Wells Fargo will pay $1 billion to settle a class-action lawsuit accusing the bank of overstating how much progress it had made in fixing the unlawful practices that regulators said had hurt millions of customers.
The agreement is the latest in many settlements and penalties the bank has paid stemming from a fraud scandal that came to light years ago. from 2004 going forward to 2016, according to reports, bank employees, facing unrealistic sales goals imposed by their bosses, opened millions of accounts in customers’ names without their knowledge.
Wells Fargo removed top executives and pledged to regulators that it would fix the internal deficiencies that caused the scandal and other practices that put customers at risk.
Jeffrey Newman is a whistleblower lawyer who handles SEC whistleblower complaints under the SEC whistleblower program. He can be reached at Jeff@JeffNewmanLaw.com or at 617-823-3217
