Wells Fargo (WFC) -) just can't seem to get it right.
The retail bank has been charged numerous times with defrauding its customers by doing everything from closing out customer accounts for discriminatory reasons and other regulatory infractions.
DON'T MISS: Scandal just cost Wells Fargo another $1 billion
The company has shelled out billions of dollars in fines for what has been called “widespread mismanagement” by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
Now, the bank has agreed to a pay a $35 million fine to settle allegations that it overcharged more than 10,900 investment advisory accounts, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
While the fraud was just at two Wells Fargo units, the overcharges amounted to over $26.8 million in advisory fees as certain financial advisers "agreed to reduce the firms’ standard, pre-set advisory fees for certain clients and made handwritten or typed changes on the clients’ investment advisory agreements that reflected the reduced fees at the time their accounts were opened."
But sometimes those handwritten or typed changes weren't actually implemented, according to regulators, resulting in thousands of accounts being overcharged.
The bank did not admit or deny the SEC's allegations as part of its settlement.
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The companies biggest scandal resulted in a $3 billion fine after regulators discovered that the bank had employees create millions of fake accounts for its customers between 2002 and 2016. The company pushed its employees into doing that by creating unrealistic sales goals.
Earlier this month, a number of other people reported discovering new Wells Fargo accounts in their name that they did not open.
The difference between these new fake accounts and the previous scandal is that these are accounts created for people who are not Wells Fargo customers. In the previous scandal, the company's employees were adding new accounts for existing customers
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