It is recommended that if you can, please attend the Flagstaff City Council Meeting on Tuesday, March 14 at 3:00 PM at City Hall and advocate for the city to issue a Request for Proposal to banks other than Wells Fargo to do the cities business after the Wells Fargo contract expires in June.
If you are unable to attend in person, send you comments to the city council via
By the end of the work day, Monday, March 13.
Here are some talking points and folowing are some reasons to look for a bank other than Wells Fargo.
A Partial List of Wells Fargo’s Unethical and Criminal Behavior Since 2016
– In April, 2016, Wells Fargo agreed to pay $1.2 billion for improper mortgage lending practices, admitting that it certified loans that were eligible for FHA mortgage insurance when they were not, and that it did not disclose thousands of faulty mortgage loans to HUD.
-In September, 2016, Wells Fargo was fined $185 million for secretly opening up bank and credit card accounts for customers without their authorization, apparently all because employees were trying to reach aggressive sales goals set by the bank. The bank took responsibility for any instances where customers received a product that they did not request.
– In April 2017, Wells Fargo was ordered by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to provide $5.4 million in back pay, damages and legal fees to a bank manager who had been terminated in 2010 after reporting suspected fraudulent behavior to superiors and a bank ethics hotline.
– In July 2017, Wells Fargo confirmed that 800,000 car loan customers were charged for auto insurance they did not need. Several weeks later, the bank disclosed that the number of bogus accounts they created was actually 3.5 million, a nearly 70% increase over the bank’s initial estimate.
– Responding to widespread consumer abuses and other compliance breakdowns at Wells Fargo, in February 2018, the Federal Reserve took the unprecedented step of barring the bank from growing any larger until it cleaned up its business practices. The agency also announced that the bank had been pressured to replace four members of its board of directors.
– In April 2018, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fined Wells Fargo $1 billion for selling unnecessary products.
– In May 2018, Wells Fargo paid $480 million to settle a class action lawsuit filed by shareholders accusing the company of making false statements about its business practices.
– In August 2018, Wells Fargo paid $2.09 billion to resolve a Justice Department case involving the misrepresentation of the quality of loans used in residential mortgage-backed securities the bank issued in the period leading up to the financial crisis.
– In December 2018, Wells Fargo paid $575 million to settle claims brought by all 50 states and the District of Columbia in connection with a variety of questionable practices.
–In December 2019, Wells Fargo provided $10 million for housing programs in Philadelphia to resolve litigation alleging that it violated the Fair Housing Act in the mortgage loans it provided to minority borrowers in the city.
– In February 2020, Wells Fargo paid $3 billion to resolve criminal and civil investigations into sales practices involving the opening of millions of unauthorized customer accounts, admitting that it collected millions of dollars in fees and interest to which the company was not entitled, harmed customers’ credit ratings, and unlawfully misused customers’ sensitive personal information.
– In June 2020, Wells Fargo paid $20 million to the State of Maryland in settlement of allegations it misled investors over the safety of its residential mortgage-backed securities.
– In August 2020, Wells Fargo entered into a conciliation agreement with Wells Fargo Bank N.A. in which the bank agreed to pay $7.8 million in back wages and interest to resolve allegations of hiring discrimination against 34,193 African American applicants for banking, customer sales and service, and administrative support positions at U.S. locations nationwide and 308 female applicants for administrative support positions.
– In September 2021, Wells Fargo was fined $250 million by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for failing to meet the requirements of a 2018 consent order when the regulator ordered the bank to pay back customers who had been charged excessive or improper fees.
– In September 2021, Wells Fargo paid $72 million to settle Justice Department charges that it overcharged customers for foreign exchange services over seven years, admitting not only that it overcharged customers but also that it also provided false information.
– In December 2021, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) censured Wells Fargo’s broker-dealer businesses and imposed a $2.25 million over customer recordkeeping violations.
– In December 2022, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ordered Wells Fargo to pay $1.7 billion in penalties and $2 billion in damages for banking violations over the last decade that harmed millions of consumers, including improperly recording customer payments on home and auto loans that resulted in thousands of customers losing their vehicles and their homes. This is the largest fine ever imposed by the CFPB
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