Regarding Minneapolis’ inquiry into changing their bank from Wells Fargo, a reader writes:
Good luck with that, I say. Wells Fargo will then turn around and move out of Minneapolis, where they’re a major tenant in a number of buildings.
Which is, in itself, an expensive proposition. I suspect moving is something they’d prefer not to do without good reason – especially if it involves more bad publicity, on top of their problem with sham accounts. And that’s not going well – The New York Times reports Wells Fargo is attempting to use arbitration rather than litigate a class action suit, much to the detriment of their customers:
In congressional hearing rooms and on national television, Wells Fargo has vowed to make things right for the thousands of customers who were given sham accounts.
The bank’s new chief executive, Timothy J. Sloan, in his first week on the job, said his “immediate and highest priority is to restore trust in Wells Fargo.”
But in federal and state courtrooms across the country, Wells Fargo is taking a different tack.
The bank has sought to kill lawsuits that its customers have filed over the creation of as many as two million sham accounts by moving the cases into private arbitration — a secretive legal process that often favors corporations.
Lawyers for the bank’s customers say the legal motions are an attempt to limit the bank’s accountability for the widespread fraud and deny its customers their day in open court.
Source: Scheldt.us
Perhaps Wells Fargo doesn’t consider the common citizen a worthy customer. It’s thoroughly possible they’d prefer to go the corporate customer route. But you’d think corporate customers would take a look at this rather bad behavior and maybe just take their business elsewhere.
Because, at the moment, it appears money is in charge at Wells Fargo, and this is a very bad thing for an entity dependent on good relations with the community. If I were a Wells Fargo customer … I wouldn’t be.
