Wells Fargo cheats... big time fraud.

soon soon after the meltdown too, makes you wonder what's wrong with this crazy world.
now if it had been deutsche bank...

 

I am stunned that some 5,300 emloyees made it a business practice to defraud their customers, and, that no one spoke up.

We teach our son that big business is not as corrupt as we are led to believe because someone, someone, will whistleblow that side show to a halt. But here, the fraudulent behaviour seems to have become, in a way, a part of the organization's acceptable culture.

I know that Wells Fargo is a good firm doing good things in their community which makes this all the more shocking and all the harder to explain to our son.

 

Craziness!! That's a $h1tload of employees to all be in on it! Damn!

 

The employees were reported to being pressured to get more new accounts.

Whistleblower protections have been eroding in the US.

 

i'm sure a lot of people said that about vdub before they got caught. you can never say that a person, or a corporation is all good, or all bad.

 

5,300 employees using PII to steal money isn't an employee problem, it's company culture.
It's incredible that nobody is doing a perp walk over this.

180-megabucks is a parking ticket.

 

And how many people will close their accounts and leave?

About 6.

Very few people seem to care when these fraud things happens. "Oh well, it didn't affect me."

 

I hate Wells Fargo, yet they are my primary bank in the US. Have you ever tried changing bank accounts? They are tied to everything, and they know it. If Wells Fargo needed me to climb a mountain and sacrifice a goat once a year to keep my accounts open, I would do it.

I have accounts at many other banks too, and it is the same deal where that account number gets tied to all these things and in some cases used for verification. Change accounts, and now nothing works.

Big business is for the most part crap. Teaching kids they are looking out for them is silly. Businesses want money. Workers and customers are nothing but numbers on an account page. The larger the company gets, the more removed the people are from the numbers, it is just obvious. If you sell tacos in a food truck to 200 people a day, you might start to recognize a few of them, customers might recognize you, etc. With a big company (lets say Walmart just because), I might recognize the late night check out lady at my local store every now and then. She sees thousands of people a day, and doesn't care. If I go to the next Walmart, nobody knows me at all, and I don't know them. None of the Waltons know who I am, or care who I am. I am just a person who added $5 to some stores books who in turn added some unknown millions of dollars into the main corporate books that gets reviewed by a team of people that see if my $5 helped trend the company upwards or not.

We need big businesses, and small businesses. But don't be fooled that they give any craps about you.

 

Oh, I totally agree. It's sad, but true. We are just "numbers" in a hundred different computers somewhere.

I guess, for me, I don't do any kind of automatic or online bill-paying, so it would be quick and simple to close out my checking account and start a new one somewhere else. (Old guy here... I still write a check for my 4 utility bills each month, and one credit card, and mail them. ) I try to keep my finances as simple as possible in retirement, so as not to worry. But that's a whole 'nother subject.

I also am fortunate, and I still use my employer's small credit union... no big banks, thankfully.

 

Yes I have. And successfully. But my entanglements were somewhere in between your complexity and Coast Cruiser's simplicity.

I left BoA after they abolished the free services included on my legacy account that had been preserved over at least four mergers & acquisitions over more than a quarter century. Their default assignmest was to a high cost plan, though a less expensive and more appropriate was available. (The original bank was long long gone, and all customer good-will from the original bank had been seriously burned by the intermediate entities, before the BoA merger.)

But my ex-employer's credit union in another state had just merged with a local credit union, making all those services readily available. Since I already had everything with them except a checking account, the choice was easy.

I didn't close the BoA accounts, or even tell them I was leaving, until my switch-over was completed and running smoothly. By then, the customer service rep's pleadings and 'special enticements' were useless, they had no leverage.

 

I would highly recommend to all to join a credit union.

 

+1

 

credit unions around here have gone public, so they're the same as other banks. i think if you can get in through your employment, it might be different.

 

I remember way back when, I had one bill. Cable. It was $5.50, every other month. Yeah...

Anyway, I would walk down to the post office, get a money order, envelope, stamp.

Now everything's 1000% more, and payment so convenient.

 

Limited access isn't what makes a credit union a credit union.
A bank is a company that offers financial services to services to customers.
The customers of a credit union aren't just customers, but part owners of the institution. Regardless of how limited membership is or isn't.

 

But being a part owner can be pretty token? Say like Costco "membership".

 

i'm a part owner of amica insurance. 40 year customer, home, auto, ira's. they treat me like dirt.

regardless of how a credit union works, they don't offer any better rates or services around here than any other bank.
but i have had members of civil device jobs tell me they get an extra quarter percent either way.

 

The difference for me has been the ability to borrow below $5,000 to pay off taxes. Major banks never did that for me. Always had to borrow a large minimum amount, that would take me decades to pay off, which, in itself, defeated the whole purpose of borrowing.

 

For me it comes down to this:

Number of times there have been market crashes because the CUs were too big to fail: ........0
Number of times that Congress critters slap the hands of CU CEO's.....................................0
Number of CU officers raking the sand traps at some Federal Minimum Security Prison..........0 (**)

(**) roughly the same number as are for the big commercial banks.

Personally?
The fact that Wells Fargo committed ABSOLUTE CRIMES against their customers and nobody is being held responsible speaks volumes.
There's only ONE Congress Critter that is serious about going after them, and nobody is taking her very seriously.....especially two out of the top three POTUS candidates.....BOTH of which are also in the rarefied air of pretty much being able to flout laws with impunity.

So....since I'm not that one aforementioned Congress Critter, I don't pretend that I can do anything about what Clark Howard calls the Giant Monster Megabanks.

However (comma!!!) they will be sprinkling rock salt on the sidewalks from where HELL has frozen over before I willingly do business with them.