WELLS FARGO FINED FOR ROBBING CLIENTS

Wells Fargo is to pay $185 million in fines after the Los Angeles City Attorney and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) found that Wells Fargo employees who were under pressure to meet unrealistic sales goals had secretly set up phony bank and credit card accounts. In some cases, Wells Fargo customers were hit with overdraft fees and other charges because their money had been unknowingly moved from their regular account to a fake one.

While the CFPB said that the practice was “widespread”, no one seems to be going to jail over this scandal. And though the size of the fine seems huge to the average Joe, it really is a joke of a penalty to pay compared to what Wells Fargo must have made from their customers from the fraudulent practice.

It remains to be seen just how “widespread” this malpractice has been. As a former employee revealed, this practice went on for a long time at Wells Fargo, and many who engaged in it have been promoted and even gone off to carry the same malpractices in other banks and financial institution. One should not be surprised if more such cases come up at other institutions for the twin reasons that all along, the penalties levied have been a joke (especially in as much as much as few to none have been arrested over these gross banking scandals) and that those Executives who presided over these malpractices have been handsomely rewarded.

I have juxtaposed coverage by four different media outfits of the Wells Fargo fake accounts scandal. The different angles should make for a more complete insight of this scandal. Which do you prefer?

Enjoy!

CLIP FROM CNN MONEY

“2 million fake accounts, 5,300 employees fired, $185 million in fines. Christine Romans explains the Wells Fargo fake accounts debacle.“ No one has gone to jail over this. No Execs were held accountable. On the contrary, the Exec in charge of the fake accounts units is slated to get a massive $125 million bonus.

WALL STREET JOURNAL (WSJ) CLIP

The big takeaway here for me is that regulators were aware about these phony accounts years back, but at the end of the day, it is really only now that Wells Fargo is being reprimanded for it. Quite sad really.

INTERVIEW OF A FORMER WELLS FARGO EMPLOYEE

A former Wells Fargo employee, who wished to be anonymous, came on this show to talk about how sketchy and problematic the operations are in the banking business. I quote from the Video Description to highlight a key question that keeps coming up:

The work culture at Wells Fargo sounds terrible. More than 5,000 Wells Fargo employees have been fired as a result of a scandal involving phony bank accounts. But do the CEO or other senior executives need to be let go too?  During the past decade, only a few top executives at many U.S. and European banks have lost their jobs due to numerous scandals going back to the financial crisis. Several big banks inflated the value of mortgage-backed securities on their books. And some major banks coordinated to manipulate the Labor lending rate and foreign exchange rates, for example. Interview former Wells Fargo employee reveals bank’s shady sales practices.

MAX KEISER (RT) COVERAGE

MAX KEISER (host of Keiser Report on RT) gets more critical than CNN or Wall Street Journal does of Warren Buffet, who (through Berkshire Hathaway) is the largest shareholder of Wells Fargo. In fact, the Mainstream Media do NOT even mention at all the Wells Fargo connections with Warren Buffet or Hilary Clinton (who has enjoyed political support from Wells Fargo Executives). But Max Keiser certainly goes there!