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Is Wells Fargo Too Big to Succeed?

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When a bank gets too big, it’s the customer who usually pays the price. Look no further than Wells Fargo:

As Wells Fargo & Co.’s sales-tactics scandal unfolded, investors, regulators and politicians asked how improper practices could have persisted for so long. One possible reason: bank branches were given a heads up before Wells Fargo’s internal monitors landed for inspections.

Managers and employees at the bank’s roughly 6,000 branches across the U.S. typically had at least 24 hours’ warning about annual reviews conducted by risk employees, current and former Wells Fargo employees and executives said. That gave many employees time to cover up improper practices, such as opening accounts or signing customers up for products without their knowledge.

More than a dozen current and former employees of the bank across California, Arizona and New Jersey, for instance, said they forged or saw colleagues forge signatures on documents or shred papers that could have indicated accounts were opened without authorization.

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E.J. Smith

Editor-in-Chief
E.J. Smith is Founder of YourSurvivalGuy.com, Managing Director at Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd., a Managing Editor of Richardcyoung.com, and Editor-in-Chief of Youngresearch.com. E.J. graduated from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with a B.S. in finance and investments. In 1995, E.J. began his investment career at Fidelity Investments in Boston before joining Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. in 1998. E.J. has trained at Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, NH. His first drum set was a 5-piece Slingerland with Zilldjians. He grew-up worshiping Neil Peart of the band Rush, and loves the song Tom Sawyer—the name of his family’s boat, a Grady-White Canyon 306. He grew up in Mattapoisett, MA, an idyllic small town on the water near Cape Cod. He spends time in Newport, RI and Bartlett, NH—both as far away from Wall Street as one could mentally get. The Newport office is on a quiet, tree lined street not far from the harbor and the log cabin in Bartlett, NH, the “Live Free or Die” state, sits on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest. He enjoys spending time in Key West and Paris. Please get in touch with E.J. at ejsmith@youngresearch.com.