Holy Crap: Wells Fargo Has To Fire 5,300 Employees For Scam Billing
from the how-do-you-miss-that dept
This story is crazy. Late yesterday it was revealed that banking giant Wells Fargo had to fire 5,300 employees over a massive scam in which those employees created over 2 million fake accounts to stuff with fees in order to meet their quarterly numbers. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau also fined the company $185 million ($100 million to the CFPB, $35 million to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and another $50 million to Los Angeles). Oh and it needs to pay back around $5 million to the customers it screwed over. The CFPB provides some crazy details:The thing is, if 5,300 employees were a part of this, this was not some random scam. This was a bank-approved plan to goose their numbers. It seems like among the 5,300 employees, management should be in serious trouble as well. What's really astounding about all of this is that it took this long for the practice to come to light. As the CFPB notes, end users were impacted by this, and you'd think that complaints would have made it clear that this was a problem much sooner. Or is that people are just so used to getting screwed by their bank that they let it slide? The CNN report notes that Los Angeles had sued Wells Fargo over this practice last year (hence LA being a part of the settlement fines), but having such a widespread scam going on is somewhat astounding.Opening deposit accounts and transferring funds without authorization: According to the bank’s own analysis, employees opened roughly 1.5 million deposit accounts that may not have been authorized by consumers. Employees then transferred funds from consumers’ authorized accounts to temporarily fund the new, unauthorized accounts. This widespread practice gave the employees credit for opening the new accounts, allowing them to earn additional compensation and to meet the bank’s sales goals. Consumers, in turn, were sometimes harmed because the bank charged them for insufficient funds or overdraft fees because the money was not in their original accounts. Applying for credit card accounts without authorization: According to the bank’s own analysis, Wells Fargo employees applied for roughly 565,000 credit card accounts that may not have been authorized by consumers. On those unauthorized credit cards, many consumers incurred annual fees, as well as associated finance or interest charges and other fees. Issuing and activating debit cards without authorization: Wells Fargo employees requested and issued debit cards without consumers’ knowledge or consent, going so far as to create PINs without telling consumers. Creating phony email addresses to enroll consumers in online-banking services: Wells Fargo employees created phony email addresses not belonging to consumers to enroll them in online-banking services without their knowledge or consent.
And, of course, it raises questions about what other banks are doing similar things as well. We've seen this kind of activity in the telco space at times with cramming, but that was generally third party scammers, where the telcos just looked the other way. This was full-time Wells Fargo employees doing the scam itself, and the bank apparently either encouraging it or just looking the other way from upper management.
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Filed Under: banking, billing, cfpb, scam
Companies: wells fargo
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So the perverse systems of rewarding 'wins' continues unabated.
Government lawyers fear losing, they don't dare try... instead looking for easier targets.
Banks give out compensation for new accounts, credit cards and don't notice how many of these new account holders are suddenly overdrafting their older accounts. There is no checking of any of the paperwork or questions raised.
To big to prosecute...
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No one gave a damn when this happened, no one cares now, and the bank pays a pittance in fines.
Absolutely the right message being sent, here.
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Playing Jurors like a fiddle is easy. They are from the stupid electorate that continues allowing this rape to continue without doing anything.
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When they acquired Countrywide they acquired the congress critters who had sweetheart loans & their own special customer service numbers.
While Congress does very little to provide oversight, the right phonecalls & veiled threats of investigations makes problems go away quickly.
While they will waste millions on Benghazi and devote lots of time, they glossed over Katrina... they are playing politics with Zika funding.... But a corporation screwing over their constituents... can't be bothered.
The system is corrupt to its core, and for reasons no one can fathom we keep electing people we know will screw us over for a small 'contribution'.
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Congressional oversight [was Re: Re: Re: ]
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Re: Re: Congressional oversight [was Re: Re: Re: ]
If there was a Senate hearing on this, would you watch that hearing? Attend in person?
You do understand that webcasts typically remain archived on the Senate webpages. Further, not only does C-SPAN video remain available at their website, but also DVRs can be programmed to record a hearing broadcast on cable. Thus, any potential personal scheduling conflict is no excuse. You can watch it later—if you care enough to watch at all.
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Re: Congressional oversight [was Re: Re: Re: ]
Via “Wells Fargo scandal: Elizabeth Warren wants answers”, by Matt Egan, CNN Money, Sep 12, 2016. (Embedded link lifted.)
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Re: Re: Congressional oversight [was Re: Re: Re: ]
Sorry. But it does rhyme with Berkeley, doesn't it?
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Re: Re: Re: Congressional oversight [was Re: Re: Re: ]
Sorry. I was concentrating on what I wasn't saying in that comment.
See what happens when you let your hair down, back in the archives, when absolutely no one's looking?
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Re: Re: Congressional oversight [was Re: Re: Re: ]
In today's news… “ More than 2,500 New Jerseyans scammed by Wells Fargo”, by Richard Newman, NorthJersey.com, Sep 16, 2016
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Re: Re: Congressional oversight [was Re: Re: Re: ]
Somewhat curiously, although the internal dateline of this letter does show the 15th, the openly-coded filename is: 2016-9-16_Letter_to_Wells_Fargo.pdf.
“Senators Ask if Wells Fargo Will Use Clawback Provisions to Recover Bonuses from Senior Executives, Including Carrie Tolstedt, Following CFPB Settlement for Employee Misconduct”, Sen. Warren press release, Sep 16, 2016.
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Re: Congressional oversight [was Re: Re: Re: ]
Additionally, an article in the Wall Street Journal this evening is headlined ”Senate Banking Committee to Host Wells Fargo Hearing”. The paywalled WSJ article gives substantially the same information as the article in the Los Angeles Times. The WSJ article does mention a little bit of other news that came out today, which is not covered in this particular Los Angeles Times article, but is covered elsewhere.
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Re: Re: Congressional oversight [was Re: Re: Re: ]
(You know, if Maine's Senator Susan Collins wants to sign herself as “Chairman”, then who am I to put a “(sic)” or an even an asterisk on that? Just saying.)
(Letter url via MarketWatch / Steve Goldstein.)
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Re: Re: Re: Congressional oversight [was Re: Re: Re: ]
I expect that, in due course, we will see or read Director Cordray's direct response to the sixth question asked in the letter from Senators Collins and McCaskill—
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Re: Re: Congressional oversight [was Re: Re: Re: ]
I'm noting, somewhat curiously that the “UPDATES” notation on both versions, says: (Original italics.)
That makes no sense to me.
Both versions contain: Monday night is well after anything ante meridiem, and it isn't yet “8:20 a.m.” Tuesday, at least on the West Coast, generally observing PDT.
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Re: Congressional oversight [was Re: Re: Re: ]
“Democrats seek U.S. House investigation of Wells Fargo case”, Reuters, Sep 13, 2016 In the last few days, some reports have mentioned the Sep 9, 2016 statement by Representative Maxine Waters (CA). Given the overall amount of news coverage, I've attempted to be fairly selective in what I'm focusing on to pass along here. Today's Reuters report adds the information that Rep. Waters has been joined by Rep. Al Green (TX) in calling for a hearing on the House side.
(*) I don't yet see the September 20th hearing on the Senate Banking Committee hearing schedule. That's not too surprising, given the report that the decision to hold the hearing was only reached last night.
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Re: Re: Congressional oversight [was Re: Re: Re: ]
An Examination of Wells Fargo’s Unauthorized Accounts and the Regulatory Response
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Re: Re: Congressional oversight [was Re: Re: Re: ]
From the Sep 13, 2016 letter to Mr Stumpf from Rep. Cummings (pp.2-3):
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Re: Re: Congressional oversight [was Re: Re: Re: ]
I'm noting that a hearing planned “later in September” would occur before the “October 13, 2016” due date of Rep. Cummings letter.
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Re: Re: Re: Congressional oversight [was Re: Re: Re: ]
This press release contains text of three letters, all dated today (Sep 16, 2016), from Chairman Hensarling, and addressed to:
The letter to Mr Strother, in addition to requesting “all records relating to the questionable sales practices that Wells Fargo produced or made available to the OCC, LACA or the Bureau” “not later than September 23, 2016”, also requests: (Text lightly reformatted.)
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Congressional oversight [was Re: Re: Re: ]
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Mike, you usually do a much better job than this on your stories. When I read an article here I usually expect it to be a few days after a story has broke and it usually goes very in depth. Hopefully you will follow up with an article that is more to your normal standard.
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https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-09-09/wells-fargo-opened-a-couple-million-fake-acc ounts
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Which might make sense if we were talking about a few, or even a few dozen people doing it across the entire company, but when we're talking about literally thousands of employees the idea that no-one in management had so much as a hunch that something fishy might be going on before the investigation pointed it out to them goes right out the window.
As the article and the first AC noted, either upper management knew and looked the other way or they were so grossly incompetent that they never caught on, either way they need to be fired at best given the idea that they really had no clue is minuscule when you consider how many people we're talking about here.
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In one case I am aware of, one staff member "upgraded" the accounts of all 13 customers she saw that day. In return, she was:
- rewarded with a commission for each sale
- rewarded with a bonus for being a top op
- given recognition throughout the company
When her manager reviewed those upgrades, it was plain that the customers had not agreed to them. So what happened? The manager had to contact all 13, explain the "mistake" and put it right. This member of staff:
- kept the commission, bonus and recognition
- was not reprimanded (how could you having so publicly congratulated her)
The new targets the following week were increased in proportion to this record achievement. The reason this gets really out of hand is that those staff not making the targets face criticism and sometimes even dismissal for poor performance.
My wife was a co-worker in this branch. As she said, you could do you job with integrity, or you could hit your targets which were spectacularly unattainable. My guess is that stupid incentives structures combined with a refusal to reprimand dishonest behaviour is behind this too. The management need to be sacked whether they knew or not.
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This last sentence is why I marked this post as insightful. This is exactly right.
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Re: Do you know where your $binary is?
WtF had just set up 'electronic banking' on all checking accounts, but I hadn't even 'activated' the new key fob.
Without a clew where the leak was, another Green Party signer and I took a bus 400miles and sat down with WtF, they persuaded three of us to open 3 new parallel GP checking & a new GP 'savings' accounts.
Long story short, dozens of 1-2k electronic 'Checks' were FedEx'd all over the country for six months. Try explaining to a young father in Baltimore on the 1st of December that the $1,134 paper check in his hand, in his name, is worthless:(
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Re: Re:
Sounds like willful ignorance to me - I'm guessing they made sure that they didn't know what was going on. Sounds exactly like Volkswagen: "I don't want to hear about it, just make it happen or you're fired".
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As I was reading the article I thought perhaps Mike thought that this point was obvious enough to not be worth mentioning. I figured this was the case before I read it from you, big companies have long been known for having unrealistic quotas that cause employees to do shady things.
As I think about it this article is so generic as far as news goes that it's not generally something Techdirt covers at all. Obviously management screwed up here for both having unrealistic quotas and incentive structures and for not catching this type of activity, any idiot can tell you that.
but if Techdirt wishes to cover it I don't care, but perhaps they are simply selectively choosing which aspects of the story to focus on. Usually Techdirt tries to focus on what other media outlets aren't focusing on while leaving out the points that have already been covered ad nauseam everywhere else (though in this case I don't really see anything new here either). So I get a little annoyed when someone comes over here and says "you're ignoring the part of the story that everyone else is covering". That's usually done intentionally.
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Umm, I seriously doubt that. I can imagine there was definitely some management involved, but claim this was a "bank-approved" plan is outrageous. Why on earth would they do this with fake accounts and PAY EMPLOYEES a bonus for "new account sign ups". Not only would the fake account NOT generate new profits for the company, they would lose money over all paying out incentives. This sounds like "Wells Fargo" as a whole was also scammed by these rouge employees. I don't doubt that some in higher management knew but no way this was something that the top heads would have okay'd.
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As the story explains, two million fake accounts still fleeced customers for very real service fees. And then the bank could charge them for insufficient funds or overdraft fees because the money was not in their original accounts.
Sure, the practice probably wasn't explicitly approved by the bank. In exactly the same sense that certain outlaw motorcycle clubs don't explicitly approve criminal activity by their members or puppet clubs.
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Rather it's much easier to picture a scenario where a number of employees over different locations and such came to the same basic conclusion: Faking it would work. When they had success (ie, the bosses didn't notice and they got their bonuses) they perhaps told some of their friends / co-workers how to do it. The word spreads, and soon a whole bunch of people are doing it.
It's doubtful that the company would teach such a thing directly. However, their goal system and such set up the potential for such abuse, and they had little incentive (beyond perhaps customer satisfaction) to police it.
Concluding that this was a "bank approved plan" is pretty much trying to write the conclusion to match your desires, rather than reality.
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Allegations against management [was Re: ]
At a certain point, whether or not a board of directors formally approves any specific corporate policy, coordinated action amongst mid- and lower-level managers executes corporate policy.
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My question is "why aren't the employees being prosecuted for fraud? They used someone else's name and information to open an account without permission.
Isn't that illegal?
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Management won't suffer for this
But these executives won't lose their jobs -- or if they do: golden parachute. They won't face prosecution. They won't be fined. No, these things are only for the little people; the rich and powerful don't have to face justice. They'll just slink away and take a few years off, enjoy the beach, and then turn up somewhere else doing something similar. That's how it's done.
Side note: the Republican party has tried and tried and tried to gut the CFPB, precisely because they do things like this to their pals.
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Re: Management won't suffer for this
Upper management may have looked the other way depending on how their own incentives were structured.
All we can really do is speculate until the details really come out.
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Re: Re: Management won't suffer for this
Justice is not for executives, particularly not for executives who can afford top-tier attorneys (or have the corporations pay for them). Even if they're pursued aggressively, they'll stall, they'll obfuscate, they'll bargain...and eight years from now, when this story is old old news and nobody cares much about it any more, they'll quietly make a deal. None of them will spend a day in jail. None of them will miss a meal. None of them will have to give up a Mercedes. None of them will have any trouble finding another job -- if they even need or want one.
Executives are a privileged class now. That's how it works. Which is why they do things like this: they know that they can. So of course they organized this. Of course they sanctioned this. Of course they rewarded this. It was a perfectly rational decision based on known risk factors. And it's playing out just like they thought it would: the flunkies (who are just a payroll expense anyway) are being fired, and the architects are being protected.
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Re: Re: Re: Management won't suffer for this
That has nothing to do with Michael's comment. He isn't saying the executives will be held to account, he's saying it's possible this started and spread organically as a result of the incentive structures, rather than being "conceived and executed by upper management" as you claimed.
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Re: Re: Re: Management won't suffer for this
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Management won't suffer for this
Now that we're safely into the archives, just for the record, comment #112 did briefly appear when this story was still on the sidebar of Techdirt's front page.
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Re: Management won't suffer for this
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After the stunts Wells Fargo pulled in Florida in the big housing bust why would anyone be dumb enough to have a Wells Fargo account?
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"management should be in serious trouble as well"
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Wf scam
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What if I did the same thing?
Or would the full arm of justice fall on my head, and I'd find myself sitting in a federal prison?
I guess if you're one of those scumbags in banking, you can just say "whoopsie" and move on from stuff like this.
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Re: What if I did the same thing?
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Well, that's one way to get rid of excess employees...
I wonder, will Wells Fargo go out hiring to replace the employees who were fired?
If they do, I'll believe this was genuine and upper management is innocent.
If they don't, I'll believe it's a scheme to get rid of employees without paying any more expenses.
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The CFO and CEO went to jail for faking sales on a much larger (multi-billion) scale. So no, I doubt senior management at Wells Fargo was specifically aware that this stuff was going on, but they created a culture that led to it happening, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out shenanigans at a much bigger scale are happening at the higher levels of the organization.
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ripple effect?
It's all well and good that they'll have to pay back the customers they swindled. But it's probably impossible to calculate the potential losses that could have occurred for all the people who maybe couldn't get a loan (or got a higher rate than they should have) because Wells Fargo was screwing around with accounts in their name.
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Re: ripple effect?
In theory fraudulent transactions can be removed from one's credit history, though I have never tried it.
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Re: Re: ripple effect?
From personal experience, they can, but usually it takes quite a bit of work and some money. The earlier you catch it, the easier it is to take care of. If you have enough money or a lawyer on retainer, it is a lot easier, but at first you need to know the problem exists and it doesn't look like a lot of people caught it. What really hurts is when the company who fraudulently claims you owed them money goes out of business or is bought out by several successors of interest before you catch it, in which case, good luck.
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Tough break for those 5,300 people
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Wells Fargo also plays with
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Re: Wells Fargo also plays with transaction ordering...
I tested this a few years back by transferring funds to one of my accounts @ 6AM. I then used my debit card @ 4 PM.
When the transactions showed up in my account transaction log, the debit was listed as being completed before the credit transfer that occured 10 hours before the debit.
They must have a lot of "profit parties" due to these kinds of transaction shenanigans.
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Re: Re: Re: Wells Fargo also plays with transaction ordering...
in a just world (try the next solar system over for that) they would be jailed...
they will not be jailed, therefore we dont live in a just world...
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Re: Re: Re: Wells Fargo also plays with transaction ordering...
Wells Fargo once incorrectly charged me an overdraft fee. I called them up and pointed out the error, and they immediately refunded the fee. For whatever that's worth.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Wells Fargo also plays with transaction ordering...
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5300 Former Wells Fargo Employees Charged with Identity Theft Related Fraud [was Re: ]
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Multiply this # by perhaps 100x
It would be interesting to see how many of these 5300 employees cut their teeth on those frauds.
There's a very real question about how a "bank" is supposed to make *any* money in a ZIRP or negative-rate world.
Get ready for more bailouts -- another 2008-style "October surprise" ?
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2 rougue employees
What I want to know -- because I am directly affected by this -- is why are the fines going to the government? They weren't damaged -- I WAS!
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Re: 2 rougue employees
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I still wonder - 3500 people didn't all come up with the same idea. This wasn't one or two offices dreaming up a scam. 3500 people didn't suddenly decide faking things was the way to meet their goals. Somebody at a fairly high level somehow had to organize this in some way - either *wink* "this is one way to meet goals" or "please do this". That's the fraud that really, really needs to be investigated. I doubt that 3500 front-line bank people decided on their own that transferring money without consent was a good idea.
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A little context please
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Re: A little context please
Companies that take anti-corruption efforts seriously go to elaborate lengths to prevent the corruption of the internal auditors because they know that the auditors are so critical to catching corruption early. I know of one place that has a standard practice that anyone who works in accounting gets reassigned to another office every X months (I forget whether X was 6, 9, 12, 24, etc.), presumably for the reason that it denies a corrupt employee the opportunity to remain hidden because, once that person rotates out (and policy says you will rotate out or be fired), if their successor is not already corrupt, the successor will start screaming about the corruption. If the successor is corrupt, then somehow, despite neither knowing the rotation, the first person corrupted the second. Now extrapolate this forward when you need a chain of corrupt employees and the rotation schedule keeps you guessing about who will fill that chair next time. It rapidly becomes untenable unless you have systemic corruption, at which point you are already screwed.
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Re: Re: A little context please
From the standpoint of letting outside auditors off the hook for this, it's much better for them if the explanation is that Wells Fargo simply lied to their outside auditors.
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Re: Re: Re: A little context please
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Re: Re: Re: Re: A little context please
The customers' accounts were "real" (in the sense that they existed). They were just created without the customers' knowledge or consent.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A little context please
First, I guess, take a look at the discussion of “Cross-sell” on p.46 of Wells Fargo's 2015 annual report (part of the “Earnings Performance” discussion.) Then on p.47 Now, I think we have good reason to believe those metrics may be tainted with fraud.
And I tend to think Wells Fargo should have disclosed any significant issues that they were having with those metrics. Yes?
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Disclosure [was Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A little context please]
(*) It's more convenient here to grab PDFs from Wells Fargo Investor Relations SEC and Other Regulatory Filings page than to obtain them from the SEC's EDGAR database. But, in consequence, when Wells Fargo asserts, “Filed August 3, 2016”, it's simply unverified whether the SEC agrees with that assertion. I myself have no special reason to doubt that asserted filing date.
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Re: Disclosure [was Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A little context please]
Iow, whether or not certain litigation should have been disclosed is a different question than whether or not fraud in their cross-selling metrics should have been concealed.
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Re: Disclosure [was Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A little context please]
“Merkley, Warren, Menendez Urge SEC Investigation of Wells Fargo for Misleading Investors and Violating Whistleblower Protections”, Sen Merkley press release, Sep 29, 2016 With this letter, the senators have requested investigation by the SEC of Wells Fargo. That's not quite the same as a group of senators exercising oversight over the SEC by investigating how the SEC carries out its regulatory function.
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Re: Disclosure [was Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A little context please]
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A little context please
I wouldn't necessarily read these findings as reason to let KPMG skate over their “unqualified opinion on the effectiveness of the Company's internal control over financial reporting.” Rather, the OCC seems to be finding inadequate or ineffective practices here.
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Re: A little context please
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Re: A little context please
Wells Fargoe was also a big player in the 2008 Real Estate mortgage derivative scam, which was basically an act of economic terrorism against the United States.
Hows that for a little context?
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A little more context [was Re: Re: A little context please]
Possible you might be able to situate the immediate topic of focus within its larger context?
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Re: A little more context [was Re: Re: A little context please]
Since then, quite a few of the various news stories that I've linked to have mentioned Wells Fargo's SCRA violations.
• “OCC Assesses Penalty Against Wells Fargo; Orders Restitution for Violations of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act”, OCC press release, Sep 29, 2016
• “Justice Department Reaches $4 Million Settlement with Wells Fargo Dealer Services for Illegally Repossessing Servicemembers’ Cars”, DoJ press release, Sep 29, 2016
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Re: Re: A little more context [was Re: Re: A little context please]
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There are lots of layoffs in the banking industry. Everyone is scared.
These staff know that getting a new job is very difficult. They have mouths to feed. We don't have a nice safety net in the US. So they do what they have to do to live another day.
The management met their numbers, got their bonus. The fallout is tomorrow's problem.
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Pretty much discredits Lifelock
But consider: the number of victims of this scam is huge. If Lifelock actually had any clue, they would have observed this in the statistics and would have deduced that there was a systemic problem affecting a lot of people who all happened to be WF customers. And of course they would have trumpeted it, because it would be a big PR win for them. But they didn't. Millions of cases of identity theft, and they completely missed it.
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"Just make it happen and don't tell me how."
Another legal principle that could apply is that of "command responsibility". That means that those in charge are responsible for what happens under their command that they should have known about, even if they didn't. Apparently, this one doesn't apply to bankers either.
Must be nice to be a banker.
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You have new mail
“Wells Fargo Issues Statement on Agreements Related to Sales Practices”, Wells Fargo Press Release, Sep 8, 2016 (H/T MarketWatch / Philip van Doorn)
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Re: You have new mail
Which is a fat lot of use when an employee rather than the customer controls the email address.
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Re: Re: You have new mail
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Re: Re: Re: You have new mail
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Re: Re: You have new mail
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SCAM continued.
Recently we won back a hacking done through this bank and just got our money back on the same day this scam was exposed.
185 M. is not enough, they should be fined at least 10 B. as they have 'harvested' through unauthorised and fake accounts much more.
Regards.
Regards.
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Controls: Why have them, increase productivity.
I am all for streamlining processes, but you dont just remove steps without understanding why they were put there and what they do. Automate, streamline, but keep the purpose and objective for them.
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There are already two mentions of "incentive structure" in the comments, but a statement like this merits saying it a third time.
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Incentive Structure [was Re: ]
This afternoon Matt Egan has another CNN Money story, “Workers tell Wells Fargo horror stories” (Sep 9, 2016 - 4:24 PM ET) I linked to the May 4, 2014 California complaint once already in an earlier comment.
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Just Scratching The Surface
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scandal
fine the big wigs then fire the workers and it looks like were doing a good job.Take your money out of wells fargo to do the safe thing.
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LA City Attorney settlement
LA City Attorney's page on the Wells Fargo settlement— Reading the settlement, I'm seeing the $50 million split half to the city and half to the county.
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Re: LA City Attorney settlement
Here are some webpage snapshots: The third item on that list, an archived copy of the Google cache rendering(*) of a PDF containing the “[PROPOSED] STIPULATED FINAL JUDGMENT” “dated September 1, 2016” would probably never be a preferred way to obtain a copy of that document. It's archived, though, to show the target of the links labeled as the actual ‘settlement’ on the webpage and in the press release—it's accessible through active hyperlinks in the archived copies of those first two resources, with anchor text variously: (Quoted anchor texts are not active hyperlinks in this post!)
(*) This is the automagic way archive.is handles PDFs.
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WF Community Banking Exec Retirement
Looking back, that finding seems to illuminate this July 12, 2016 Wells Fargo press release, “Wells Fargo’s Carrie Tolstedt to retire at year’s end; Mary Mack to succeed her as head of Community Banking effective July 31” (Emphasis added again.)
(H/T featured comment at Naked Capitalism.)
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Re: WF Community Banking Exec Retirement
Happy to see that Saint Louis Post-Dispatch editorial board agrees that the timing of that announcement, in light of what we now know, creates an inference.
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Re: WF Community Banking Exec Retirement
Ranked 27th in 2015 on the Fortune “Most Powerful Women” list. Tolstedt was 55 years old that year.
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Pay scales [was Re: Re: WF Community Banking Exec Retirement]
“Low bank wages costing the public millions, report says”, by Danielle Douglas, Washington Post, Dec 3, 2013 • The Committee for Better Banks Report: The state of the bank employee on Wall Street.
While the report's title does indicate that this report primarily focuses on banking workers in NYC, this particular statistic applies nationwide. From the report PDF:
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Re: Pay scales [was Re: Re: WF Community Banking Exec Retirement]
It's really not stated exactly where these numbers are coming from, although ¶ 3 almost implies that they're from “branch employees” who've provided “internal Wells Fargo documents and sales-adventure stories”. Yet reading closely, the article doesn't precisely state that—instead it says that those sources “suggest[]” “a couple of steps”. Nitpickery, but ‘suggesting steps’ is just not the same as providing documented numbers.
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Re: Re: WF Community Banking Exec Retirement
Nice to see that CNNMoney's calculations roughly agree with Fortune's number. There's some Twitter chatter today disagreeing with the math.
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Re: Re: Re: WF Community Banking Exec Retirement
(Paywalled version of story at “Lawmakers Intensify Pressure on Wells Fargo”, WSJ, Sep 16, 2016.)
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Clawback? [was Re: Re: WF Community Banking Exec Retirement]
“If ever there's a case for clawbacks, Wells Fargo is it: Ex-FDIC chair”, by Matthew J. Belvedere, CNBC, Sep 13, 2016 This is on top of yesterday's call for a clawback from an analyst.
“Wells Fargo’s CEO to Face Senate Panel in Cross-Selling Scandal”, by Laura J Keller and Jesse Westbrook, Bloomberg, Sep 12, 2016 (I thought I had seen a report characterizing Mike Mayo as an “influential” analyst, but now I can't source that adjective.)
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Re: Clawback? [was Re: Re: WF Community Banking Exec Retirement]
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Re: Clawback? [was Re: Re: WF Community Banking Exec Retirement]
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Re: Clawback? [was Re: Re: WF Community Banking Exec Retirement]
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Re: Clawback? [was Re: Re: WF Community Banking Exec Retirement]
Now that I've threaded the Sep 19, 2016 Wells Fargo response in below, the query letter dated Sep 15 certainly ought to get a note in here.
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Re: Re: WF Community Banking Exec Retirement
From the Sep 19, 2016 letter signed by Hope Hardison (Senior Executive Vice President, Chief Administrative Officer, Wells Fargo & Company) to Senators Warren, Brown, Reed, Menendez, and Merkley:
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Re: Re: Re: WF Community Banking Exec Retirement
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(Basically make a fake account - charge it overdrafts etc - "customer" complains (customer doesn't actually exist) - bank compensates the customer - money goes right into CEO and board members own accounts)
Essentially it's embezzlement via internal systems which is a criminal offence
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Re:
They don't need to do anything that dumb when they can just get huge bonuses.
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Wells Fargo Head Community Banking Gets $124 Million, Shareholders Fined $185 Million As 5300 WF Wage Slaves Lose Job
(C) 9-12-16 by Stephen Gendel headlined: "Wells Fargo Exec Who Headed Phony Accounts Unit Collected $125 Million"
Now, if that headline read: "Head of Wells Fargo Receiving $124 Million While Shareholders Fined $185 Million"
WF CEO's Name Rhymes With Mein Trumpf
Familiarize yourselves with the term: CLAW BACK
When Commie Rags like FORTUNE & TIME (LLC) start flinging it around, even the cronies in Crony Capitalism have shown they are mad as hell and are not going to take it anymore... The Pathetic Body Politic without one broadcast channel not captured by corporate underwriting and so without any ability to use Mass Communications to educate and inform the body politic while being insulated from MARKET FORCES illustrates to what degree the corporate coup is indeed complete.
If you already know about the work of such journalists and academics who've written and spoken on this, like Chris Hedges, Sheldon Wolin, Gretchen Morgenson, James Stewart, Alfred Stieglitz, Nouriel Rubini, Richard Wolff and Neo-Liberal E-CON OUTCOME Analysts such as Canadian journalist Naomi Klein (CBC is insulated from MARKET FORCES) nothing about demanding CLAW BACK as a token first step DEMAND TO RESTORE THE SOCIAL CONTRACT.
Just as soon as U.S. Taxpayers Claw Back Former Clinton Treasury Secretary turned Citi Bancorp Exec Robert Rubin's $126 Million Dollar Compensation Package, as Wikipedia reports on his Wiki page:
" He (Robert Rubin) received more than $126 million in cash and stock during his tenure at Citigroup,[5] up through and including Citigroup's bailout
by the U.S. Treasury."
{Creative Commons Copyright}
Mitch Ritter
Lay-Low Studios Media Discussion List
Ore-Wa
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10% Managers
The Barclays 2016 Global Financial Services Conference is noted on Wells Fargo's Investor Events and Presentations webpage, with additional links, including a webcast link.
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111 !!! 111 !!! 111 !!! 111 !!! 111 !!! 111 !!! 111 !!! 111 !!! 111 !!! 111 !!! 111 !!!
Next Tuesday, we'll be looking at Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf sitting in the hotseat before a Senate committee. Yesterday, he went on the interview circuit.
All but one paragraph of yesterday's Wall Street Journal article by Emily Glazer And Christina Rexrode, “Wells Fargo CEO Defends Bank Culture, Lays Blame With Bad Employees” (Sep 13, 2016), is available today outside the WSJ paywall at “Wells Boss Says Staff At Fault For Scams -- WSJ” (Dow Jones Business News, Sep 14, 2016).
Stumpf's Mad Money interview with Jim Cramer yesterday is available today on CNBC's YouTube channel.
Those interviews got a fair amount of attention yesterday. It'll be interesting to contrast them against how he performs in front of a Senate committee.
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Stumpf interview transcript [was Re: 111 !!! 111 !!! ...]
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Rumors and style
Hey, as long as we're down here in the archives, we might as well talk about a style issue that's been kind of nagging at me for awhile.
OK—the basic rule(*) is that a periodical, such as the Wall Street Journal, gets italicized. But a wire service, such as Dow Jones Business News, doesn't. Extending that onto the World-Wide Web, a website like Techdirt gets treated like a periodical publication—except when it occurs as part of anchor text—which is usually presented as underlined (which is equivalent to italics).
Now, those rules get a little confusing when a story appears on the Associated Press website. And it gets worse when a Dow Jones News Service story appears on the NASDAQ website. So maybe it's time for a little rethink on this.
Anyone down here in the archives want to weigh in on this really important style issue?
(*) Basic rule: Except when I mess up. Then the basic rule is do it twice and call it jazz. (No. That one —two— really was unintentional.)
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Re: Rumors and style
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Wednesday morning email [was Re: Rumors and style]
Typical of the coverage was, “Wells Fargo CEO calls bank’s conduct ‘unacceptable’ in note to customers”, by Rick Rothacker, Charlotte Observer, Sep 14, 2016.
While many of these stories quoted that email partially, I saw none at all that reproduced or linked to a copy of the email in full. One place that did, though, was Joe Crawford's ArtLung blog. Another was this Naked Capitalism comment.
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Re: Rumors and style
(H/T “Sanders: Is the Justice Department probing Wells Fargo?”, by Peter Schroeder, The Hill, Sep 19, 2016)
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Form 8-K Current Report [was Re: Rumors and style]
(H/T Wall Street Journal / Emily Glazer.)
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Senators write to DoJ [was Re: Form 8-K Current Report][was Re: Rumors and style]
Microsoft's Bing news search agrees that the ABC News story is the “best match” for “wells fargo” in the “past hour”, “past 24 hours”, “past 7 days”, and “past 30 days”. Curiously, it's only in 2nd place on the default “any time” list.
Imo, perhaps the best —or at least the most noteworthy— of the early stories about Senator Hirono's press release is Chris Morran's Consumerist story, “14 Senators Agree: DOJ Needs To Investigate, Prosecute Wells Fargo Executives” (Oct 5, 2016) The PDF copy of the letter linked in Morran's story reveals that the letter is dated Oct 4, 2016. That fact isn't apparent from Senator Hirono's press release today.
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Wells Fargo
Thanks.
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Consumer Questions [was Re: Wells Fargo]
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Re: Consumer Questions [was Re: Wells Fargo]
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Interview with CFPB official [was Re: Re: Consumer Questions][was Re: Wells Fargo]
“Federal Investigator Outlines Probe Into Wells Fargo”, NPR, Sep 16, 2016 Worth highlighting—
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Outside consultants
“Wells Fargo Tripped By Its sales Culture -- WSJ -2-” (Emphasis added.)
• Q & A Research Inc.
• Accenture
• Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP
• PricewaterhouseCoopers
(Paywalled version of this story at “How Wells Fargo’s High-Pressure Sales Culture Spiraled Out of Control”, WSJ, Sep 16, 2016.)
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Condensed Chronology [was Re: Outside consultants]
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Dozen page report [was Re: Condensed Chronology][was Re: Outside consultants]
Public Citizen's 12-page report, by researchers Michael Tanglis and Taylor Lincoln, “The “King of Cross-Sell” and the Race to Eight” (Sep 29, 2016) is notable for precisely the opposite reason. It presents a longer, more in-depth view, focusing on one facet. The report is subtitled, “An Analysis of Wells Fargo’s Cross-Sell Numbers Since 1998”.
Public Citizen's press release announcing the research product was headed as, “Wells Fargo’s Cross-Selling Mania Goes Back More Than 15 Years” (Sep 29, 2016). At BoingBoing, Cory Doctorow featured a graph from this report in his Oct 1, 2016 post, “Wells Fargo started demanding fraud of its employees in 1998; Illinois cuts Wells off from state business”. (BoingBoing might deserve some kind of “H/T” here, iirc, that's where I myself first became aware of this report.)
A copy of this report is appended (p.17ff.) to Robert Weissman's prepared testimony for a now-postponed House Judiciary DoJ oversight hearing, originally scheduled for Sep 29, 2016.
From an archival viewpoint, I'd criticize the Public Citizen report for it's use of bitly and other link-shortening services in footnotes. While the shortened hyperlinks may make the footnotes less obtrusive, and more aesthetically pleasing, this will probably create some minor headaches for any future researcher struggling against link-rot in coming years. The whole point of a citation is to make the resource findable. Stuff moves around on the web.
Finally, I'll just briefly extract— Some little time ago, I had briefly considered extracting that statistic here, from a WSJ article.
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Re: Dozen page report [was Re: Condensed Chronology][was Re: Outside consultants]
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Customer lawsuit
“Wells Fargo faces proposed class action over bogus accounts”, by Karen Freifeld, Reuters, Sep 16, 2016
“Wells Fargo Slammed in Customer Suit Over Account Abuses”, by Laura J Keller and Kartikay Mehrotra, Bloomberg, Sep 16, 2016
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Recent related lawsuits [was Re: Customer lawsuit]
• Polonsky v Wells Fargo complaint (Cal. Super. Ct. L.A. County; filed Sep 22, 2016)
(Copy of Polonsky complaint courtesy NPR / Camila Domonoske.)
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Re: Recent related lawsuits [was Re: Customer lawsuit]
(Sep 27, 2016 Reuters story.)
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Re: Recent related lawsuits [was Re: Customer lawsuit]
• Allen v Wells Fargo complaint (D.Minn, 16-cv-03405, filed Oct 7, 2016)
This one is a proposed class action on behalf of: (Complaint ¶ 160.)
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Re: Re: Recent related lawsuits [was Re: Customer lawsuit]
• Fletcher v Wells Fargo et al complaint (D.Minn, 16-cv-03495, filed Oct, 14, 2016)
From ¶ 28 (p.9) of the complaint, the proposed class is:
(Footnote 3 omitted; the footnote claims plaintiff may modify class period.)
Via “Second Wells Fargo Stock Drop Complaint Filed”, by John Manganaro, planadvisor, Oct 17, 2016. (One of two embedded hyperlinks omitted.)
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Re: Customer lawsuit
(Via Los Angeles Times / Michael Hiltzik.)
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2015 customer lawsuit status [was Re: Re: Customer lawsuit]
Keller Rohrback case page: Jabbari, et. al. v. Wells Fargo & Company and Wells Fargo Bank, N.A (N.D.Cal., 15-cv-02159-VC) [9th Cir. No. 15-17099]. • Stipulation to dismiss appeal without prejudice (9th Cir., 15-17099, dkt 22-1, Sep 8, 2016).
“California lawmakers denounce Wells Fargo at hearing, call for statewide banking reform”, by James Rufus Koren, Los Angeles Times, Oct 11, 2016 (Emphasis added.)
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Employee lawsuits [was Re: Customer lawsuit]
In some contrast——
“Lawmaker Presents Wells Fargo With Evidence Of Potential Account Fraud From 2007”, by Chris Morran, Consumerist, Sep 30, 2016 (Embedded hyperlink copied below.)
• Finstad et al v Wells Fargo amended complaint (D.Mont, 09-cv-00046, filed Oct 6, 2009)
——but, again, much more typical coverage——
“Fired Manchester teller sues Wells Fargo”, by Michael L. Diamond, Asbury Park Press, Sep 30, 2016 (NY Daily News / Jason Silverstein.) [←Observe no “H/T”.] {←Possibly too rude, Silverstein at least links to the Asbury Park Press story.}
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Re: Employee lawsuits [was Re: Customer lawsuit]
“Wells Fargo Workers Claim Retaliation for Playing by the Rules”, by Stacy Cowley, New York Times, Sep 29, 2016 Although that same New York Times story does go on to provide some background with good supporting links. This extract is the primary reason why I've bothered to keep that particular story open in a browser tab—
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CBS This Morning [was Re: Re: Employee lawsuits][was Re: Customer lawsuit]
The video, about three minutes long, is embedded alongside a CBS News story today, headlined “Wells Fargo whistleblower says she flagged fraud years ago” (Oct 4, 2016). It contains an interview by CBS News correspondent John Blackstone of former Wells Fargo “Personal Banker One” Yesenia Guitron.
I'm watching this video segment, of course, not only after reading the Sep 29 New York Times story cited above, and also after having gone through —rather quickly— the court documents linked in that NYT story, but furthermore, I'm watching this CBS News video after intense immersion in better than three weeks of other media coverage of this Wells Fargo “phony accounts” story.
My reaction to this video segment is almost certainly atypical compared to the vast majority of the audience who would encounter it, either on television or via the world wide web.
As I said, this belongs to a genre that I'd usually tend to just filter out without comment.
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Re: CBS This Morning [was Re: Re: Employee lawsuits][was Re: Customer lawsuit]
“As Wells Fargo scandal unfolds, St. Helena whistleblower recalls ordeal”, by Howard Yune, Napa Valley Register, Oct 9, 2016 The Wells Fargo statement to the Napa Valley Register continues for four paragraphs.
( Btw, when using the WayBack Machine, it's possible to locate a resource first, then turn off javascript in your browser, and reload the page. Sadly, I'm a little hesitant to include this note, because some culture-destroyers would burn down a library in a stroke of petty avarice. )
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More customer lawsuits [was Re: Customer lawsuit]
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Another consumer question [was Re: ]
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The Elizabeth Warren Show: Last Thursday
“Warren Questions Whether Wells Fargo Heads Should Keep Jobs”, Bloomberg, Sep 15, 2016
“Elizabeth Warren: Something Is 'Badly Broken' at Wells Fargo”, Bloomberg channel on YouTube, Sep 15, 2016
• 3:40 video (insignificant differences in cutting) available from either:
“Elizabeth Warren: 'There's a serious problem with senior management at Wells Fargo' ”, CNBC, Sep 15, 2016
“Sen. Warren: Serious problem with WFC management”, MSN (CNBC), Sep 15, 2016
• 7:22 video:
“Elizabeth Warren: Wells Fargo CEO needs ‘personal accountability’ ”, Fox Business channel on YouTube, Sep 15, 2016
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Show: Last Thursday
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Re: Re: The Elizabeth Warren Show: Last Thursday
Here, though, I do want to note that story's headline (which is, of course, not attributable to Matt Egan)—
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Senate Committee Hearing: Stumpf Testimony
While that hearing page at the committee website does not yet provide copies of witness' written statements, several news stories state that Mr Stumpf's prepared testimony has now been made available to the media.
“In Statement to Senate, Wells Fargo Chief Is ‘Deeply Sorry’ ”, by Michael Corkery, New York Times, Sep 19, 2016
( Incidentally, the Bloomberg story, which is front page Google News right now, has a line saying: But even looking at the source for that page, I don't see a functional hyperlink there. )
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Re: Senate Committee Hearing: Stumpf Testimony
Anyhow, while I'm updating this, I should also drop in a link to the C-SPAN webpage: Program ID: 415547-1.
After reading Mr Stumpf's prepared testimony, as relayed by the New York Times, the most noteworthy portion seems to be the last paragraph on p.2:
Compare Mr Stumpf's explanation there with the CFPB findings and conclusions in ¶ 10 on pp.4-5 of the bureau's Sep 4, 2016 Consent Order: Mr Stumpf's explanation leaves out where the employee gets the money to fund the new account.
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Re: Senate Committee Hearing: Stumpf Testimony
Via today's New York Times piece,“What Stumpf Is Telling Congress About the Wells Fargo Scandal” (Sep 28, 2016), where it seems to be implied that the NYT expected Mr Stumpf to simply read his prepared written testimony in his opening oral statement last week. NYT compares the two to determine that Mr Stumpf didn't do that.
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Sep 20 Senate Bank Cmte Hearing [was Re: Re: Senate Committee Hearing: ...]
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Backfilling [was Re: Sep 20 Senate Bank Cmte Hearing][was Re: Re: ...]
“Wells Fargo CEO Resigns as an Advisor to the Fed”, by Lucinda Shen, Fortune, Sep 22, 2016 (One of two hyperlink omitted.)
Dan Freed's Sep 22, 2016 Reuters report, “Wells Fargo CEO resigns from San Francisco Fed's advisory council”, mentions a “press release”.
More than once, I have searched for this press release at the San Francisco Fed website and elsewhere —unsuccessfully. The Federal Advisory Council webpage does indeed now say, under “Members”:
There ought to be better primary documentation available.
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Testimony from a former teller - My Wife
"Because of their flexible work hours, I worked as a teller for WellsFargo back in early 2011 while in school. It was so sales driven that everyone was required to open at least 2 new checking accounts and 1 savings account per day. People who didn't meet their daily quota were treated like crap and talked down to for being "incompetent" despite their high survey scores and excellent customer service. They even had a board of shame for those who had "low" performance in the break room. WellsFargo teaches their employees to word things in a way where people who aren't aware would be able to catch. For example, most credit cards have an APR rate of 18% - 21%. Wells teaches their employees to advertise it as "low as 12%" and customers wouldn't know the correct rate until after the account was already activated. Im not going to lie, my sales were horrible. Fortunately, I found a better job and quit after almost 2 months in that shit hole. It's unfortunate that people feel the need to do something illegal to keep a job that's not worth having. WellsFargo keeps their low level employees in check by paying them $12 per hour which is slightly higher than minimum wage. I'm not saying that the tellers should be left off the hook, but Stumpf and other senior executives should be held accountable for the mess they've caused for implementing unreasonable sales goals/demands."
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House Financial Services Committee Hearing: Sep 29
I don't see the announcement up on the committee calendar yet.
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Re: House Financial Services Committee Hearing: Sep 29
(Via New York Times / Michael Corkery, Stacey Cowley, in a story about the California Treasurer's action today.)
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Re: Re: House Financial Services Committee Hearing: Sep 29
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Calls for Stumpf resignation [was Re: Re: Re: House Financial Services Committee Hearing: Sep 29]
These demands for Mr Stumpf's resignation from representatives follow last week's fierce cry by Senator Warren in the earlier Senate committee hearing, captured in the Washington Post headline ten days ago: “ ‘You should resign': Elizabeth Warren excoriates Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf” (Sep 20, 2016).
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Re: Calls for Stumpf resignation [was Re: Re: Re: House Financial Services Committee Hearing: Sep 29]
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Re: Calls for Stumpf resignation [was Re: Re: Re: House Financial Services Committee Hearing: Sep 29]
It is a story about California's 11th district congressman Mark DeSaulnier, which appears in the Richmond Standard. The story is headlined, “Rep. DeSaulnier cancels Wells Fargo account, calls for CEO’s resignation” (Sep 30, 2016), and it begins: A few paragraphs later, it goes on: The story embeds a full jpeg image of Rep. DeSaulnier's Sep 30, 2016 letter to Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf.
Now, it turns out that a story published almost two weeks ago, September 23, appearing in the San Francisco Chronicle, “Politicians vow to return campaign cash to Wells Fargo” by Carolyn Lochhead, had earlier reported: Well. That's one way to call for Mr Stumpf's resignation. But it takes that long to chop up a credit card? Yes, besides that act, the congressman also had to take time to write a letter… and perhaps place his story somewhere.
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Spin season [was Re: Re: Calls for Stumpf resignation][was Re: Re: Re: House Financial Services Committee Hearing: Sep 29]
“Lawmakers angry about Wells Fargo want to put down the watchdog”, by Ethan Wolff-Mann, Yahoo Finance, Sep 30, 2016 Stories discussing the partisan divide over the CFPB in connection with this enforcement action against Wells Fargo have appeared here and there in the media ever since the first news of the agency's record-breaking fine.
This Yahoo Finance story, though, goes on to say: Notice, that in a web article filled with hyperlinks, that Yahoo Finance story does not seem to link to the Consumerist article.
A look through the coverage leads me to suspect that the Yahoo Finance story was referring to this article: “Lawmakers Who Received Money From Wells Fargo Now Want Answers From Bank’s CEO”, by Ashlee Kieler and Chris Morran, Consumerist, Sep 29, 2016.
That story does contain this paragraph: Note that the embedded OpenSecrets.org hyperlink works for me in preview, and hopefully, after submit, will faithfully reproduce what's on the Consumerist page.
The ‘Allied Progress’ hyperlink also attempts to faithfully reproduce what I'm seeing. But it's a non-functional hyperlink. Examining the source from the Consumerist page: That does most probably look like something getting mangled during editing.
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Re: Spin season [was Re: Re: Calls for Stumpf resignation][was Re: Re: Re: House Financial Services Committee Hearing: Sep 29]
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Re: Re: Spin season [was Re: Re: Calls for Stumpf resignation][was Re: Re: Re: House Financial Services Committee Hearing: Sep 29]
Hmmm… now looking at the C-SPAN closed captioning (marked 00:58:29 and 00:59:29), and replaying the webcast—
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Re: Re: Re: Spin season [was Re: Re: Calls for Stumpf resignation][was Re: Re: Re: House Financial Services Committee Hearing: Sep 29]
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Balance [was Re: Re: Calls for Stumpf resignation][was Re: Re: Re: House Financial Services Committee Hearing: Sep 29]
But I haven't posted about this until now.
“Wells Fargo scandal affected 'thousands' of small businesses, senator says”, by Riley McDermid, San Francisco Business Times, Oct 5, 2016 The Sep 29, 2016 letter from Senator Vitter is addressed to Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf.
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State-by-state numbers [was Re: Re: Re: House Financial Services Committee Hearing: Sep 29]
When I saw this headline, and started to read this article, at first I thought that the Charlotte Observer had obtained the North and South Carolina numbers from the hearing testimony. Of course, recent stories from other media outlets elsewhere have reported numbers that were testified to for other states.
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Re: State-by-state numbers [was Re: Re: Re: House Financial Services Committee Hearing: Sep 29]
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Stumpf pay cut; Tolstedt out
“Independent Directors of Wells Fargo Conducting Investigation of Retail Banking Sales Practices and Related Matters”, Wells Fargo press release, Sep 27, 2016
Various stories at New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today… what, maybe you were thinking I should link to stories in the financial press?
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Department of Labor Review [was Re: Stumpf pay cut; Tolstedt out]
The Sep 26, 2016 letter to Sen Warren from Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez begins:
“Warren Commends Labor Department's Decision to Review Potential Labor Violations by Wells Fargo”, Senator Warren press release, Sep 27, 2016 That embedded link points to Sep 22, 2016 Sen Warren press release, which contains a further link to Sep 22, 2016 letter to Secretary Perez and Administrator David Weil from Senators Warren, Brown, Reed, Menendez, Sanders, Merkley, Gillibrand, and Hirono.
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Re: Stumpf pay cut; Tolstedt out
(*) Actually, I do suspect Bloomberg just thinko'd here on the day of the week. That happens a bit to me too, often enough.
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Re: Stumpf pay cut; Tolstedt out
“Wells Fargo CEO’s $41 million ranks only third among executive-pay clawbacks, forfeitures”, by Francine McKenna, MarketWatch, Sep 29, 2016 Former Wells Fargo Community Banking head Carrie Tolstedt's $19 million forfeiture is fifth on the article's graphic captioned, “Top 5 forfeitures”.
(Via WSJ MoneyBeat blog / John Carney.)
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Re: Stumpf pay cut; Tolstedt out
The WSJ's “quarter of the total compensation” statistic for Mr Stumpf's forfeiture has been paraphrased a fair number of times recently.
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Re: Re: Stumpf pay cut; Tolstedt out
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Equilar calculations [was Re: Re: Stumpf pay cut; Tolstedt out]
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Re: Equilar calculations [was Re: Re: Stumpf pay cut; Tolstedt out]
For that characterization, they link to yesterday's Fortune story by Lucinda Shen, “Here's How Much Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf Is Getting to Leave the Bank” (Oct 13, 2016). “More than $130 million”, the LA Times editors write.
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California Suspension
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Re: California Suspension
Sep 28, 2016 letter to Wells Fargo from California State Treasurer John Chiang:
(H/T “California Imposes Sweeping Sanctions On Wells Fargo Amid Scandal”, by Merrit Kennedy, NPR, Sep 28, 2016.)
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Oregon [was Re: California Suspension]
Earlier today, I read about some rumblings out of Florida. At the time I first saw that, it didn't seem comment-worthy here by itself.
The Nevada State Treasurer seems disinclined to follow California's lead.
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Maryland [was Re: Oregon ][was Re: California Suspension]
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Chicago [was Re: Maryland][was Re: Oregon ][was Re: California Suspension]
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Re: Chicago [was Re: Maryland][was Re: Oregon ][was Re: California Suspension]
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Re: Re: Chicago [was Re: Maryland][was Re: Oregon ][was Re: California Suspension]
I'm not seeing this e-mail, or any similar announcement on the Chicago Treasurer's website.
(And I know I did type that word, when I first composed that sentence. Where did it go?)
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Re: Chicago [was Re: Maryland][was Re: Oregon ][was Re: California Suspension]
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Re: Re: Chicago [was Re: Maryland][was Re: Oregon ][was Re: California Suspension]
• “Wells Fargo Media Statement Regarding Chicago City Council Ordinance”, Business Wire, Oct 5, 2016 (1:10pm EDT [10:10am PDT]).
( Techdirt comments are time-stamped PDT, at least as I've always seen them. I'm in that timezone now, but I don't recall seeing geolocation-based timestamping here at Techdirt when I've been in other timezones. )
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Re: Re: Re: Chicago [was Re: Maryland][was Re: Oregon ][was Re: California Suspension]
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Illinois [was Re: Maryland][was Re: Oregon ][was Re: California Suspension]
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Re: Illinois [was Re: Maryland][was Re: Oregon ][was Re: California Suspension]
( Additionally, just to clarify the record here, this morning as I'm looking at the “News“ sidebar tab on the state treasurer's website, I'm now seeing the Sep 30, 2016 Media Advisory. )
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Re: Re: Illinois [was Re: Maryland][was Re: Oregon ][was Re: California Suspension]
Somewhat incidentally, that page has been updated with a new entry since I first saw it this morning. Pulling the description from the first column of the table, this new entry looks somewhat interesting in its own right— Pulling the vertically-stacked links out of the second column—
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Re: Re: Illinois [was Re: Maryland][was Re: Oregon ][was Re: California Suspension]
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Re: Re: Illinois [was Re: Maryland][was Re: Oregon ][was Re: California Suspension]
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Re: Re: Re: Illinois [was Re: Maryland][was Re: Oregon ][was Re: California Suspension]
“Illinois treasurer expects others to cut ties with Wells Fargo”, by Antonio José Vielma, CNBC, Oct 4, 2016 “Tuesday.”
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Illinois [was Re: Maryland][was Re: Oregon ][was Re: California Suspension]
A video clip (2:14) from today's Closing Bell is available at MSN, “Wells Fargo: Lost revenue from Illinois $50,000 per year” (Oct 4, 2016) (Alternatively available from Yahoo Finance.)
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Re: Maryland [was Re: Oregon ][was Re: California Suspension]
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Connecticut [was Re: California Suspension]
Additionally, yesterday's CT Mirror story ends with the line:
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Seattle [was Re: California Suspension]
“Seattle cuts ties with Wells Fargo after fake account scandal”, KOMO News, Oct 7, 2016 That's followed by a copy of a @komonews tweet, which simply contains an image of the letter's text without ‘to’ or ‘from’ info visible.
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Re: Seattle [was Re: California Suspension]
But this report from another Seattle TV station, KIRO, headlined “City of Seattle: ‘We cannot work with Wells Fargo' as a lender” (Oct 7, 2016) says: And beneath that follows six paragraphs of text. By eyeball, the first four paragraphs appear identical to the text now seen in the KOMO News story. But then there are two additional paragraphs to the letter in the KIRO 7 News story
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Re: Re: Seattle [was Re: California Suspension]
• Oct 6, 2016 letter to Wells Fargo executives, Perry Pelos, Shelley Rintala, and Brennan Church, from Seattle Mayor Edward B. Murray, Seattle City Council President Bruce Harrell and Seattle City Council Finance and Budget Committeee Chair Tim Burgess.
Via “Seattle drops Wells Fargo from bond deal to protest bank fraud”, by Daniel Beekman, Seattle Times, Oct 7, 2016.
Down here in the archives, there's really no hurry. I regret not waiting for this Seattle Times article before punching “submit” with the earlier KOMO News story. After I did post that one, though, I wanted to get a correction out based on the KIRO 7 News info relatively quickly. On the plus side, I did manage to filter out some of the other reports—ones that didn't provide a copy of the letter at all.
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Exec position changes [was Re: Re: Re: Seattle][was Re: California Suspension]
Yesterday, Wells Fargo announced a reshuffling of its top executives, including Perry Pelos.
I'm getting that “reshuffling” characterization from the New York Times headline and story, “Wells Fargo Reshuffles Top Ranks, Rallying Around Its No. 2” (Oct 10, 2016). In that story, Stacy Cowley writes: An American Banker story yesterday by Kate Berry, “Wells Fargo Shakes Up Management, Creates Digital Payments Division (Oct 10, 2016), quoted Wells Fargo President and Chief Operating Officer Tim Sloan directly: Despite that disavowal, I thought it was worth noting that when the Oct 6, 2016 letter from the Seattle mayor and councilmembers was addressed to Wells Fargo Executive Vice President Perry Pelos, he was “the head of Commercial Banking Services”. Now he's not.
From the Wells Fargo press release (Oct 10, 2016): Guess this is kind of a long post to support a short phrase in a sentence, along the lines of, ‘The Oct 6, 2016 letter was addressed to, among others, Perry Pelos, who at that time was Wells Fargo's head of Commercial Banking.’
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Re: Exec position changes [was Re: Re: Re: Seattle][was Re: California Suspension]
(Non-paywalled version of WSJ story at embedded hyperlink: “Wells Fargo Shuffles Some Top Banking Executives -- Update”, by Emily Glazer, Nasdaq.com headlines (Dow Jones Business News), Oct 11, 2016.)
(Indirectly via an older version: “Wells Fargo Strips CEO John Stumpf of Direct Control Over Most Operations”, by John Maxfield, Nasdaq.com headlines (Motley Fool), Oct 11, 2016. The version at Motley Fool differs, and has an editor's note appended.)
In what I've been linking to, I've mostly been filtering out the commentary and analysis that I've seen in the media regarding the present Wells Fargo situation. Partially, that's out of habit. The Techdirt commentariat usually provides enough opinion that the constant struggle is to keep that opinion well-informed and fact-grounded. But down here in the archives… Anyhow, especially after seeing the editor's note appended to the updated Motley Fool piece, perhaps I really should've just filtered this out, too.
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Re: Re: Seattle [was Re: California Suspension]
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Re: Re: Re: Seattle [was Re: California Suspension]
Pretty much incidentally, looking at the timestamps, this press release appears to have gone out after the Q13 Fox report.
If I was doing this series of posts over again… boiling them down into one nice, simple post, linking to what in my judgment are the best sources, in order to accurately and concisely memorialize one discrete event in this much larger saga… well, I could have done a lot better than the almost half-dozen posts I've wound up with here.
That's not to say I'm unhappy with posting a link to the Q13 Fox report. Rather, not only does that story begin with a quick intro to the letter and response, it also has clean plaintext for the letter. But, I'd annotate it with the PDF from the Seattle Times, and also a link to the Wells Fargo press release.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Seattle [was Re: California Suspension]
“Seattle blows off Wells Fargo on $100 million City Light bond financing, by Joel Connelly, Seattle PI, Oct 7, 2016 “Seattle cuts lending deal with Wells Fargo, but keeps company as official bank amidst scandal”, by Danielle Leigh, KING, Oct 7, 2016
The points here are that local political pressure to take action came from outside the Seattle City Council, and that the letter represents a limited action by the city.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Seattle [was Re: California Suspension]
The parent post inadvertently linked twice to the Seattle PI story. Sorry. I really thought I had checked both links in that post on preview.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Seattle [was Re: California Suspension]
“Entrepreneur, labor leader want city to stop doing business with Wells Fargo”, by Joel Connelly, Seattle PI, Sep 30, 2016. Compare that line eight days ago with this from yesterday's story:
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Bait? [was Re: California Suspension]
Unsurprisingly, this story's quotation of the Wells Fargo CFO, “We probably won't broadcast that because…”, is generating some attention elsewhere in the media.
Fortune has a story by Stephen Gandel (Reuters), headlined, “Wells Fargo's CFO Told Bank Execs That Scandal Not a Problem for Bank's Bottom Line”, subheadlined, “But warns not to publicize as that could attract more bad PR” (Oct 11, 2016). This story ledes with a link to the WSJ story.
A Business Insider story by Bob Bryan, is headlined “Wells Fargo doesn't want you to know that its scandal really hasn’t hurt the bank” (Oct 11, 2016). It doesn't get around to linking to the WSJ story until ¶¶ 3, 4, 5, then skips until links in ¶¶ 7 – 8.
( Occasionally, I'm not at all displeased that <a> tags in Techdirt comments get the ref="nofollow" attribute automagically. )
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Re: Bait? [was Re: California Suspension]
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Re: Re: Bait? [was Re: California Suspension]
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Re: Re: Re: Bait? [was Re: California Suspension]
first the Business Insider story, and the WSJ story only third. Iow, it's ranking the Business Insider story ahead of what that story's webpage links to with six <a> tags.
Google does mark the WSJ story as “Highly Cited”.
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Re: Bait? [was Re: California Suspension]
The Fortune story appears to share its first four paragraphs with the story by Sruthi Shankar and Nikhil Subba, at Reuters, “Wells Fargo CFO says accounts scandal won't hit profit much: WSJ” (Oct 11, 2016, “10:10am EDT”). The Fortune story, marked “11:04 AM EDT”, then differs beginning with the sixth paragraph.
( Btw, Huffington post also picked up that Reuters story, crediting it to Sruthi Shankar and Nikhil Subba, “Wells Fargo Doesn’t Want You To Know Its Scandal Isn’t Hurting Profits” (Oct 11, 2016, “10:58 am ET”), and subheadlined it, “This “might incentivize people to do more, to make it tougher on Wells Fargo.’ ”. )
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Re: Re: Bait? [was Re: California Suspension]
s/sixth/fifth/
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Sacramento [was Re: California Suspension]
“Sacramento cutting ties with Wells Fargo after fraudulent account scandal”, by Anita Chabria, Sacramento Bee, Oct 11, 2016 One way or another, this'll need a followup later..
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Re: Sacramento [was Re: California Suspension]
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Santa Cruz County [was Re: California Suspension]
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Ohio [was Re: California Suspension]
(H/T “Ohio to suspend doing business with Wells Fargo”, by Ken Sweet, AP, Oct 14, 2016.)
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Re: Ohio [was Re: California Suspension]
(Via “Wells Fargo Says Customers Shied Away After Scandal”, by Michael Corkery, New York Times, Oct 14, 2016.)
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Re: Ohio [was Re: California Suspension]
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Massachusetts [was Re: California Suspension]
Some hours ago today, though, I was alerted to: “Lynch Leads Letter Calling for Massachusetts to End Business Dealings with Wells Fargo”, Rep Stephen Lynch press release, Oct 17, 2016.
• Oct 17, 2016 letter to Massachusetts Treasurer Deborah Goldberg from Representatives Lynch (MA-8), McGovern (MA-2), Capuano (MA-7), and Clark (MA-5).
( A report from earlier today, which first alerted me to the letter from the Masschusetts U.S. representatives to the state's treasurer, has also now been updated: “Massachusetts should end any business arrangements with Wells Fargo, Congressmen James McGovern and Stephen Lynch say”, by Gintautas Dumcius, MassLive, Oct 17, 2016. That report (now marked as updated “at 6:01 PM”), has a note appended: Earlier, I had been holding off on posting about this. )
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Arbitration
Yesterday, in their LA Times coverage of Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf's appearance before the House Financial Services Committee, reporters James Rufus Koren and Jim Puzzanghera noted California (30th district) congressman Brad Sherman's questions about this issue. (“Wells Fargo CEO says he won't waive requirement that customers use arbitration instead of lawsuit”, Sep 29, 2016)
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Re: Arbitration
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Re: Arbitration
(Embedded hyperlink copyed below.)
• Sep 23, 2016 letter to Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf from Senators Leahy, Brown, Durbin, Franken, Blumenthal and Warren. And just tying this a little more into Representative Sherman's question yesterday, the six senators go on in page 3 of that letter from a couple weeks ago, asking the Wells Fargo CEO:
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Re: Re: Arbitration
( Incidentally, this press release appears to be the intended target of a mangled hyperlink inside today's Francine McKenna piece at MarketWatch, “Here’s what Wells Fargo may disclose in its coming earnings and SEC filings” (Oct 12, 2016) (Non-functional embedded hyperlink!)
I had considered attaching this MarketWatch piece to the Re: Disclosure [was Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A little context please] subthread. )
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September Summary
Today, Matt Egan and Pallavi Gogoi roundup CNN Money's reporting on “Wells Fargo's September from hell” (Oct 1, 2016) Yeah, that hyperlink in there points back to that same Sep 9, 2016 story.
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Clinton on Wells Fargo, CFPB, arbitration
Thus, on the one hand, I've been posting links to specific items that I myself might want to find later on — to establish a fact, support a point — to recall particular details. In selecting material in pursuit of that goal, my filtering of the news coverage may yield a rather odd view. That's just… what you get.
Yet, on the other hand, I do want to at least partially sketch out some of the major developments in this story as it unfolds. It's that latter consideration, mostly, that leads me to conclude that this next item does belong here in the archives, chronicling today's events in this story…
“Read Hillary Clinton’s Remarks From a Rally in Toledo, Ohio”, Time, Oct 3, 2016 (Transcript intro credited to Daniel White.)
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Re: Clinton on Wells Fargo, CFPB, arbitration
In his CLPB post, Sovern also points to some of the other media coverage surrounding Clinton's speech, including a Reuters story by Amanda Becker. Although this is not mentioned in the CLPB post, I myself noted that this Reuters story was picked up by Fortune, under the headline “Hillary Clinton Promises to Hold Wells Fargo Accountable”, and for some time yesterday evening was front page Google News.
One bit of news worth highlighting, from the wire-service report:
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Sen Brown to introduce a bill [was Re: Re: Clinton on Wells Fargo, CFPB, arbitration]
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Re: Clinton on Wells Fargo, CFPB, arbitration
Without performing a detailed comparison, the Time transcript has obvious differences from the campaign's transcript. The Time transcript contains lines such as:
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Re: Re: Clinton on Wells Fargo, CFPB, arbitration
(“Hillary Clinton blasts Trump, talks economics in Toledo stop”, by Tom Troy and Vanessa McCray, Toledo Blade, Oct 3, 2016).
(Toledo Blade link via “Clinton Slams Wells Fargo Over Fake Accounts”, by Hannah Levintova, MotherJones, Oct 4, 2016).
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Clawback Rules
“Democrats call for criminal probe into senior Wells Fargo executives”, by Steve Goldstein, MarketWatch, Oct 5, 2016 • October 5, 2016 letter to Federal Reserve Chair Yellen, OCC Comptroller Curry, FDIC Chair Gruenberg, NCUA Chairman Metsger, FHFA Director Watt and SEC Chair White; from Representatives Waters, Velázquez, Sherman, Meeks, Capuano, Hinojosa, Green, Moore, Ellison, Kildee and Foster.
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Hurricanes
Where the big weather satellite image features now — yesterday evening the Charlotte Observer's front page [archived] featured the now-familiar face of Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf.
The headline underneath that featured photo was, “For Wells Fargo, complaints in a new area: its brokerage business”. It links to an Oct 5, 2016 story by Deon Roberts, which is 38 paragraphs long. In the 31st paragraph of that story, underneath a sub-head— When I snapshotted the Charlotte Observer's front page today for that first link in this comment —about an hour ago now— the Wells Fargo story was still in a very prominent position: the next row of stories down from the big picture and its accompanying headline. It was in the place where yesterday evening, the story was, “Haley confirms Lowcountry evacuation due to Hurricane Matthew”.
Checking the Charlotte Observer's front page again, just now, the Wells Fargo “bank watch” story has moved down into the second row, immediately underneath another, more recent “banking” story —completely different— about another bank.
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Re: Hurricanes
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Re: Re: Hurricanes
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Re: Re: Re: Hurricanes
Today, a New York Times “DealB%k” story by Michael Corkery, “After Congressional Grilling, Wells Fargo Is Berated in Newspaper Ads” (Oct 6, 2016), following discussion of the ad in the NYT and other papers in ¶¶ 3 – 5, then begins ¶¶ 11 – 12 with:
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Re: Re: Re: Hurricanes
(Via Fortune / Ian Mount.)
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Re: Re: Re: Hurricanes
“Local investor runs national ads against Wells Fargo after $34.8 million trade went wrong”, by Abbie Maynard, KXII, Oct 6, 2016 Somewhat curiously, this report does not mention the San Francisco Chronicle or Charlotte Observer ads on Thursday.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Hurricanes
Anyhow, I don't think I'll continue to relay any more reports of other numbers heard verbally. The essential point, I guess, is that the original $250,000 amount heard from his attorney in the Oct 5 Dallas Morning News story should probably not be relied on. And I think that point's now made.
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Re: Hurricanes
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Re: Re: Hurricanes
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Re: Hurricanes
Anyhow, it's now a 40 paragraph long article. It currently ends with statement by Wells Fargo in response to Lacy Harber's ad, somewhat similar to the response seen in the NYT story.
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Re: Re: Hurricanes
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Re: Re: Re: Hurricanes
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Who or what is NYCC?
My eye was caught by a somewhat contextless item which turned up yesterday at the Chicago Tribune: “Wells Fargo protest” (Oct 6, 2016) The photo shows not more than a dozen people holding up cardboard signs, while standing outside a grey building. Over the heads, and signs of the people, up on the grey wall of the building, there's a bronze nameplate, “Wells Fargo” in raised letters. The demonstrators' white cardboard signs have blue borders, and orange lettering, “NYCC”.
Who or what is NYCC?
Google informs me —top result for “NYCC”— that the New York Comic Con is being held October 6-9, 2016.
But, a photo from a tweet by The Japan Times, shows someone holding up a similar cardboard sign, blue borders, white background, and orange letters “NYCC”. The single individual in that photo is wearing an orange T-shirt, with readable white and blue lettering.
“New York Communities for Change (NYCC)”.
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Re: Who or what is NYCC?
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PHH v CFPB
This appellate court decision doesn't seem to have any immediate impact on the Wells Fargo scandal. As Alexis Wheeler at Jurist's Paper Chase explains in todays article, “Federal appeals court rules structure of consumer protection agency unconstitutional” (Oct 12, 2016)—— Yet, at the same time, this court decision against the agency which last month assessed a $100 million penalty against Wells Fargo is relevant to the politics surrounding the scandal.
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Stumpf out
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Re: Stumpf out
As the top Google news search result for “wells fargo”, I've seen—
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Re: Re: Stumpf out
Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, I was not first alerted to the news via Google. Rather, as it happened, I first saw— Note that this very early version is much shorter than the now-updated WSJ story. (A longer, non-paywalled version of the updated story is: “Wells Fargo CEO Stumpf Steps Down -- 3rd Update”, by Emily Glazer, Nasdaq.com headlines (Dow Jones Business News), Oct 12, 2016, “08:00:00 PM EDT” [5:00pm PDT]. It would be typical for this version to omit the WSJ version's ¶ 3.)
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Fading from the headlines [was Re: Re: Stumpf out]
Something that's too easy to forget, in the present, is how much the past is an alien country. The contextual environment, so wide and common that it's not often noted, weaves a background essential for understanding.
Even yesterday evening, former Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf's departure had already been pushed out as the leading news in the “Top Stories” section on the front page of Google News (“U.S. edition”). It was pushed to the second story down by other news.
Today —just the next day— Google News front page (“U.S. edition”) [archived] has a Washington Post headline, “Trump calls claims of women ‘vicious’ and ‘absolutely false’ ” [archived], in the top spot. Past expanded coverage linking to other media and “related” news searches for that top story, the second story down position is taken by a New York Times headline (for an AP story), “How Does It Feel? Bob Dylan Wins the Nobel in Literature” [archived].
Still front page Google News (“U.S. edition”), but down in the “Business »” section of that front page, the second headline there is from the Wall Street Journal, “Wells Fargo’s Textbook Case of Botched Crisis Management” [archived]. (That headline links to an Oct 13, 2016 story by Emily Glazer.)
From that archived Google News (“U.S. edition”) front page, clicking on “Business »” at the top of that section, right now goes indirectly to a snapshot archived about ten minutes after I snapshotted the front page. (Due to the indirection, the archived front page may or may not continue to link to that specific snapshot of the business page.)
Right after I snapshotted the Google News front page, the business page still had the WSJ headline in the central column. But ten minutes after that front page snapshot, in the business page snapshot, the only sign of the “Wells Fargo” media coverage is over in the left side column.
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Re: Fading from the headlines [was Re: Re: Stumpf out]
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Re: Stumpf out
The Business Wire copy of this Wells Fargo press release is datestamped “October 12, 2016 05:04 PM Eastern Daylight Time” [2:04pm PDT].
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Reactions [was Re: Stumpf out]
Some of the writeups:
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Re: Reactions [was Re: Stumpf out]
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Tim Sloan
“CNBC Exclusive: CNBC Transcript: New Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan Speaks with CNBC's Wilfred Frost on "Fast Money" Tonight”, CNBC, Oct 12, 2016. The urls for videos in the introduction to that transcript appear to be more-or-less messed up. It looks to me like the correct links should be—
• “Sloan: Stumpf felt retirement was right for the company” (Interview part 1, 3:47 video)
• “Sloan: Disappointed hearings turned into speeches” (Interview part 2, 5:45 video) Additionally, the first of those two videos seems to omit the the first speaker in the transcript, Melissa Lee. Instead, that first video begins, after the ad, with Wilfred Frost saying, “We are joined by Tim Sloan, the new CEO. . . .”
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Re: Tim Sloan
“Congresswoman Waters Applauds Retirement of Wells Fargo Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John G. Stumpf”, U.S. House Committee on Financial Services Democrats press release, Oct 12, 2016 (Bolded in source.)
For example, a sentence from this statement by Rep Waters is quoted today in the New York Times (“Shake-Up at Wells Fargo Fails to Dispel Skepticism From Regulators”, by Michael Corkery and Stacy Cowley, Oct 13, 2016).
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Re: Tim Sloan
(Mostly incidentally, Cory Doctorow at BoingBoing picked this up via Chris Morran at Consumerist, who links back to Fortune. IIRC, I saw Fortune before I saw BoingBoing today.)
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Re: Tim Sloan
( Incidentally, I have two posts waiting in the automod queue here at Techdirt right now. If they weren't waiting in the queue, then I'd thread this under one of those. )
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[was Re: Re: T□□ S□□□□ {redacted}]
Following up on this a little bit, today the Seattle Times carries a version of Michael Corkery and Stacy Cowley's New York Times article with the headline, “Shake-up at Wells Fargo fails to dispel skepticism” (Oct 15, 2016). Today's Seattle Times version drops the last eight paragraphs that I see in the most recent online NYT version, and has some other minor differences. But, like all other versions I've seen, that version's ¶ 4 quotes from California Representative Maxine Waters' statement.
I had mentioned in my post linking to Rep Waters' press release, that I had seen her statement —well, I implied this— in a number of places in “recent media coverage.” The front page Google News NYT article was an example of that “recent media coverage.”
Another example of media quoting from Rep Waters' statement is Peter Schroeder's Oct 12, 2016 article in The Hill, “Wells Fargo CEO to retire immediately after accounts scandal”. I recall that article, because that was what prompted to look for Rep Waters' press release. But, without searching for other examples now, I also recall seeing her statements from that press release quoted elsewhere.
In contrast, the Washington Post's Jonnelle Marte, in her Oct 13, 2016 article, “What we know about Tim Sloan, the new CEO of Wells Fargo”, does not quote the press release from the ranking member of the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, California's (43rd district) representative, Ms Waters. Instead, this WaPo article quotes another minority-party member of the committee, New York's (5th district) Representative Gregory Meeks. I looked for Rep Meeks' full statement, and it sure looks to me like the WaPo is quoting from Rep Meeks' Facebook page (Oct 12, 2016, “at 4:28pm”). So, Rep Waters' statement was quoted not just in the NYT article that had been front page Google News yesterday, and today is reprinted in the Seattle Times. Her statement was also spread widely enough elsewhere in the media that I noted it. — Last Thursday's WaPo article is the only place I recall seeing Rep Meeks' statement quoted.
Finally, in further contrast, the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives' Small Business Committee, Ohio's (1st district) congressman, Steve Chabot, had some commentary Oct 13, 2016, at CNBC: “Wells Fargo CEO's resignation is not enough”. While the CNBC website may or may not be a more prominent platform than Facebook, I haven't seen Rep Chabot's comments quoted anywhere else in the media.
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Ad and letter campaign
This morning, for the first time, I saw an online ad [archived] from this Wells Fargo campaign. It happened to be alongside a MarketWatch opinion by Tim Mullaney. That was at least partially coincidental. The ads in the right column of that MarketWatch webpage change on reload.
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Re: Ad and letter campaign
Going back to the Advertising Age article again, one paragraph in particular—well, just read it: I'm recalling Rep Denny Heck's comment at the House Financial Services Committee hearing on Sep 29th. Addressing the witness, Rep Heck said, “I personally don’t see how you survive.”
And, somewhat naturally, that leads me to also recall the remarks to the witness by the congressman from Massachusetts (8th district), Rep Mike Capuano.
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Re: Re: Ad and letter campaign
Wikipedia (omitting embedded link): “He represented the state's 8th district until it was redrawn in 2013 into the 7th district.”
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Re: Re: Re: Ad and letter campaign
Here at Techdirt, I think most of us are familiar with Ken White's blog. Now, as the correction above absolutely shows, I myself do make mistakes from time-to-time…
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Techdirt Comment Format Changes
From beneath the comment box here today: "• NEW: Basic formatting of comments (e.g., bold, italic, blockquote) can now be done using markdown. Direct HTML formatting is no longer supported."
Along with that change, all the blockquoted text in my previous comments has today changed to appear italicized. Formerly, most of that text (except where I had explicity used italic tags) had appeared upright.
Archived copy of this Techdirt article and comment thread, from three days ago: http://archive.is/xeu2K
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