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Wells Fargo Fined $185 Million for Improper Account Openings
California and federal regulators fined Wells Fargo a combined $185 million on Thursday, alleging the bank's employees illegally opened millions of unauthorized accounts for their customers in order to meet aggressive sales goals.
The San Francisco-based bank will pay $100 million to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a federal agency created five years ago; $35 million to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and $50 million to the City and County of Los Angeles. It will also pay restitution to affected customers.
It is the largest fine the CFPB has levied against a financial institution and the largest fine in the history of the Los Angeles City Attorney's office.
The CFPB said Wells Fargo sales staff opened more than 2 million bank and credit card accounts that may have not been authorized by customers. Money in customers' accounts was transferred to these new accounts without authorization. Debit cards were issued and activated, as well as PINs created, without telling customers.
In some cases, Wells Fargo employees even created fake email addresses to sign up customers for online banking services.
"Wells Fargo built an incentive-compensation program that made it possible for its employees to pursue underhanded sales practices, and it appears that the bank did not monitor the program carefully," said CFPB Director Richard Cordray.
The behavior was widespread, the CFPB and other regulators said, involving thousands of Wells Fargo employees.
Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer called Wells Fargo's behavior "outrageous" and a "major breach of trust."
"Consumers must be able to trust their banks," Feuer said.
Same story posted on a multitude of news outlets, with little difference between them.
If you do business with Wells Fraudgo, you might want to reconsider. Then again, millions of Americans still do business with the worst offenders from the 2008 economic meltdown.
