[reporter 1] America's biggest bank's in hot water...
[reporter 2] Wells Fargo employees at bank branches across the country
opened millions of illegal accounts, and they did it by using...
[distorted voice] They knew it was happening.
They did nothing about it.
[reporter 2] The bank says it was the work of a small minority of employees,
some bad apples who have been fired.
[reporter 3] The bank destroyed their careers
after they tried to report wrongdoing.
[woman] They're the ones committing fraud,
and you're reporting it. Why would you get fired?
It was because I had exposed the fraud.
[crowd chanting] Hell no, they've got to go! Hey, hey! Ho, ho!
[chanting continues]
[man] They said we were just bad apples.
We are not bad apples.
We did not make millions, you did.
[gavel bangs]
The committee will come to order.
This hearing is entitled
"Holding Mega-Banks Accountable."
Mr. Sloane, please stand and raise your right hand.
[camera shutters snapping]
["Lie, Cheat, Steal" by Run the Jewels plays]
♪ Lie, cheat, steal, kill, win, win ♪
♪ Everybody doin' it ♪
♪ Lie, cheat, steal, kill, win, win ♪
♪ Everybody doin' it ♪
♪ Lie, cheat, steal, kill, win ♪
Growing up, me and my twin sister always wanted to be bankers.
And if not a banker, a dentist.
And so my dad used to buy us at garage sales
adding machine the ten-key, so we were pretty good typists.
We'd have, like, fake money and we would count it.
We wanted to dress professional. You know, have, like, cute little scarves
or, you know, high heels,
and we wanted to be behind a desk and just be a banker.
I started as a teller at a community bank.
St. Helena is in the heart of Napa Valley,
and a lot of the vineyard workers would come to the bank,
cash their checks, and go home.
I started taking the time to educate them
that, you know, it's better if you have a checking account.
You can deposit your funds, you can write a check,
pay your bills, and then you're done.
So then, people started coming and asking for me.
I was hoping to start over and achieve
what I felt to be the American dream...
um, which is stability...
uh, something I'd lacked for most of my life, living in a war zone.
I was born and raised in Iraq.
When the war started in 2003, I was in eighth grade.
After war, my father started working with the US military.
He was persecuted by local militias who were anti-US military in Iraq.
Uh, kidnapped, so we had to actually flee the country
as refugees to Syria.
We stayed in Syria from 2005 until 2011,
when we finally got our vetting process done
by the Department of Homeland Security, and we move to the US.
We got lucky, I guess.
A lot of families, a lot of unlucky families
got stuck back in Syria
until today's date, actually.
I did have a partner in Syria,
so I was kind of heartbroken that I left my boyfriend there.
I pretty much was crying throughout the trip. [chuckles]
[distorted voice] I was proud. I was proud to work for a bank
that had been in California since the 1800s,
that had such a stellar reputation.
It was a bank that did a lot in the communities that it served.
I was with Wells quite a few years.
The bank was so diverse.
When you go into other banks,
it's usually primarily Caucasian-- Caucasian men.
When you go into a Wells,
you saw women as leaders,
you saw Asian, Latino,
African American.
I felt I was adding value to the community...
initially.
[tape rewinding]
[man] We were founded in 1852 by Henry Wells and William Fargo
to offer banking and express services...
[tape rewinding]
It's an exciting story.
And the most exciting part is we're still making history today.
[reporter] In just six months,
three of the five biggest independent firms
on Wall Street have now disappeared.
[reporter 2] Dow Jones industrial average now crossing 500 points on the decline.
The bull market that ran from 2002 to 2007 has been erased.
The market is not functioning properly.
There has been a widespread loss of confidence,
and major sectors of America's financial system
are at risk of shutting down.
♪ The Wells Fargo wagon is A-coming down the street ♪
♪ Don't let it pass my door ♪
Wells Fargo was the golden child
of the banking industry during the financial crisis.
The bank did not have the same types of settlements
like JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup paid.
Therefore, it was viewed as a safer institution,
customers trusted the bank more,
and it was really great for the bank in terms of gaining new business.
Wells Fargo celebrates its merger with Wachovia...
You are why I think you're the best bank in America.
Thank you for joining us, John Stumpf.
[Glazer] One of the first articles I wrote about Wells Fargo
was that they were literally the largest bank in the world,
bigger than the huge Chinese banks.
They, at first, really didn't want that article to come out
because that ruins their folksy image.
[trolley bell ringing]
[Glazer] Even though it was based in San Francisco,
it was a very Midwestern bank.
They've got the stagecoach,
they love the stagecoach, and that is what they go by.
There seems to be an intense desire on the part of Wells Fargo
to hold on to its heritage.
I think banks, just in general-- People don't trust banks...
but fear is an emotion that drives a lot of decision making.
[gunshots]
Back in that time, if we could protect in the wild, wild west
when all bets are off and there were no rules, no laws,
you know, we certainly can be trusted today, hopefully.
I work for Wells Fargo, remember?
We take on a consignment, we promise to deliver it. All the way.
[Reed] Get inside the stagecoach,
and we'll take you to that other side safely
and make sure you're protected with your resources. Yeah.
[Glazer] They take this extremely seriously.
Warren Buffett had Wells Fargo
bring a stagecoach to one of his famous annual meetings,
and the stagecoach rode down the street
with John Stumpf, the CEO, and it was this huge hit.
They would have contests on how to name the ponies,
and they still give out stuffed...
animals-- Sorry. [laughs]
Okay, let me start again because I always laugh.
I have a lot of reporting about these stuffed animals.
It's really hard to talk about the bank without bringing the stagecoach
or the ponies or the folksiness into it.
So we ought to say that's the one.
No company ought to be too big to fail. If we screw this up, we ought to fail.
It ought to be a big public event that-- And management ought to get fired,
and compensation ought to be clawed back.
-Yes. -[man] Right.
[Colin] According to my recruiter, I don't know if she was honest or not...
she selected me because of my smile, because I'm always smiling.
The feeling that I had is the same feeling when I go to Disneyland.
Like, a lot of excitement
that I am going to be something, big deal, you know.
Like, look at me. Yesterday, I was a refugee,
today I'm being employed by one of the largest corporations,
not only in the US, in the world, actually.
And I did apply for Wells Fargo,
and I got in without experience in the banking industry.
But then I know, why did they take me?
To smile to our customers, to make them feel welcome,
so we could steal their money.
[Guitron] The training was very intense.
It was a one-month long training.
They would talk a lot about what not to do.
They called it the code of ethics,
and they say, like, "Don't issue ATM cards
to people that don't request it.
Don't order credit cards for people that don't request them,
or they don't need them.
Don't open accounts without customer's consent."
This was like, "Okay, this is a no-brainer.
Let me sign this form. Let me move to the next thing."
Later, I found out that that's precisely what the bankers were doing.
[Colin] Once I entered the branch, I was greeted
with my manager and one of the personal bankers.
She grabbed me to her desk and she said,
"Let me open an employee account for you now,
since you are an employee of Wells Fargo."
I was like, "But I do already have a student account at Wells Fargo.
I don't think I need another one."
She said, "No, this is free, trust me on it."
She kept on talking. I was like, "Okay, okay, okay." [laughs]
"What do you want me to do?" She's like," Just sign these empty papers
and I will send you a checking account for free."
I signed, naively...
and I go home and I receive a debit card in the mail,
a pass-code for online banking,
a statement for my savings and checking account,
and a credit card. [laughs]
I was really pissed off, to be honest with you, but...
when I started working after that and had my quota,
I understood why she did that.
I actually stopped getting mad at her, because I was put in the same situation.
So when you're hiring, what are you looking for?
We're looking for attitude.
We teach for aptitude.
We like to say we don't care how much you know...
until we know how much you care.
You can't teach caring.
And you can't teach sharing.
[Guitron] We used to start early with a morning huddle.
The manager would tell you,
"How many accounts do you commit to opening today?"
And so, what they wanted to hear was eight,
because that's the-- that was their mojo.
"Eight makes great," so...
everybody is like, "Eight, eight, eight," and they get to me, and, like, "Eight."
Everybody is saying eight, so I'll try to do that.
Then you get your day started,
you start calling people, or there's some walk-in business...
and then, around noon,
the managers come around
and they ask you how many accounts have you opened so far.
And they'd have to do that again around three o'clock,
and again at six o'clock at the end of the day,
so there was always a constant pressure because we need the numbers.
What are the numbers? What are you at? We need to report it to the regional.
[distorted] As a manager,
my district manager would call. "What are your numbers?
What are you doing about it? What is Joe Banker at?
What is Suzy Banker at?"
What time they came in, how many accounts they have,
how are you holding them accountable?
Then, as a district manager,
it was not uncommon to have four or five calls with the team a day,
running through the same thing.
And how many ways can you answer the same question?
Initially, I didn't think too much about it,
um, because I knew I had my clientele that would follow me,
and I have a very large family.
And then, eventually, I'm a numbers person...
then I started thinking. "Wait, this is not possible.
St. Helena is a town of 5,000 residents.
There's 5 bankers.
That means we have to open 40 accounts every day.
-Five thousand divided by 40... -[clock ticking]
...that meant that in 125 days,
every single person in St. Helena
would have an account at Wells Fargo."
So I was like, "Mmm, something's fishy.
Where am I going to get all the other clients?"
To the next stage.
The next stage in outstanding service...
the next stage in cross-selling,
the next stage in profitability, the next stage in a higher stock price.
Cross-selling was not a term that people ever really used very much
before Wells Fargo.
Wells Fargo has the kind of growth
from its "stores," you know, its branches--
that most retailers would kill for.
You come into a Wells Fargo,
you're likely to leave with more product than you might expect.
It's called cross-selling, and the product is annualized over a lifetime
once it's taken home. I love that model so much.
[distorted] Wells was all about the cross-sell,
and what "cross-sell" means to those who don't know...
How many products can you tie a consumer into?
If someone has a checking and savings account
and the direct deposit is tied in,
and then you get them their mortgage in, the retirement, the credit card,
they're never going to leave you, regardless of how bad the service is.
And our business model is focused on cross-selling
the 80 different businesses we have at Wells Fargo
to our consumer and commercial customers.
[Glazer] Wells Fargo was the only big bank
that, in their earnings report, would have the ratio
of how much they cross-sold
to different customers in different divisions.
There is a strong business case for trust, and it's around cross-selling,
so selling multiple products to one customer.
Numbers that are disclosed in earnings reports
certainly do matter for the stock price
and how investors are going to spend their money.
Wells Fargo actually does it fairly well, and they're ranked very high
on our trust ladder, and conversely,
Bank of America and Citigroup are not doing it well.
They've really struggled to cross-sell and they're very low on trust ladders...
[Glazer] Banks have shareholders to answer to,
and shareholders want to hear about growth,
and executives want to talk about growth because they want to make more money.
At this point, Wells Fargo is the most valuable bank in the world.
Where are they going to get the growth from?
"Cross-sell" is shorthand for deep, you know, long-term relationships.
We love that.
[Colin] Sales goals at Wells Fargo are called solutions,
so when the customer come complaining about a problem,
there is always a solution for it,
and the solution was always selling a new product to these customers.
Oh, that's something I need, because I have a problem.
Problem, solution.
So we'll call it, "Here's a solution that you're going to like.
Come to the store, and we'll tell you about our solutions."
That's a very different way to think about it as opposed to,
"Come to the bank and we'll tell you about our bank accounts."
[Guitron] Bankers, when they meet their quotas...
they get their salary plus commission.
And if they get their commission, then the managers get extra commission
and extra bonuses,
and the managers benefit from whatever the banker makes,
and then that manager's manager in turn, and so it goes all the way up.
[distorted] You're required to do what you need to do
to hit those sales objectives,
and if you did not hit those sales objectives,
you were constantly threatened with corrective action, constantly.
"Why didn't you meet your goals today?
Did you make enough calls?
Are you smiling? Are you nice to people?
Did you greet customers?
Did you? Did you? Did you?"
The regional presidents, they run like mini-gods, and they all knew it.
I mean, there was no checks and balances in place.
They would go into a store sometimes and terminate an entire store.
I know I was fearful. I was fearful every day.
We're not talking about a job that you're making...
you know, $35 per hour.
Bank tellers start with... $11 per hour when I was working there.
They cannot afford risking their job.
We're talking about single mothers...
students...
people like me.
We would have a family and friends day.
They would increase your sales quota for the day, instead of the eight...
to be 16, to double it.
I'd have to call my sisters
and I was like, "I know you have an account
but you know, we have to open account. Can I open you another account?
Can we call it a travel account? Can we call it the bill account?"
And they'd be like, "Ugh, another account."
[distorted] Absolutely, my team felt the pressure. If I felt it, they felt it.
I passed it on without even knowing I was passing it on.
I was there for so many years, it was all I knew.
I found myself to be abrupt, abrasive, condescending.
You know, I had that Wells mentality, that lion, that shark.
I'm gonna get it. I'm gonna hit that goal,
and I'm going to do whatever is necessary to get it.
[Guitron] Kitty-corner from the bank,
there is a place where day laborers or workers
gather looking for jobs.
One of the managers came to me
and said, "Jessie go use your charm,
unbutton your shirt and shake your skirt
and go bring some of those Latino workers from the corner."
And I was like, "Whoa."
It really is about "wow."
If we can achieve "wow" with every interaction with our customers,
if our team members feel "wow" when they wake up in the morning
and say, "I can't wait to go to work,"
and if our communities are so pleased we're in their neighborhoods,
they say "wow,"
we will be one of America's great companies.
[Guitron] I sort of have--
Somebody's going to have to help me out with this,
but it's like a condition, OCD I think,
so if somebody tells me to do everything this way
and line everything vertically, and I see something horizontally,
it bugs me, really, a lot...
until I fix it.
[distorted] I dealt with a lot of employees
who were claiming other employees were gaming the system.
You know, "How is he at 200% over goal
and the average person in the store is at 87%?"
I was fixing mistakes that other bankers were creating,
and pretty soon you start to notice a pattern.
Opening accounts without a full disclosure that is required by law.
The banker made it so convenient
by just making up a random number as a Social Security number.
Applying for credit cards on behalf of customers
without their permission.
Then the customer that never knew, that never requested an account,
starts getting calls
by collection agencies.
They'd come complaining about fees on their account,
and then they ended up having another account and more fees.
Folks were opening up accounts for kids,
their dogs, their cats. I mean, it-- it was a joke.
This whole town needs bank accounts.
Like you, sir, and you, ma'am, and this skinny gentleman over here!
That's a mailbox!
[audience laughing]
That's when the numbers get really tricky,
because the bank is thinking that it's growing,
but it isn't making money. In fact, it's losing money.
Think of the time that employees have to spend to open the accounts.
Think of the paper in the mail when you're mailing a credit card.
Like, these are seemingly small costs,
but when you're doing it at scale, the bank is actually losing money.
When you're opening accounts, even if it's unfunded,
it shows that Wells Fargo sold something,
got a new customer, and their shares at Wall Street will go up.
[Guitron] It's like, "We opened three million accounts,"
so Stumpf's looking pretty good, so he gets really big bonuses,
and the shareholders are-- are loving it.
-Drumroll, please. -Here we go, all right.
-[drumroll plays] -All right, and the winner is...
-John Stumpf! -John Stumpf of Wells Fargo.
[Stumpf] Your most important job is not to make money.
Our number-one goal when we wake up in the morning is not making money.
Our whole business model, and the reason they get up in the morning and go to work,
is to serve customers. Help them succeed financially.
The result is you make money.
Never put the stagecoach in front of the horses.
Stumpf's a hard guy not to like.
I vote him the CEO I would most likely to knock down a fine pilsner with.
[Guitron] I said, "I think you're asking for unreasonable numbers."
There's a lot of mistakes that I'm having to fix,
and the common denominator was
that most of these people are Spanish-speaking only.
The manager would say, "Well, no one's come to me.
No one's ever reported anything to me...
and if somebody wants to report something, they have to bring their own interpreter,"
because they didn't want to allow me to be their interpreter.
But, to open accounts,
I was always everybody's interpreter.
[distorted] I said to my boss,
"This person is opening up funky accounts, which is gonna get you in hot water.
They're not even being opened with signature cards.
Why does a 90-year-old customer need seven accounts?"
-[interviewer] And what did he say? -Nothing.
Nothing.
He told me to be more concerned about my team.
I met with HR for four and a half hours,
and I would give them example after example,
and she was like,
"Well, it maybe was a transposition or something.
It happens to everybody."
They would have an excuse
for every single thing that I would report.
And then things became really, really tense
at the branch.
[distorted] It was known that if you made a call to Human Resources
complaining about ethics, that you would get fired.
They're going to show you as an example,
so no one else does what you did.
[Guitron] They said things like,
"If we find a banker that is looking into other bankers' work,
that banker can be terminated."
I started with really good reviews.
And when I started reporting the fraud,
my reviews kept getting worse and worse and worse and worse.
[distorted] Once they terminated you from Wells,
you'd never work in banking again.
They would block your licenses and you would never work again,
which is eventually what happened to me.
[Guitron] Eventually, the branch manager came to me and said,
"Your insubordination
for not going with me to a meeting or something...
Hand over the keys, clear your desk, and you-- and you're fired."
[man 1] She brings to you
the fact that she feels management is not effective
in abating unethical conduct,
you tell her to concentrate on her own sales. You see that?
[man 2] Objection. Assumes facts, incomplete hypothetical,
misstates document, misstates prior evidence, secondary evidence rule.
The reason I told Jessie that
is because she wasn't making her goals...
and she--
she needed to focus herself on her goals.
[Guitron] There was a second whistleblower at the St. Helena branch,
which was a big relief for me
because... it validated that it was not just me.
Even some of these comments would get to me.
Like, "Maybe I am overreacting. Maybe I am seeing things."
So the two of us engaged Yosef,
and he filed a lawsuit on our behalf.
[man 1] When you e-mailed that stack of supporting documentation,
you said, "I haven't even looked at these yet."
-So you haven't looked at them, correct? -Correct.
[man 1] Okay. Then you say, "But this has really got to stop."
-You see that? -Yes.
[man 1] Why did you make this statement?
Because I had not found any solid policy violations to date...
and...
we needed to get something that was more solid.
[Guitron] I was very confident that I had all the odds of winning.
-[interviewer] Then what happened? -And then...
the judge favored Wells Fargo.
They dismissed the case.
They said that Wells Fargo had legitimate reasons to have...
fired me,
because I didn't meet my sales quotas.
[man 1] Did you have a discussion with anyone
about the claims of retaliation
that Jesse brought in her e-mail?
-Not that I could recall. -[man 1] Why didn't you?
[man 2] Objection. Asked and answered. Lacks foundation. Calls for speculation.
Not that I could recall. I don't know why.
[man 1] You're not responsive. Why didn't you have discussions
about the claims of retaliation...
that Jessie made with anyone?
[man 2] She didn't say she didn't have discussions.
She just said she can't recall.
She has to answer the question.
[stammering] I don't recall...
I don't recall.
[distorted] I filed a complaint. I was fired within six months.
I didn't see it coming. I had no idea it was coming.
It was so dirty.
And don't even talk about their attorneys.
Wells Fargo has the best law firms in the world representing them.
And they will stop at nothing to do Wells Fargo's agenda.
I learned that.
This company blackballed me...
from getting a job.
I couldn't support my family.
What do you do?
You know, what do you do?
I was looking at other options. I was that depressed.
A customer came to me
telling me that he was on Social Security disability benefits.
He was in his late stage of AIDS.
He couldn't work, he barely can walk and talk,
and that little amount of income he's getting,
it's barely enough to pay for...
his place and for the food that he put on the table,
and he was getting monthly fees because the amount of direct deposit
that he was getting from the Social Security
was not enough to... to waive the fees on his account.
I told my manager, "Hey, this is...
a humanitarian issue.
This is a human being that could be starving to death...
because of the $15 a month that we are taking out of his account.
He needs to eat."
My manager's solution was...
open him a savings account...
and make a $25 automatic transfer from his account
on his paycheck every month.
So that will waive both the checking account
and savings account fees.
So I went to the customer. He desperately agreed.
Because he needed that $15 back.
[voice wavering] A few months later,
a very nice lady walked into the branch.
She told me her brother died.
And she's here to claim the money from his savings account, and I...
get this paper and-- this death certificate,
and it was that customer that I helped.
When I opened her brother account, I found out that...
his Social Security checks stopped coming because he died...
and the $25 transfer was happening on his account...
and it was...
putting his checking account into a negative,
and overdrafting both his savings and checking account.
So I was just looking at the computer, I'm looking at...
his sister face, and I didn't know what to tell her.
Usually, I witnessed fraud every single day,
but it was done by other...
other bank workers, not myself.
And here I am in this transaction, trying to be the good guy, trying to be...
the one who actually help other people.
And I was fooled into participating in this shameful...
transaction that I still dream about, and I still--
still lives with me, still eats me from the inside.
I took my first sleeping pill,
and after 15 minutes, it didn't work. I took more...
and I kept on taking sleeping pills.
Trying to sleep...
because I just didn't want to feel that emptiness.
I don't know if I wanted to just end my life
or I just wanted to sleep.
I was just...
exhausted to death.
[laughs]
Um...
That's when I actually finally woke up and realized that something is wrong...
with Wells Fargo, not me.
That was the first time that I decided to become a whistleblower.
The first action was in Minneapolis.
We had a petition that was signed by 13,000 people
asking Wells Fargo to eliminate the sales goals
and treat our customers more fairly.
[Colin] Wells Fargo, you can't hide! We can see your greedy side!
[all chant] Wells Fargo, you can't hide! We can see your greedy side!
[Colin] We occupied the whole building
and we refused to leave until Wells Fargo manager came out
and received the petition...
and I gave that petition to him.
[woman] Together we can enact real change, and together we are powerful.
[Colin] And I told my story in front of him and the protesters
and the bank workers inside the branch.
We don't have the Supreme Court on our side.
We don't have laws on our side,
but we have one thing-- our unity as a labor movement!
[all cheer]
After the action was done, I felt so liberated.
I felt like a different person.
I was like, "Yes,
I told the Devil, 'You are horrible.'"
[laughs]
These are people who, in many cases, were terrorized.
They were afraid that they would get fired from these $12, $15 an hour jobs,
and they didn't know where else to go.
They thought they were gonna,
you know, step into a world of American success and be bankers.
And it turned out frequently to be something more like a boiler room.
One of my roles as city attorney
is to stand up for the broad public interest.
So, I read this LA Times piece
by a reporter named Scott Reckard,
alleging a potential scam of sweeping consequence.
So we began to pour through publicly available documents.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau had a website
-that had complaints on it. -[machine beeps]
[woman 1] I had Wells Fargo issue me a credit card
without my approval last year.
[woman 2] They converted my minor son's savings account into a checking account.
They told us we would have to open another account...
-[woman 3] ...unauthorized ATM card... -[man 1] ...Personal credit card...
[man 2] ...phone call from a debt collector...
[man 3] ...called me multiple times each day...
Fees were charged and why...
[woman 4] They reported this to the major credit reporting agencies,
which dropped my credit score...
[man 4] For $106, they ruined my credit.
[woman 5] Overdrawing my account and my credit.
There were lawsuits related to wrongful termination claims
made by former Wells employees.
[woman] Branch managers force you to sell credit cards when people didn't want them.
[man] I have plenty of former co-workers
who would like nothing more than to expose these practices.
The information we were getting suggested
that there was a major issue
affecting consumers potentially throughout the United States.
We allege that in its push for growth,
Wells Fargo often elevated its profits
over the legal rights of its customers.
The Wells response boils down to:
"We only provide to our customers
services or products from which they will benefit."
That's really when I knew that we had gotten it exactly right,
because saying we don't provide products
from which our customers will not benefit
is not the same thing as saying,
we never provide products that they didn't ask for.
The few days after we filed our lawsuit,
we got a thousand e-mails and phone calls
and letters from around the country,
and my staff reported to me
sometimes they were very tearful conversations
from the former employees,
um, many of whom said something kind of similar,
and that is, "My family thought that I just didn't make it,
I couldn't cut it at Wells Fargo,
and this now validates me."
Some of these sales people were begging their family and friends
or taking out ghost accounts with fake e-mail addresses
just so that they could meet these steep sales quotas.
Wells Fargo was seeking to remove our case to federal court,
was seeking to bar the case from moving forward altogether.
This was-- Before we resolved it,
this case was being fought tooth and nail by the bank.
Lawyers like that, in my view,
are below single-cell amoeba.
I would like the company to fight this litigation
until the cows come home.
[Feuer] After we filed our lawsuit,
we were contacted by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
in Washington
and also by the Office of the Controller of the Currency of the United States.
When the three entities emerged, and together,
announced the resolution of this case,
it really shook the public by the lapels
when it came to examining their relationship with their banks,
not just Wells.
Over a million bank accounts opened without customer knowledge--
Fake e-mail addresses, phony PIN numbers.
[woman] They were encouraged to prey on people who spoke little English
college students, and the elderly.
The New Yorker says, "Two million customers
are known to be explicitly defrauded." True or false?
That is absolutely false.
A million more fake accounts,
the total now three and a half million.
The bank paid 185 million in September 2016.
That was with the Los Angeles City Attorney
and two banking regulators.
That was just the beginning of it,
A hundred eight-five million is pennies for a bank like Wells Fargo.
Going back to the post-crisis fines,
Bank of America paid $16.65 billion.
One hundred eight-five million is just a fraction of that,
so the bank didn't think it would be a really big problem.
They thought it would blow over.
This is a great place to work, and a great place to build a career.
I mean, I started out as a repo person, you know, 35 years ago.
I will guarantee we've got, I don't know how many,
30 companies we own, something like that.
I would guarantee there's something going wrong at almost every one of them.
People do these bad things. Individuals do the bad things.
The shareholders didn't do it,
and the bank, in the abstract, didn't do it--
[Glazer] Executives kept saying in investor presentations,
"It's just lower level people. Everything's fine."
And 5,300 employees were fired
over five years related to the wrongdoing.
If you've got 5,000-plus employees
who are willing to step over an ethical and or legal line,
is that a Wells Fargo issue or is that a humanity issue?
[Glazer] Wells Fargo stock did not take a big hit,
and in fact, like, stayed pretty steady
for quite some time after the settlement became public.
This wasn't just about the bank, though.
This was around the time of the election.
A populist Democratic congress
could pass rules that severely limit cross-selling,
or even block it entirely.
We want to give you, the American people, a giant tax cut...
for Christmas.
And when I say giant, I mean giant.
[Glazer] When Trump was elected, it really helped boost the banking sector.
A lot of big companies were going to make more money,
because they were going to pay a lower tax rate.
Wells Fargo is going to be one of the biggest beneficiaries
of this tax cut. They're expected to maybe have
a $3.7 billion gain dropping to their bottom line.
Seems like a pretty good trade,
for all intents and purposes, if you're a Wells Fargo shareholder.
Something that hundreds of thousands of consumers
could be deeply upset about, and yet, the stock is rising.
It shows that oftentimes,
investors just have different priorities than consumers...
but that's life.
[laughs]
Before I got into banking, I had no idea it was a sales job, to be quite honest.
So I thought, you know, like Andy Griffith, you know,
you go to your local banker and you're like,
"Hey Joe, I need a loan."
You're like, "All right, how much do you need?"
And Joe the banker gave you a loan.
I worked at the Beverly Hills private mortgage banking office,
but I quit in April 2016.
Just because I was done with dealing with the bank
and... charging people for stuff that they didn't want to pay.
Plus I was going through a divorce,
and just dealing with this bank and the way it operates,
I was just like, "I'm done. I can't do this anymore," and I walked.
September of 2016, same year,
that's when Congress pulled Stumpf in to-- to be grilled.
And that was interesting.
Cross-selling is all about pumping up Wells' stock price, isn't it?
No. Cross-selling is shorthand for deepening relationships. We all do--
Let me stop you right there. You're saying no? No?
Here are the transcripts. Quote--
"We grew our retail banking cross-sell ration..."
[Stumpf] "...to a record 5.98 products per household...
Record retail banking cross-sell of 6.1 products...
...record retail banking cross-sell of 6.17 products per household...
[Chavez] Prior to that, Wells Fargo was still...
you know, the golden child of banking.
Let's talk about Yesenia Guitron.
You say, "Well, the employee could have gone to somebody."
She did.
Wells Fargo said, "We fired her because she didn't meet her quotas."
Sir-- Senator,
I am very sorry that that happened.
That was not what we wanted to have happened.
Congresspeople were upset with the bank.
The share price during this time period
went up by about $30,
which comes out to more than $200 million in gains.
All for you personally.
You'd listen to Cramer on CSNBC or whatever.
"Wells Fargo's CEO defends bank culture,
lays blame with bad employees." That's not you.
You don't lay blame with bad-- you're the head coach!
You told me you're the Vince Lombardi.
Vince Lombardi never blamed the linemen!
[Chavez] He's disappointed, crying about it.
I was like, "All right, yeah,
so now you guys see what this bank is really like."
[all chanting] Wells Fargo has got to go!
Hey, hey, ho, ho, Wells Fargo has...
[Chavez] And then, seeing the public's response...
Okay, I told myself it's time to tell my story.
I thought there was a lot of money
that had been paid by borrowers that shouldn't have been paid.
So I wrote to Congress.
At the same time, I sent it out
to a couple of investigative reporters
that I would hope would pick it up,
and one did, so...
ultimately they were fined, you know, the one billion dollars.
[reporter] Mortgage rate lock extension fees are supposed to be charged
when a borrower fails to finish his paperwork on time.
Wells Fargo says it will return the fees
to customers whose delay was the bank's fault.
John Stumpf technically resigned. John Stumpf was not fired.
[reporter] CEO John Stumpf will resign--
[man] During his nine years as CEO,
the market cap of Wells Fargo grew by $110 billion.
That's almost double.
He's going out with a compensation package of $130-some million reportedly.
The board of the bank announcing it will fall back
an additional $28 million of pay from former CEO John Stumpf.
[interviewer] Do you think he knew?
[man sighs]
[distorted] I don't know.
That's the million-dollar question. I don't know, but I will say this:
not knowing is not excusable.
It's not excusable.
He's the CEO, it's his house,
he runs a corporation, he's paid millions to know.
That's what he's paid to do.
I personally delivered two petitions to the Wells Fargo headquarters
in Minneapolis and Los Angeles in 2015--
[woman] What'd they say?
We were completely ignored by Wells Fargo!
[reporter] Chief Operating Officer Timothy Sloan will take over.
We're making progress. I'm very confident that we're on the right path.
[Glazer] Timothy Sloan, who took over after John Stumpf,
promised that he would turn over every rock,
and really resolved to try to fix the problems at the bank.
[woman] We're renewing our commitment to you.
[reporter] Some say you were there at the scene of the crime.
You've been at the company a long time.
If you didn't know about it, you should have known.
Why do you think that you should still lead this company?
Sure. I think it's a very fair question.
[Glazer] I thought it might be over,
but in summer of 2017, there were media reports
that Wells Fargo had also been improperly charging
certain auto-lending customers.
I kept hearing whispers that Wells Fargo
was not treating customers fairly who had small businesses.
There were also problems in the bank's foreign exchange division.
Improper charges to corporate customers.
And then wealth management explodes.
So far, Wells Fargo has had over four billion dollars in settlements.
But the bank makes about $20 billion a year.
The stock finally did take a dive
when the Federal Reserve announced an unprecedented punishment
capping Wells Fargo's size.
Of course now we all know that a lot of the cross-selling strength here
was either predatory or outright fraudulent.
In short, investors may have loved Wells Fargo for its malfeasance.
We just didn't realize it at the time.
It's just another bank.
There are zillions of them out there, many both cheaper and better.
Wells Fargo was the trusted bank with a stellar reputation.
[man] Until... we lost it.
There's three things that you have to do when a crisis happens.
[man] We know the value of trust.
Validate concerns of the consumers.
[man] Fixing what went wrong, making things right.
You have to show action.
[man] Ending product sales goals for branch bankers.
And you have to kind of control the narrative.
[man] It's a new day at Wells Fargo,
but it's a lot like our first day.
I thought-- I would give those apology ads...
quite... quite good marks, actually.
[man] Established 1852.
Re-established 2018.
[distorted] And that's the beauty of America.
Everybody loves a good comeback story.
It happens time and time again.
I don't believe that anyone or anything cannot be forgiven.
I enjoyed working there,
um, particularly because of the people I worked with.
Almost all of them were really...
outstanding individuals, good at what they did,
interesting people.
Just unfortunately, we were...
part of a machine that wasn't that fun.
It goes to the issue of trust.
If I, as a consumer...
I need to trust my bank.
I'm putting my savings, my life savings, in many cases,
in the bank's hands.
[distorted] You're talking privacy issues, you're talking consent issues.
Absolutely, you should be livid.
Even if you were charged a penny, you should be livid.
You didn't open those accounts.
You didn't ask them for those accounts. That's your right.
There is harm, there's a lot of harm.
No one should be opening a fiduciary account
without your signature on that line, without your consent.
And they mask that as a convenience to you.
"Oh, don't worry about it." You trust them because they're dressed nicely,
they're behind a desk, and you trust that they're the experts,
and you trust that the advice they're giving you is for your benefit.
Of course I feel guilty.
I was the face of that company.
These were my customers. These people trusted me.
And when that trust is being betrayed,
it's also my fault.
Seeing people struggle...
it's something that I lived with for most of my life.
But...
this was a different situation.
I was part of the institution that made these people struggle.
It was different than refugees camps,
it was different than living in a civil war.
At Wells Fargo, I was...
part of the villain institution.
Yeah, I was one reason why they were struggling.
[distorted] I think everyone was responsible.
You know...
I don't know. I think you get fearful of your livelihood.
You know, I think I take a responsibility for that.
You know, that's one of the reasons that I'm here doing this.
Kind of punitive on my part for myself, you know.
Atonement, I guess, for lack of a better term.
You know, I worry about...
Are they going to figure out who I am talking to you?
Is the same thing going to happen again?
Yeah, I worry about that type of stuff.
But, you know, right is right.
Wells is the tip of the iceberg.
I work for an organization now
that makes Wells Fargo look like Glinda the Good Witch.
[Colin] Today, we are attending the hearing of Tim Sloan.
He will be testifying behind the House Financial Committee.
We'll be handing him a petition signed with more than 11,000 people
to ask Wells Fargo
to treat our customers and employees better,
stop investing in pipelines, private prisons...
to do the right thing.
I would never blame any worker for what they did.
I blame directly Wells Fargo Corporation and its CEOs.
[man] Wells Fargo got $3.7 billion
from the Trump tax cut, and then turned around
and announced that it was laying off
-26,500 of its employees. -[crowd booing]
Twenty-two billion dollars in profits,
18 billion dollars in stock buy-backs in 2018.
That's not investing in workers.
It's not growing the company. It's not investing the communities.
It's the story in corporate America over and over.
This is in so many ways, a perfect storm,
where workers were hurt, consumers were hurt,
and the people that committed it seem to have little contrition.
It's pretty clear breaking up a bank this big
with this kind of culture may be the only way to do it.
[woman] We still have high-pressure metrics
that hurt workers and customers.
I make less now than when I started six years ago...
because of metrics that are unattainable
and changes to our monthly incentive.
[Colin] Mr. Sloan,
this is signed by 15,000 people,
telling you to meet with the Committee for Better Banks
as you promised last year at your meeting in Florida.
Okay? I am Kilian.
-I'm a former Wells Fargo member. -I work for Wells.
-Good. Tim Sloan, it's nice to meet you. -Nice to meet you.
Thanks for not shaking my hand.
Very typical of Tim Sloan and Wells Fargo.
[Maxine Waters] Mr. Sloan, please stand and raise your right hand.
[Guitron] The question has been asked about why did I do this.
What... what kept me going?
Wouldn't it just be easier to quit?
I just think that in my mind, I just thought...
they were so wrong and I was so right.
[Maxine Waters] In the length of time that you've been there,
the roles that you have played,
you have not been able to keep Wells Fargo out of trouble.
You keep getting fined.
Why should Wells Fargo continue to be the size that it is,
and should it be downsized, or what else could be done?
[Sloan] Well, I believe that Wells Fargo serves
our 70 million customers, one out of three US households,
in a very effective way today, and I think...
["Peter," distorted] This man was loved at Wells Fargo.
You know, I interacted with him.
I thought he was fair, equitable. I thought he was a good guy.
I don't think he has a chance in hell to fix that.
[Sloan] Outstanding--
[man] You went from "outstanding" to "needs improvement."
-That was because... -[man] A double downgrade.
-That's correct. -[man] Wasn't that appropriate?
Uh...
-I don't believe it was appropriate. -[man] Then you don't get it.
[man 2] Are we going to see more headlines coming out?
Are we going to have another hearing about this?
-I can't promise you perfection. -[man 3] Right.
But what I can promise you is that I believe...
[Glazer] It's true that a lot of people
have not gone to jail for the financial crisis...
and so far no one has gone to jail for Wells Fargo,
but there is a criminal investigation
that's been ongoing for more than two years,
and every time more bad activity occurs at Wells Fargo,
that investigation grows in scope,
and that means it's going to take even longer
to figure out what went wrong and how to classify it.
[woman] I can't get-- wrap my head around why and how...
every single subsidiary of Wells Fargo
was engaging in some sort of fraudulent activity...
if it wasn't coming from the top.
When workers come out...
listen to them...
because they are the real witness.
And it's my job as CEO to make sure things change,
and they are changing.
[Colin] Your job is your life here in the US...
[all chanting]
...and when a worker sacrifices their career to speak up,
they're not doing it only for them. They're doing it for every one of us.
I believe that it's not just one bank.
Above all, Wells Fargo is committed to making things right for our customers
and to earning back the public's trust.
We have more work to do, and that is an ongoing commitment
by all of Wells Fargo's 260,000 team members,
starting with me.
["Jolly Banker" plays]
♪ My name is Tom Cranker And I'm a jolly banker ♪
♪ I'm a jolly banker, jolly banker am I ♪
[no audible speech]
♪ I safeguard the farmers And widows and orphans ♪
♪ Singin', "I'm a jolly banker Jolly banker am I" ♪
♪ When dust storms are sailing And crops they are failing ♪
♪ I'm a jolly banker, jolly banker am I ♪
♪ I check up your shortage And bring down your mortgage ♪
♪ Singin', "I'm a jolly banker Jolly banker am I" ♪
♪ When money you're needing And mouths you are feeding ♪
♪ I'm a jolly banker, jolly banker... ♪
Thanks for coming. Did you see the stagecoach, by the way?
[man] I did. Everybody had the chance to see it.
♪ I'll plaster your home With a furniture loan ♪
♪ Singin', "I'm a jolly banker Jolly banker am I" ♪
♪ When your car you're losin' And sadly you're cruisin' ♪
♪ I'm a jolly banker Jolly banker am I ♪
♪ I'll come and foreclose Get your car and your clothes ♪
♪ Singin', "I'm a jolly banker Jolly banker am I" ♪
♪ When the bugs get your cotton ♪
♪ The times, they are rotten ♪
♪ I'm a jolly banker Jolly banker am I ♪
♪ I'll come down and help you I'll rape you, I'll scalp you ♪
♪ Singin', "I'm a jolly banker Jolly banker am I" ♪