August 31, 2017

Wells Fargo: Actually, We Were 70 Percent More Corrupt Than Initially Revealed

What’s another 1.4 million fake accounts anyway?

Erik Mcgregor/ZUMA

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Wells Fargo revealed on Thursday that an internal review has identified as many as 3.5 million potentially fraudulent accounts. This is a staggering 1.4 million more accounts than an outside investigation had initially estimated when the bank’s fake-account scandal first erupted last year. Federal investigators found thousands of employees had secretly created millions of fake accounts using real customers’ personal information, allowing the bank to hit customers with phony charges and boost its sales figures.

In the wake of the revelations, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called for a criminal investigation of then-CEO John Stumpf, who resigned shortly after with a $133 million paycheck.  On Thursday, she renewed demands for a hearing into the scandal:

The latest review, which focused on accounts dating back to January 2009 through September 2016, is an expansion of the independent investigation’s first look, which reviewed potentially fraudulent accounts from May 2011 through mid-2015. Wells Fargo has agreed to pay $2.8 million to affected customers for the additional accounts.

The bank has already been hit with $190 million in fines over the massive scandal.

“There is nothing more important to me and to Wells Fargo than rebuilding trust with our customers and helping them succeed financially,” Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan said in a statement Thursday. 

The statement said Wells Fargo was committed to ensuring such fraudulent practices would never take place again. Free meditation services are available, and Wells plans to continue answering customers’ concerns amid the fallout.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate