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

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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.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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