Blind pig/acorn, stopped clock, etc etc
No sympathy for WF. An acquaintance of mine on another forum was connected to an IRS audit group for a while, that was investigating WF. WF was known for, and had been called on the carpet for, all kinds of shenanigans like this for years, yet never received any meaningful punishment.
They were known for things like jiggering the order that customer expenditures were processed, so if the customer was close to their minimum balance, WF would hold a bunch of small debits for days, then when a big one hit, they’d process the big one first to drive the account below minimum, then process all the small ones so they could charge the min-balance (and often overdraft) fees for each debit that went in under the line. Had they processed FIFO, the customer might only suffer one or two; instead the customer might face 15 or 20.
I don’t like Warren and think she ought to be barred from politics forever, but Wells Fargo deserves everything they’re suffering and then some.
My friend was a manager for them for a long time. About three years ago she quit due to the pressure to open new accounts or be penalized. Hit in the old paycheck. I suppose that’s why people were slamming these phony accounts onto their customers. I used to work in a well known marine retailer and someone got the bright idea of ramming these extended warranties down people’s throats...same thing. The salespeople would get penalized if x amount of these weren’t sold so some of the folks would add this to their orders and hope the customer didn’t notice. If they did they’d say whoops here’s your money back.