Thread: Wells Fargo CEO ‘Should Be Fired For This Horror Show’

BUSINESS
Wells Fargo CEO ‘Should Be Fired For This Horror Show’

ROBERT DONACHIE
Finance Reporter
4:25 PM 09/09/2016

One of the big four banks issued hundreds of thousands of fraudulent credit cards and opened more than a million bank accounts without customer consent, according to recent reports.

Prominent individuals in the financial services industry are coming forward to condemn the mass theft underway by historically trusted agents. “Wells Fargo has been a trusted brand since the west was won,” Eric Schiffer, finance expert and CEO of The Patriarch Organization, tells the Daily Caller News Foundation. The leadership of John Stumpf, CEO of Wells Fargo, “led to bullet holes piercing the brand like a suicidal west gunslinger taking action,” Schiffer tells TheDCNF. Under Stumpf’s leadership, the company has been nothing but “shakedown artists,” Schiffer added.

Schiffer thinks the scandal “has decimated trust with hundreds of thousands of customers, many of which have dumped Fargo. And I think that the CEO Stumpf should be fired for this horror show.”

The scandal makes Wells Fargo into an “emblem of economic evil,” says Schiffer, at a time when the American people don’t trust leadership in most facets of society. This “disgusting” fraud by Wells Fargo under Stumpf’s leadership is just “one more choice by a person in charge that hurts the trust of the public,” Schiffer tells TheDCNF.

Wells Fargo says it fired 5,300 employees over the last few years as a result of unearthing these fraudulent practices, reports CNN Money.Blaming employees for this scandal is “the biggest lie in the history of banking in the last several years,” Schiffer tells TheDCNF, adding that, to insinuate employee fault is “as fraudulent as their activity.”

The only option is “owning it at the top, not making fools of the American people,” Schiffer says, strongly contending that we “will see the leadership change in the next six months to a year.”

For the customers effected by the fraudulent accounts, Schiffer has full faith that Wells Fargo will “make good on anything that was lacking in integrity. And that will help the brand to rebuild.”

(RELATED: Wells Fargo Just Got Hit With The Biggest Fine In CFPB History)

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/09/09/we...#ixzz4JrMtcvg6

Wells Fargo CEO forfeits $41M
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BREAKING NEWS
John Stumpf won't be paid during bogus accounts probe

• Stocks hit 2½-year low
• Fired employees fight back with lawsuit

Wells Fargo CEO forfeits $41 million as company launches probe

by Matt Egan and Jackie Wattles @CNNMoneyInvestSeptember 27, 2016: 9:16 PM ET

izabeth Warren: Wells Fargo CEO should

Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf will forfeit much of his 2016 salary -- including his bonus and $41 million in stock awards -- as the bank launches a probe into its phony accounts scandal.

The fallout from the controversy has also resulted in its first major executive departure. Carrie Tolstedt, who headed the division that created the fake accounts, has left the company ahead of her scheduled retirement at year end.

Wells Fargo, under pressure from lawmakers and shareholders to take action, said Tolstedt will not receive a bonus or severance, and that she'll forfeit all of her $19 million worth of unvested stock awards. Wells Fargo also said Tolstedt has agreed not to exercise some $34 million in stock options during the investigation.

However, Tolstedt could still be walking away with a fortune despite running the retail bank during the entire time the unauthorized accounts were opened.

Tolstedt owns roughly $43.3 million in stock outright that she accumulated during her career with the bank, according to a letter Wells Fargo sent to Senator Elizabeth Warren. That means if she is allowed to keep her stock options, Tolstedt could leave Wells Fargo with stocks and options valued today at roughly $77 million.

Related: Fired Wells Fargo workers fight back with lawsuit

Wells Fargo's board of directors also said Tuesday that it's launching an independent investigation into the company's sales practice. The new probe comes as employees told CNNMoney that the practice of opening fake accounts began years earlier than Wells Fargo has previously acknowledged.

During the company's investigation, Stumpf will work for free.
Stephen Sanger, the board's lead independent director, said the executives could face further penalties, depending on the results of the investigation.

He said in a statement that the board may claw back additional compensation or take "other employment-related actions." It's not clear if that could include forcing out Stumpf, who Warren and others have demanded should resign.

If they're cleared of wrongdoing, both Stumpf and Tolstedt may end up taking home some of their hefty pay packages.

The decision to "claw back" Stumpf's and Tolstedt's compensation comes just before Thursday's big Wells Fargo (WFC) hearing in front of the House Financial Services Committee and amid a string of embarrassing headlines about the opening of unauthorized accounts.

Wells Fargo paid Stumpf $19.3 million in total compensation for 2015, in part as a reward for the bank's growing number of accounts. Millions of those accounts, as it's been since revealed, were fake. An intense focus from top management on adding new accounts, former employees say, led to a pressure-cooker atmosphere at Wells Fargo.

Related: U.S. probes Wells Fargo whistleblower complaints

Last year, Stumpf received $4 million in awards for factors that included "primary consumer, small business and banking checking customers" that year. Wells Fargo also rewarded Stumpf last year for his success in "reinforcing a culture of risk management and accountability across the company."

That bonus led Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, an authority on corporate governance at Yale University, to say that "without a doubt" some of Stumpf's pay should be clawed back. "He should be docked," Sonnenfeld said.

A CNNMoney analysis, conducted prior to the clawbacks, showed that if he were to leave,Stumpf could leave Wells Fargo with about $200 million of cash, Wells Fargo stock and options.

Last week, Warren slammed Stumpf for "gutless" leadership, in part for his refusal to cut compensation for Carrie Tolstedt, who led Wells Fargo's community banking division during the entire time fake accounts were created.

http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/27/inve...edt/index.html

California Imposes Sweeping Sanctions On Wells Fargo Amid Scandal

September 28, 20167:06 PM ET

MERRIT KENNEDY
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State Treasurer John Chiang (right) at a news conference in Sacramento, Calif., in May. On Wednesday, Chiang announced he is suspending major parts of the state's business relationship with Wells Fargo because of a scandal involving unauthorized customer accounts.


Rich Pedroncelli/AP

California's state treasurer has announced he is suspending major parts of the state's business relationship with Wells Fargo because of a scandal involving unauthorized customer accounts.

In a letter to Wells Fargo, John Chiang asked, "how can I continue to entrust the public's money to an organization which has shown such little regard for the legions of Californians who have placed their well-being in its care?"

As we reported, "Wells Fargo said earlier this month it had agreed to pay $185 million to settle charges that it opened some 2 million deposit and credit card accounts for its customers without their permission over a five-year period."

The new sanctions include the bank's "most highly profitable business relationships with the state," as Chiang's letter read.

In an interview with The Two-Way, California's deputy treasurer for public finance, Tim Schaefer, laid out the sanctions against Wells Fargo. They fall into three categories.

First, Schaefer said that the state won't "buy any more of their debt securities," which he said currently amount to approximately $800 million. He added that "we're not going to go out and liquidate that tomorrow morning, because we don't want to put the taxpayers of California at risk of a loss, but we're not going to renew it. And that will all be gone over the next couple of months."

Second, Schaefer said the state will no longer use Wells Fargo as a broker-dealer for buying securities. The value of that relationship is not clear, he says, but the state has "engaged in about $1.65 billion worth of trades with them, in that way, over the last 18 months. That $1.65 billion would be expected to produce high hundreds of thousands of dollars if not low millions of dollars in revenue for them."

Third, Schaefer said the state will no longer use Wells Fargo to underwrite bonds. Over the last 18 months, the state has appointed Wells Fargo to five bond offerings, he said. "Two of those were terminated Monday afternoon, so that left them with three." Those remaining three have amounted to about $1.75 million during that time period, he added.


THE TWO-WAY

Wells Fargo CEO To Forfeit Tens Of Millions In Stock Awards Amid Scandal


He said two major aspects of California's relationship with the bank will remain in place. Local governments can still use Wells Fargo to wire money to the state government. And two major public pension funds — the California Public Employees' Retirement System and the California State Teachers' Retirement System — have at least $2.3 billion invested in the bank's fixed income and equity. That money will remain where it is.

The message of these sanctions, Schaefer said, is that "ethics and responsibility in the community matter."

In a statement to NPR after Chiang's announcement, Wells Fargo said that it has "diligently and professionally worked with the state for the past 17 years to support the government and people of California" and "stand ready to continue delivering outstanding service." It added that it is "very sorry and take full responsibility for the incidents in our retail bank."

Yesterday, the company announced that its CEO and former retail-banking head will forfeit tens of millions of dollars in outstanding stock awards. CEO John Stumpf will forfeit such awards totaling about $41 million, while former retail-banking head Carrie Tolstedt will forfeit awards worth about $19 million. Neither will receive bonuses this year, the bank said.

THE TWO-WAY

'You Should Resign': Watch Sen. Elizabeth Warren Grill Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf


Stumpf is scheduled to testify before the House Financial Services Committee on Thursday. As we reported, he was questioned by the Senate Banking Committee last week, which was "widely seen as something of a public relations disaster."

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-w...o-amid-scandal

Wells Fargo to pay $24 Million over military loan violations

Getty Images

By Anjelica Tan, The Hill Extra -
09/29/16 06:25 PM EDT

Wells Fargo will pay more than $24 million to settle allegations that it broke the law by improperly repossessing cars from military service members, federal regulators said Thursday.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Department of Justice said their investigations found violations that took place at the bank for more than seven years through 2015.

The DOJ launched an investigation last year after receiving a complaint from the United States Army saying that Wells Fargo repossessed a used car owned by a National Guardsman in North Carolina. According to the complaint, the bank sold the car at public auction.A lawyer for the National Guardsman requested information from Wells Fargo but never received a response, the DOJ said, sparking the review that uncovered a pattern of violations.

Catherine Pulley, a spokeswoman for Wells Fargo, said the bank has been notifying and compensating service members over the matter and will complete its work in 60 days.

“Wells Fargo is committed to ensuring all service member customers have the important SCRA protections and benefits available to them,” Pulley told The Hill Extra in an emailed statement Thursday. “In those instances where some service members did not receive the appropriate benefits and protections, we did not live up to our commitment and we apologize.”

The bank, which generated $86 billion in revenue last year, will pay $20 million to the Treasury Department, $600,000 to a federal fund, and $10,000 to each affected service member.

The $20 million penalty under the OCC settlement is unusually large for abuses of this particular law, the Service Members Civil Rights Act (SCRA), but the agency cited several factors such as the duration and frequency of violations, as well as the financial harm to service members.

The OCC and DOJ announced the actions just hours after Wells Fargo chief executive officer John Stumpf was on Capitol Hill for the second time in two weeks to face lawmakers angry over the opening of fake accounts at the bank, a scandal that has rocked the industry this month.

Although unrelated to that scandal, the settlement involving service member loan violations adds to the growing list of woes that Wells Fargo has been dealing with in the aftermath, including multiple lawsuits and a probe into wage practices by the Department of Labor.

https://www.google.com/search?q=well...o+repo&tbm=nws