of this gang of thieves..
12
@Neil, agree, years ago The top Got a law passed in order to shift the blame from Corporate Office to the lower management and in some cases non official staff . Many of these low level people have served time .The took orders from the protected Senior management.
They lobbied and won to keep Elizabeth Warren who played a huge role creating the Consumer Financial ProtectionBureau. (CFPB). President Obama wanted her to head up the agency but has to withdraw because of Republican opposition. Sen Richard Shelby wrote an Op Ed on the Wall St Journal affirming his Opposition.
They didn’t expect Warren to become a Senator and expose them and the CEO of Wells Fargo at the Wells Fargo fraud hearing in plain English.
Why are the the Senators who opposed this protection for consumers still in Washington reversing Dodd Frank to this day.
Very similar to the way our Government in Washington is run today. We need to elect honest Lawmakers.
3
No amount of whitewashing will ever cover up what transpired at Wells Fargo bank regarding these despicable sales practices and abuses.
My brother had an account at Wells Fargo during this period of abuse. I watched as his bank deliberately ordered his checks in such a way as to incur countless overdraft fees, when he clearly had enough money in the bank to cover them. They did this month after month, and while he was successful most of the time at getting the overdraft fees reversed, they still caused him stress and money.
Frequently, they would hold the deposit of his paycheck for a few hours, or a day, in order to say he bounced numerous checks and they could charge him overdraft fees. I went with him once as he talked to the manager of his bank and requested reimbursement for these erroneous fees and witnessed firsthand how little Wells Fargo cared about their customers.
In my humble opinion, $3 billion as a fine isn't nearly enough. The bank is still clearly at it.
19
@Pamela L. Why would anyone bank at Wells Fargo?
I am amazed they were not shut down by protesters and the Feds.
1
So the shareholders continue to pay the fines, and the top executives who authorized the crimes suffer no penalty other than losing unrealized stock option gains. Former CEO Stumpf and the other departed execs are laughing all the way to the bank. Nice work if you can get it.
Wells Fargo is a criminal enterprise which poses as a legitimate financial institution. You can't change what is ingrained in its DNA.
"Behind every great fortune there is a crime." - Balzac
20
I am trying to get a small inheritance out of Wells Fargo, and I do mean small, a few hundred dollars, and WF is blocking me at every turn. The last banker there barely said hello or acted like I was a human being. Didn't smile once.
They haven't learned a thing and I will never bank with them.
18
@Jack Blue
AND always count your money if you use the ATM and get a receipt. They gave me $80 instead of $100 from the machine during this fiasco.
9
Wells Fargo holds both my mortgage and HELOC. A couple of years ago I was in the local WF branch making a payment and decided to purchase some foreign currency for an overseas vacation. WF wanted to charge me an administrative fee for the transaction because "I was not a costumer of the bank!" When I pointed out to the teller that I paid thousands of dollars in interest to the bank every year, she told me that my mortgage and HELOC accounts were part of another department at the bank and did not count. Needless to say, I purchased the currency somewhere else.
There is an institution disregard for the customer at Wells Fargo, from the top to the bottom.
18
Wow. Where's the beef? Nowhere in the article was it said how much money they "earned" from this scheme or how it compares to the fine levied.
Presumably all of the stolen money was booked as revenue buoyed the stock price. I'm expecting that anyone who profited and cashed out got away scot-free?
Why not break down the settlement in terms of (a) how much was stolen, (b) how much will pay customer losses, and (c) how much the government took in profit (aka "fines")?
14
Is that more than they stole? Were they allowed to keep some of the stolen money? Most likely.
What kind of person continues to do business with a criminal corporation? Hired influencers I assume, or good serfs.
11
The fact that no one went to jail for this is a disgrace.
38
This nonsense won't stop until the corporate officers who enabled or encouraged this behavior are put in jail. Currently, the stockholders are the ones paying for these misdeeds, not those responsible. Yeah, a few executives have paid big fines, but they are only a percentage of the lucre they reaped from swindling customers. Fining corporations for the crimes of their management won't stop these practices, but a few criminal indictments surely will. Lock 'em up!
15
@Bill McGrath Yeah, they should go to jail. Perhaps they will, at least until the President pardons them. They are very much his kind of people.
Who says "crime doesn't pay?" Not these white collar criminals! All part of doing business. Heaven help ya if you steal some groceries to feed your kids.
23
@Chip Lovitt The lesson of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables goes pretty far back
Yes, how many everyday Americans are in jail for falsifying checks, stealing from a bank account, and impersonating another?
Just another sign that corporate greed does actually pay.
15
At least the bosses who are going to prison will learn a valuable lesson...
2
@John I don't see any Wells Fargo bosses going to prison. In fact I haven't seen any bank executives get prison time. The fines levied on them are just viewed as a business expenses.
2
Every time I pass the Wells Fargo bank in my town and I see customers going in and out, I wonder: who ARE these people? Then I think. Oh yeah, probably voters who embrace the siren call of "fake news."
12
@TROUTWHISPERER
I think the same about people I see gassing up @ BP. They want to give their money to the company that caused the Gulf oil spill?
Maybe they earn a nickel off per gallon by holding a BP credit card. That is the price of their moral compass.
2
The CEO belongs in jail!
13
So how do I get compensated for them bouncing checks I had money for charging me and affecting my credit negatively preventing me from getting loans etc...????Or has no one investigated that scam which they were running in the 80's and 90's?
They deliberately gamed the timing of deposits and when checks cam in to be paid.
9
I hope Federal Prosecutors go after AT&T and DirecTV next.
4
Our government is criminal in this matter. Wells Fargo is a criminal enterprise using a bank license, and the US government allows it to operate making money off the fines while the ACTUAL victims go without. If this government was the least bit uncorrupted they would withdrawal their license to operate. It is not a bank - it is a scam as much as the robocalls we get all day long.
13
What happens to the $3 billion? I recall I read somewhere that it goes to Congress for discretionary spending.. Why can't we take this money and repair roads and bridges or build a new water treatment plant in Flint, Michigan? Why can't we bail out every single mom doing time in jail because she couldn't pay her traffic tickets? Why can't we build a public library or two in rural townships? Why can't we clean up a river or stream? Why can't we herd goats and make artisanal cheese?
12
The only crime is getting caught, the only change is finding more nuanced ways to achieve their goals.
11
I'll believe corporations are people too when people who make decisions for those corporations go to jail when they commit 10-figure thefts.
18
@Dave
Either that or have Well Fargo vacate $3 billion in outstanding loans! Start with families whose homes they are ready to foreclose on and work from there..
7
@Aaron No. They'll find a way to turn that to their "account." They are libertarians who believe that the first principle of morality is: every man for himself and the Devil take the hindmost.
1
The Well Fargo financial scandal is a classic case study of the Board not fulfilling its principal duty of oversight and governance, numerous deficiencies in risk management, and the failure of internal audit -- the third line of defence in enterprise risk management -- to investigate the irregularities and bring them to the attention of the Board.
Significantly, it may also reflect the failure of the external rating agencies to reflect the risks in the bank's credit rating because the irregularities were known and the media had reported them long before.
4
Wonder how many of those making comments have a Wells Fargo checking account or mortgage. Hit the bank where it hurts - close your checking account and find a local bank instead of a national one. Profits go to those in your neighborhood instead of to wall street. Not realistic to refinance over this but never take a loan with them again. And tell 10 people why they shouldn't bank with the corporate crook that abused their own employees to enrich themselves known as Wells Fargo.
19
If the scheme made ten billion, then the fine is part of doing business.
8
I had a problem with another Wall Street bank that went on for more than a year and a half. It wasn't resolved until I finally filed a complaint with the OCC. Then it was resolved by making an adjustment to the account. I was never adequately informed of what caused the problem and why it remained unresolved for more than a year and a half. The arrogance of these big banks is astonishing.
10
Fraud, conspiracy, identity theft, and on and on. Without a R.I.C.O. prosecution and real jail time for those making the decisions, those consciously engaged in implementing those decisions, and those engaged in the cover-up, the fine is simply another cost of doing business, no different from the toilet paper in the C.E.O.'s bathroom.
The pension funds and retirees invested in WFC stock might suffer. Meanwhile, the perps walk.
25
Who is going to pay the fine? Will it be the share holders, as it should be. Or, will it be the customers who will pay the fine via increased fees?
7
@David
The shareholders aren't responsible for these actions; the management is. Put them in jail, and their kindred spirits will think twice about such shenanigans.
8
@Bill McGrath, I like the idea a lot, but our Corporation law seems to rule it out.
2
We wanted a $295,000 loan on our condo so we could pay off business loans. They quoted something like 2.9% interest for a 15 year loan. We had to open a checking account to get the loan.
They declined us but told us they would approve a $315,000 loan at 3.1%. The point of the loan was to lower our interest, so we declined and got a loan on a different property with 2.83% interest.
All's well that ends well, but the required checking account was something that no one had ever requested in 15-20 loans that we've gotten over the years. Now I understand the requirement.
5
"Wells Fargo’s profits last year totaled nearly $20 billion."
The corporation broke the law and stole money from customers, for what, at least 15 years? So how much were their profits over those 15 years? A few hundred billion perhaps? And the fine is merely $3 billion - less than 15% of one year's profit. Clearly, their crime paid off handsomely. A clear money maker for them. And a nice little money maker for the Justice Department, which simply skimmed a small portion of the crime profits.
These crimes will continue.
43
@Steve I like the idea of prosecuting management a lot, but our Corporation law seems to rule it out.
2
As many commentators have noted, no one will go to jail and the fine is a small portion of one year's profits. But maybe not even that--if structured correctly by the so-called lawyers that Wells Fargo hires, the fine may get written off as a business expense and thus get deducted from the company's federal taxes. So not only has the public been bilked by this criminal conspiracy masquerading as a corporation, but we may end up paying for it as well, with our taxes. Any wonder that capitalism is deservedly getting a bad reputation?
28
If I were a Wells Fargo shareholder, I'd be demanding that the board claw back as much of this $3 Billion as it can from the executives who were running the bank when these crimes happened. If you really want to change corporate cultures, our regulators need to stop punishing the shareholders for the executive management's criminal actions. Sure, some of those executives are retired now - but what message does it send when they keep all the wealth they accumulated breaking the rules? When corporate crimes are proven, the corporate leadership must face personal risk and pay personal penalties, else who would ever be deterred? They will instead take the lesson of being better at hiding their crimes.
13
@Jim Brokaw I like the idea of prosecuting management a lot, but our Corporation law seems to rule it out.
2
I'm hoping they still go forward with civil criminal charges for some of the executives that were involved in this. I'm not holding my breath, though.
11
It is time to put this company in jail, after all, corporations are people, too. Suspend the corporate charter granting limited liability for at least ten years.
11
A sham set of fines and punishment. So, Stumpf has $17M of his total $130M pay package clawed back, it's nothing. In the 1980s, 900 went to jail in the S&L scandal, the main person being Charles Keating. Here no one. In '08 1 person, who was on the periphery of the mortgage fraud in either underwriting, or borrowing. The person who is behind this pattern of minimal fines for bad business practices is Bill Barr, which he advocated for during his first stint as AG. For this alone, he should be impeached and removed. The reason people are losing faith in American institutions is because of the moral turpitude that Barr daily enables, though he hypocritically decries cultural change as the culprit. Barr's net worth has risen to $20M after his stint as AG. Dare I say, "Lock Stumpf up?"
15
Like many others are asking - Why does no one go to jail for white collar crime? Is this all determined in civil court? Why not a criminal court with the very real threat of jail time. Odds are it would go a long way in curbing their appetite for malfeasance.
And why is it different now than the era of Enron when executives were sent to jail?
What changed?
Did lobbyists get politicians to settle in civil court instead?
Who changed the law?
It is just another reason why people disdain "the elites."
No jail time - no justice
14
So, which top executives are going to jail for this?
10
Where are the prison sentences? Why does the company still exist?
13
Why no prison terms and just fines? If this is China a dozen executives would be in prison already or hiding in the US.
10
Hmm? The banks were accused of abusing customers. The federal government fined them 9,26,18 Billion dollars. That's customer money you know. So the banks ripped off people, then the feds fined the Banks thus abusing the customers further because the fine money is derived from customers who then get charged higher rates through the schemes, the feds paid down some of the deficit that rose after the tax cuts that meant the banks didn't have to pay taxes. Wouldn't it make sense to put people in jail instead of victimizing the customers again?
8
@PATRICK I like the idea of prosecuting management a lot, but our Corporation law seems to rule it out.
1
If Donald Trump really wants to rail against injustice, he could start here.
7
They're are people incarcerated for writing a few bad checks, yet there's no Wells Fargo executives in prison for this criminal behavior.
And our government pats itself on the back for doing a great job telling the world we have a great judicial system.
Trump has done one good thing, he has exposed what a fraud the US and our institutions are!
13
@Michael
Trump cut the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's Budget and fired all it's staff.
The CFPB was created by President Barack Obama (who as you may recall belonged to the Democratic Party) to stop the public getting ripped off by the fraudulent dealings of banks. It was based on an idea by a Harvard Law School Professor named Elizabeth Warren - the same Elizabeth Warren who is now a United States Senator (Democratic Party) and is running for President. The Republican majority in Congress prevented President Obama from putting Elizabeth Warren in charge of the CFPB. As soon as a Republican (Donald Trump) got into the White House, he completely neutered the CFPB.
It's not the United States government and institutions that are a fraud. It's just the Republicans.
"to meet impossible sales goals" That's the phrase that I keep coming back to. People were put into impossibles situations. Easy to say they should have just quit (and I'm sure many did look for another job), but what would you have done?
5
...and just like old times: nobody spent a day (or night) in the slammer. You'd almost think that John Stumpf -- former CEO under whose watch these crimes were committed -- had also gotten a pardon. C'mon... the guy is barred from engaging in any banking activities but he's still roaming free.
6
Just imagine that you or I ... lie on our loan application and get caught: would we pay a fine? or go to jail? or both?
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$500 million for investors.
Thousands of minions fired.
Not a single senior executive jailed.
Compensation for the poor customers bilked and having their lives ruined, or at least filled with unending headaches, not on the cards.
"Justice" American style.
The jokes on all us non-billionaires.
Go ahead Warren Buffet, continue to extol the criminal enterprise (Wells Fargo) you've so long lauded, and kept your mouth pretty shut on as it engages in criminal activity and piles up the fines (though not even a single year of profit). Keep adding to your billions too, you homespun fella.
Sickening.
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Why would you bank with Wells Fargo?
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Some form of cryptocurrency cannot come soon enough.
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@JMGC You think the AynRanders who love cryptocurrency won't find a way to scam it?
"Too big to fail" should be reversed in this instance to "too corrupt to survive." Shut it down. Put 'em in jail.
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@AJ I like the idea of prosecuting management a lot, but our Corporation law seems to rule it out.
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Corporations are people except when they're not. Got it?
No? Go ask a Republican.
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Banksters never go to jail. After ripping off customers, they do it again to pay the fines.
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What a joke!
As usual, nobody is going to jail for this. NOBODY! and secondly, $3 billion from a $20 billion profit is just a 15% payment out of pocket.
If there was any justice the entire profit produced by WF since the fake accounts started should have been confiscated and distributed to the victims. You know, just to make an example of them for future charlatans er.... capitalists.
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The bankers win again! Huzzah to the powerful and rich!
There are probably 5 executives that could pay the fine with a quick personal check.
Clowns.
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And the executives responsible will be paying how much? Will their bonuses be clawed back, or are they whole?
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Worst bank ever. I had an ID theft case with them years ago and they treated me horribly. Never banked with them again. Glad to see them get some punishment from this, they deserve it.
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Will Trump pardon Wells Fargo?
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@Peter only if they allow him to take an interest free loan for about 10 billion with a 100 year repayment plan and an option to extend at -5%
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New advert slogan: Wells Fargo - redefining bank robbery for the 21st Century
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We need a corporate death penalty.
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Is anybody going to prison? Can anybody spell p-r-i-s-o-n?
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Problem solved. Time to deregulate the entire industry now that they can be trusted to have integrity.
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To adapt my favorite tweet of the day:
"Putting a [Big Bank] in front of Warren is like putting a gazelle with a broken leg in front of a lioness"
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Stumph and Tolstedt should be locked in their stage coach and ride off to jail for many years
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This bank shouldn't be conducting business anymore. It's rotten to the core.
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The article reads: "During the final five years of abuse, the bank quietly fired thousands of employees for falsifying records in response to customer complaints, according to court filings, and disciplined tens of thousands more."
It does not appear that Wells Fargo Bank is required by regulators to pay a penny to any of the low-level bank employees that were harmed. These Wells Fargo employees had little choice but to engage in the fraudulent behavior in order to keep their jobs and then were individually fired for doing so "in response to customer complaints" by the same executives who ran the fraudulent program and were compensated millions of dollars by the bank.
The article states: "In court papers, prosecutors described a pressure-cooker environment at the bank, where low-level employees were squeezed tighter and tighter each year by sales goals that senior executives methodically raised, ignoring signs that they were unrealistic. The few employees and managers who did meet sales goals — by any means — were held up as examples for the rest of the work force to follow."
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If I rob a bank, I go to prison for years. If the bank robs me, they may pay a small percentage of their profits and get to keep the rest.
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The money will be funded by cutting services, salaries and personnel.
The executives who directed employees to do this will not lose a penny.
Where are the prison sentences? Financial fines are just not enough to deter this criminal, predatory behavior.
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I'm just your average Joe. And yes, I was one of those people that when WF approved my mortgage at a terrific low rate, they required my to get a checking account from which they would withdraw automatic payments.
But I beat them at their own game on their rules. I now have five accounts with WF and DO NOT PAY ANY BANK FEES FOR ANY OF THEM, except for mortgage payments. Accts include a small business account, two personal checking accts and one savings account. Checking required auto deposits, no problem, got split payments to each. Small bis account required just ten debit card charges per month, no problem.
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@JaaArr As a follow up, I should say that what WF did to so so many people is a disgrace. WF needs to rebuild trust, and the best way to do it is offer everyone account advantages no other commercial bank can. I saved more than $60 a month because I took advantage of their account rules. If those rules change to MY disadvantage, all my account will move to the next best fee rates I can find. No question.
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@JaaArr agree that they could have managed the PR on this far better. Tesla had some cars start on fire. They made changes, explained the issue and moved on. WF didn’t offer any useful narrative of their own. Tesla would do so, and it’s a necessary skill.
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@JaaArr It is not what they promise you that is the problem. It is whether not they deliver on those promises and whether or not you suddenly have some kind of insurance you didn't sign up for. Or, whether instead of 5 accounts you eventually have 6 without having yourself opened the last one. You must be hyper viligant with all of those accounts to check for errors. When you find them good luck with getting them resolved.
Is there something I am missing? There is no mention of the amount they owe the customers they've wronged...
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@Adrienne this is a good question. The answer I think you would find is that a very small amount of money was involved, but the creation of accounts was not controlled correctly by the company. After looking at the facts I think Wells Fargo turned a very bad problem into a catastrophe by totally failing to offer a narrative on what went wrong, when did it get fixed and did Customers get repaid for their trouble. So here we are; still talking about what I have seen described as a 5 to 50 million dollar issue, but one that will be remembered for centuries. Clearly if you are a competent bank, you would want to avoid making that mistake. I think they were very timid about getting this resolved.
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They should have been fined all the profits made during the 14 year period.
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Some years ago, I received an offer from WF to renew my mortgage.
The fees alone amounted to five years of my mortgage interest.
Wow, flags went up and I said, NO THANKS!
What used to be a reputable bank turned into a CON OPERATION!
How very sad.
Do they learn this stuff in business school?
If not so, where?
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As as former mid-senior employee at Wells, I doubt this will really change the mindset of legacy team members who think Wells is still the gold standard of banking. So many people were wedded to their outdated ideas that became part of the culture. It's well and good that Scharf is the new CEO but he could probably lose about 20% of the workforce who think it's still the 1990s and not miss a beat.
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Given these allegations, I don’t understand why new Wells Fargo Banks have been opening up in New York, or are allowed to continue business anywhere.
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From the time I was a teenager in 1984, I had all my money in Wells Fargo. This lasted until 2007, when I was pressured into opening a savings account. It was a weird encounter, having been accosted by two employees as I tried to leave the bank. They were persistent, and I thought, what could it hurt?
Then my money disappeared from my savings account through fees. Then they tapped my checking account to pay the fees that could no longer get paid by my overdrawn savings account - which generated additional overdraft fees.
Once I escaped WF in 2009, I had lost upwards of $1,000. Lesson: pay attention and check your accounts regularly. AND never bank with Wells Fargo. Ever.
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@Steve: I had a similar experience in 1974. When I went to close my savings account, they charged me a fee to close it. A fee to close an account! When I escaped from Wells Fargo, I didn't look back.
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@Steve Why anyone would continue to let Wells Fargo near their money is beyond my comprehension.
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As a Wells Fargo customer patiently awaiting for the settlement and to be paid, I'm also anticipating an Equifax data breach-type reversal, in which the amount we were promised will suddenly be reduced to a fraction, if anything at all.
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@Perfect Gentleman I understand that the Brooklyn bridge is for sale and since you are patient maybe you can ask Wells Fargo to broker the deal for you. I’m sure that president trump will help if you ask.
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I closed my Wells Fargo account. Perhaps more should do the same.
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Did anyone get sent to the Pen and does any of the fine money go to the depositors?
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The punishment is completely worthless if WF can socialize the losses and not a single living individual faces any personal consequences (e.g., jail time). Employees working anywhere else but a bank would face jail time for committing widespread fraud and literally stealing from millions of unsuspecting customers. This is EXACTLY why millions of voters have lost faith in our institutions and wholeheartedly back a candidate for president who wants to break things and embarrass the ruling elites who operate outside the rule of law.
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Sadly, this represents more of the same from a deeply corrupt financial industry. Try and add up how many "Billions" in fines have been paid by Chase under Jamie Dimon. How can he not be in jail? No one is big enough to charge these people with what they deserve. These crimes are at the very foundation of the greed that has debilitated our government's ability to function.
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@Jeff A. Close all your accounts with these corrupt big banks and open personal account with a small local bank. Put the rest of your accounts/money at Schwab. You can rotate your checking cash in and out of CD's (no fees and no risk and get more interest than at any of the big banks for your checking acounts). Plus free checks and on line safe access.)
3
Why does Wells Fargo allowed to continue to exist? Why aren’t their executives in jail where they clearly belong?
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Exactly
6
Wells Fargo was a criminal enterprise. The people who run criminal enterprises should be jailed. Quite simple actually.
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Silly thought. Capitalism with state sponsorship in the hands of rich white men defines the USA. Democracy provided (past tense) the prevailing myth to keep control of a manipulated political economy. The era of this Great Power will soon be washed away by the lurking Green Swans gathering on the horizon. This fate will be sealed in November. Alas.
How much of the settlement will be distributed to the employees who reported this activity and lost their jobs? Will the Senior leaders who ate still there, and complicit with this criminal fraud be fired? I still remember one of those Wachovia leaders yelling "Wells Fargo thinks they know how cross-sell, we will show them what sales really mean". Her leadership team was a rogues gallery of unethical, immoral individuals who could sell. Many of whom are still there and have been promoted.
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So who is going to jail?
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Warren Buffetts favorite bank. We live in a corrupt society where white collar criminals take the money they have stolen and pay off the government .What a joke . How many lives were ruined ? All the criminals live in gated communities they are still still rich .What is the downside none.
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@robert conger and everyone thinks Warren is just an awe shucks guy. He isn't. He likes businesses that are monopolies and have unchecked power. He made his seed money charging 2% of the total amount his clients had with him PLUS 20% of profits. He pays himself the smallest earned income amount. Anytime he wants to donate a portion of his wealth to the IRS or the governement, he is welcome to do so.
9
So exactly who is going to jail?
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Why is it reporters never include the profits companies made while committing the crimes for which they were fined? As long as the fines don't eliminate their profits, or impact C-level executives' lifestyles, they just consider the fine a cost of doing business. Please, tell the whole story and demonstrate why these fines are meaningless and never result in changed behavior.
The US financial services industry and the system for regulating it need major structural change. Until that happens, close your accounts at the big banks. Move your money to credit unions and community banks. There are numerous reasons to do so - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/06/opinion/sunday/climate-change-banking.html
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@MBT Just heard NPR's report in which they said the fine was roughly equal to Wells' profits in the last quarter of 2019. You read that correctly, the fine is equal to only ONE quarter of profits and it seems the reported net profit is after they deducted $1.5 billion for litigation related, at least in part to the crimes described in this story. That means this fine is even less than their profit for one quarter. The following is from the Wells Fargo 1/14/20 press release:
"Fourth quarter 2019 financial results: Net income of $2.9 billion and diluted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.60 •Operating losses of $1.9 billion, driven by $1.5 billion, or ($0.33) per share, of litigation accruals for a variety of matters, including previously disclosed retail sales practices matters;"
https://www08.wellsfargomedia.com/assets/pdf/about/investor-relations/earnings/fourth-quarter-2019-earnings.pdf
Warren is the candidate who has and will continue to stand up to the financial services industry - VOTE!
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@MBT
I did this several years ago. The problem there is that smaller financial institutions are less regulated. Under Dodd Frank, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has supervisory authority over banks with more than $10 billion in assets, meaning small community banks are exempt here. I had problems with my credit union several years ago and moved my money back, as a result, to a regional bank large enough to be regulated by the CFPB.
To be clear, I would never bank with one of the four institutions that control 40% of the market- Chase, Citibank, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America. The fifth largest depository institution in the country is less a quarter of the size of any of these banks. They are too large and need to be broken up.
7
Executives flat out stole money from customers, secure in the knowledge that all they faced were penalties to the bank, which, in essence, resulted in executives stealing from shareholders.
Theft twice-over. No jail time, for anyone.
That isn't fair. That isn't right. That isn't justice.
That's a rigged system, bought and paid for by bribing legislators, plain and simple, made possible by the Citizen's United decision, made possible by Republicans on the Supreme Court. Lifelong tenure, unelected.
39
How come none of these folks were arrested and sent to jail. Really jailed for life for countless crimes of thief all across the country.
17
I guess not enough Wells Fargo execs play golf with POTUS or have enough friends on FOX. Or maybe they do, and they're saving their chits to cash in when the criminal sentences are negotiated. No jail time for these upstanding citizens! $15-25M fines seem huge to the rest of us, but they're chump change for these folks.
12
@KAN Please the Obama administration was just as kind and generous to the banksters. Trump is just one more of this kind.
3
Waiting for the list of executives going to prison for designing and executing these multiple schemes. One is a fool to keep their money with Wells Fargo. There is no reason to believe that all of the fraud and theft has been uncovered.
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I’ll never understand why Wells-Fargo was not shut down and the executives thrown in jail. This level of fraud, of illegality, is mind-blowing.
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Yeah, great idea. They should definitely shut it down. Only 230,000 people would lose their jobs.
3
Another pat on the wrist, another love-tap from fully-captured regulators...
On the day when John Stumpf is frog-marched to jail in a televised perp walk, we will begin to see the end of these practices. On the day some years later when Mr. Stumpf is sentenced and sent to a federal prison, even if only for a few years, the message will get through.
Dan Kravitz
12
So Ms. Tolstedt is contesting a $25 million fine. Any idea of her take home pay over the years while she ignored the concerns of her coworkers and lied to regulators?
29
18 US Code 28A - Aggravated identify theft: Whoever knowingly transfers, possesses, or uses, without lawful authority, a means of identification of another person shall, in addition to the punishment provided for such felony, be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 2 years. Employees created 1,534,280 unauthorized deposit accounts and 565,433 credit-card accounts. Pay the fine. No one goes to jail. "This is Wells Fargo."
30
I'm surprised that the bank's treatment of employees that failed to engage in bad practices or filed ethics reports still goes under-reported. Wells Fargo ruined careers, yet little is being done other what the wronged employees are doing for themselves. They should not have to pursue a class-action lawsuit, and the bank should pay for their actions here, not just financially, but at a personal level of criminal charges since these misdeeds occurred at a one-on-one level.
16
Many here are suggesting jailing those responsible. But ask yourself why it's so rare that anyone is imprisoned for such financial crimes? Its not a conspiracy, we're not controlled by bankers, it's because they are gigantic private institutions with secretive and complex workings. For prosecutors it is too long and too difficult to find sufficient evidence to ensure conviction and jail time for certain individuals within the bank hierarchy. Moreover, illegal activity doesn't start with a single idea or decision, often it's the collective culture which leads to riskier and riskier behavior and eventually ends up in illegal activity. Slapping on large fines is really the only solution for the government after the fact. The best solution however is obviously better independent monitoring and regulation to prevent this type of activity from happening in the first place..
2
@O'Neill Sadly, you are correct. However, with just a couple of clicks on my desktop, my accounts where closed and moved to a much less dubious institution. Nary a blip on their radar, but, I slept better that night.
13
Fraud is rewarded again. I sure am glad that Wells Fargo has zero presence in my home banking market. Why anyone keeps an account with them is bewildering.
12
@Gordon my mortgage is there and too much work to change my auto deposits and withdrawals
2
Multi year fraud, should have been a rico case, and the bank charter should have been revoked. The fine is likely tax deductible too so less than 1 year of profits confiscated. Too big to fail carries on. Candidate Warren will be livid and rightly so.
25
How much is going back to the clients?
19
Make no mistake, if anyone reading this article forged signatures on bank documents, and took money out of someone's account each felony charge will carry a 10-year sentence. They got off easy.
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I agree with some of the other comments. Until prison--and it could be a short visit-- 1 month, 10 months, 1 year-- is used to punish corporate crimes-- they won't stop. Wells Fargo will pay a fine-- and this money will come from shareholders' profits. How does that punish the executives who authorized the bad conduct? Isn't there a board of executives? Instead of spending time purchasing a Porsche a little visit to prison might help balance enormous pay and benefits as well as a sense of superiority and entitlement with feelings of moral and legal responsibility somewhat.
45
@Stephen Ross a bunch of the money will come from overdraft charges an probably a .01 percent increase in credit charges.
15
$18 billion in penalties and $20 billion in profits last year alone! What’s wrong with this picture? Until the penalty really hurts, what’s the point?
73
@Tom Seeley Elizabeth Warren was behind the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) which seeks to protect Americans from predatory companies and practices like Wells Fargo. One of the first things the GOP did when they got Trump as POTUS was to try to destroy the CFPB. The moral of this story? #VoteBlueNoMatterWho (but Warren would be great!)
9
@Tom Seeley Penalties ultimately hurt the shareholders and not the executives who gained on bonuses, promotions etc by promoting such sales tactics. Law should allow going after the personal assets of executives that were responsible for this.
2
Plain and simple: Wells Fargo has been a robber bank for a long time. But that is also true of many large financial companies. It's just that Wells Fargo has been beyond the pale in terms of egregious greed.
It is long, long past due time to start throwing some skin in the prisons along with the massive fines. We need to make these execs quake in their shoes at the prospect of doing time.
Have wondered for a long time where the monies for these million and billion dollar fines come from.
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When do the customers get a share of that 3 billion for all the money they lost with unwanted charges etc?
92
@Jacquie only the lawyers will be allowed to share and it won’t be with those who got scammed and some of the money may even revert to those who stole it in the first place
12
@Jacquie LOL you clearly don’t understand how these things work. You should pay more attention to national politics, in particular POTUS 45. He’ll show you how it’s done. Just ask the former students of Trump U.
2
Did anyone get jail time? I'm sure if I did any of these things, I would go to jail:
"They opened millions of accounts in customers’ names without their knowledge, signed unwitting account holders up for credit cards and bill payment programs, created fake personal identification numbers, forged signatures and even secretly transferred customers’ money."
This was a widespread problem involving frontline employees, their managers, and their managers, etc. I didn't hear about anyone going to jail or being personally liable other than fines for a few top executives. Corporations - break the law and pay a fine!
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