We'll get to that commercial in a moment, but first, every few months we see reports of some wrong doing at Wells Fargo. Here's the latest -- Wells Fargo Said to Face DOJ Probe of Wholesale-Banking Unit. This excerpt sums up the recent and current scandals:
Wells Fargo & Co. is facing a Department of Justice investigation into whether employees in the company’s wholesale-banking business improperly altered customer data, a person familiar with the matter said. ...
The problems began erupting in 2016, when regulators said the bank had opened millions of accounts without customers’ permission, leading to a public outcry and spurring additional scrutiny. Incorrect fees in the firm’s wealth-management unit and inconsistent pricing in the foreign-exchange business came next.
Last month, the bank disclosed another round of lapses, saying it faces a U.S. inquiry into its purchase of low-income housing credits and conceding it may have unnecessarily foreclosed on about 400 homeowners.
I've got an account at Wells Fargo, and other than charging a fee to get copies of the checks I write, I haven't discovered any other reason to complain. I should however, recount my experience with a dishonest Wells Fargo banker.
It happened a few years ago when I tried to redeem an inherited HH savings bond. Anyone who has redeemed one of those knows that the procedure is slightly complicated by the requirement that the bond owner's signature has to be verified with a green medallion seal which some bankers are qualified to provide.
So I asked a Wells Fargo banker to please do that, and she insisted that it was unnecessary. Any teller could notarize the signature, thus verifying it, I was told. Either the banker did not read the instructions on the back of the bond, she didn't comprehend the instructions, or she was lying. I asked if she was qualified to use the green medallion, and she said "no." Please proceed to a teller.
So I got in line to talk with a teller. The teller dutifully notarized my signature, but then she read it and understood that it required a green medallion seal which she wasn't qualified to have. I asked who there could do it, and she directed me to the banker with whom I had just talked. Turns out that banker was the only one present at time who did posses and could use the green medallion seal.
Whoa, that was the same banker who had just told me she didn't have and wasn't qualified to use the green medallion. So she clearly lied about that. However, she eventually applied the proper seal over the notary public seal. It looked awful, but I mailed it in anyway, and the government accepted it and redeemed the bond.
Anyway, this was a no-loss type of foul, and there was really nothing I wanted to do about it. The banker was motivated by laziness rather than a desire to steal.
But I've avoided dealing with Wells Fargo bankers since then. And the idea of an investment through them brings to mind the commercial in which the voice-over tells us about Wells Fargo hiding the gold in another box while handing over a box filled with rocks to the stage coach robbers. Made for a nice story, but today it's the customers, not the robbers, who have to be on alert for the box full of rocks.
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1:39 PM 9/8/2018
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