WELLS FARGO WEALTH MANAGEMENT INVESTIGATED FOR UNSUITABLE INVESTMENTS, SELF-DEALING
With Wells Fargo's credit card and savings divisions already disciplined by the Federal Reserve over a fake account scandal during which the bank opened bogus accounts on behalf of its customers, federal officials have begun an investigation into Wells Fargo Wealth Management to determine whether Wells Fargo's investment wing inappropriately sold clients in-house investments using tactics similar to the illicit conduct that permeated the aforementioned credit card and savings scandal.
In its investigation of Wells Fargo Wealth Management, the Department of Justice and SEC seek to determine whether the firm breached its duty to investors and used incentives that were inadequately disclosed in order to sell in-house products that were more profitable for the firm, at the expense of its clients' interests.
According to an InvestmentNews report, as recently as in 2016, Wells Fargo incentivized its advisers through quotas and bonus pay to steer investment clients into fee-bearing loans and brokerage accounts. The report states that Wells Fargo Wealth Management's quotas and representative incentives were similar to the illicit scheme previously employed by the credit card, savings, and banking division in the company's prior scandal, which had produced approximately 3.5 million potentially fake or otherwise improperly opened banking accounts.
Specifically, investigators will reportedly seek to determine whether Wells Fargo made inappropriate or unsuitable recommendations involving 401(k) rollovers, alternative assets, estates, and trusts. Investigators will also look into rewards and referral incentives, such as an alleged 15%-of-first-year-revenue reward in multi-million dollar accounts offered to some retail bank employees for referring wealthy clients to the firm's brokerage arm.
Officials expressed concern that Wells Fargo's investment business improperly steered clients toward in-house investments that may have been more profitable for the firm, at the expense of its clients' best interests. In addition to suitability violations, this could possibly point to a widespread breach of fiduciary duty involving Wells Fargo Advisors and other related Wells Fargo Wealth entities.
For example, a Bloomberg review indicated that Wells Fargo Advisors personnel often ran simulations through Envision financial planning software, sometimes without clients present, and by "plugging in numbers they knew would recommend investments that clients already held."
According to one former adviser, the Envision simulations would then confirm the clients' investment strategy at Wells Fargo, making the clients much more likely to remain Wells Fargo customers and keep funds invested in products preferred by the firm. Wells Fargo disputes that charge, claiming that Envision did not disadvantage clients.
As a historical note, the SEC and US Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 2015 charged JP Morgan Securities and JPMorgan Chase Bank with improperly marketing JP Morgan-managed mutual funds to retail customers through a Chase Bank program, failing to disclose this practice and the associated conflict of interest to its clients.
Like Wells Fargo, JP Morgan stood accused of inappropriately recommending in-house investments that were more profitable for the firm, at the expense of its customers' best interests.
JP Morgan and Chase Bank ultimately agreed to settle the charges by paying over $300 million in penalties, disgorgement, and interest.
If you have invested with Wells Fargo Wealth Management or Wells Fargo Advisors in fee-bearing securities that were improperly or unsuitable recommended, or were mislead regarding suitability through the firm's Envision software, and this potential breach of fiduciary duty through the firm's failure to act in your best interests has proven harmful to your investments, please call The Law Offices of Jonathan W. Evans & Associates at (800) 699-1881 for an investigation and consultation.
Categories: Reverse Convertibles, Suitability, Fees, Failure to Supervise, Fiduciary Duty, REITs, Loan, SEC, Account Objectives, Risk, Wells Fargo, Communications, Solicitation, Disclosure, Alternative Investments, Structured Products, IRA, Conflict of Interest, Compliance, Securities Based Lending, Proprietary Products, Cross-Selling
Self Dealing, for sure... Insurance coverage they don't have, but claim to, under another company's name, Failure to advise in the Real Estate/Trust Sector. Acting as General Contractors hiring the most unsuitable flakes for jobs they never intended to do, but bill clients for, double dealing with an HOA, against the client's best interest, as in not telling them there were fines multiplying and incurring late fees and more fines for sim[;e front yard work like cutting back shrubs, trees, and other greenery that will grow super fast during the spring rainy season, and then tell their client to not do the job themselves, when they had been for the seven years they lived at that home in that HOA, incurring a fine of over 12 hundred dollars, then paying it without the client knowing, all the while telling the client that there were no fees.. Conflicts of interest big time. Double dealing with crooked HOAs to conflate shrub growth fines, sick and stupid these advisors are, social misfits, slow as mud, and dim witted sleaze bags who can't make it in their field, so Wells Fargo keeps them on to screw the people they're supposed to serve, and the dorks have the thinnest skin ever. Dare to say, come on, this job needs to be done. I am hiring my own contractor who will come do the job with professional standards and then they can pay them.. Stonewall Station, the jackass digs his stubborn ass in the ground pouting then coming back at you with delay tactics, as the storm season starts, and the hole in your roof isn't getting smaller, and it's in a dangerous place Scott Joseph Snyder of W. Palm Beach, FL Calling you out and turning you in... you also set my mom up with a gigolo of a predator when she lost her husband, and the kids were suing her for money they weren't entitled to. the guy takes off, retires, and my mom is too embarrassed to say or do a thing, she doesn't know that was a con job, and good the Warren Borscht dude, if that's his real name, retires, no doubt Scott got his cut. These are hideous insecure nasty uptight losers. Do not invest with them, and do not, for crying out loud, hire them as a trustee. YOU CAN'T Trust them to do a single thing they promise, and I was forced to deal with these scum, and still am because the guy is such a smarmy manipulator. He knows just how to play my mother and get his way. Little ingratiating ass kissing knob. Scott Snyder2 @ wells fargo . we suck.com. Scott Joseph Snyder of Kentucky. Narcissist at best. Scamming con artist, and dumber than a stump. He's gonna get sued.. No doubt, his ego will force him to screw this up and he will get that bank, investment whatever, in deeper shit than it;s already in.
Self Dealing, for sure... Insurance coverage they don't have, but claim to, under another company's name, Failure to advise in the Real Estate/Trust Sector. Acting as General Contractors hiring the most unsuitable flakes for jobs they never intended to do, but bill clients for, double dealing with an HOA, against the client's best interest, as in not telling them there were fines multiplying and incurring late fees and more fines for sim[;e front yard work like cutting back shrubs, trees, and other greenery that will grow super fast during the spring rainy season, and then tell their client to not do the job themselves, when they had been for the seven years they lived at that home in that HOA, incurring a fine of over 12 hundred dollars, then paying it without the client knowing, all the while telling the client that there were no fees.. Conflicts of interest big time. Double dealing with crooked HOAs to conflate shrub growth fines, sick and stupid these advisors are, social misfits, slow as mud, and dim witted sleaze bags who can't make it in their field, so Wells Fargo keeps them on to screw the people they're supposed to serve, and the dorks have the thinnest skin ever. Dare to say, come on, this job needs to be done. I am hiring my own contractor who will come do the job with professional standards and then they can pay them.. Stonewall Station, the jackass digs his stubborn ass in the ground pouting then coming back at you with delay tactics, as the storm season starts, and the hole in your roof isn't getting smaller, and it's in a dangerous place Scott Joseph Snyder of W. Palm Beach, FL Calling you out and turning you in... you also set my mom up with a gigolo of a predator when she lost her husband, and the kids were suing her for money they weren't entitled to. the guy takes off, retires, and my mom is too embarrassed to say or do a thing, she doesn't know that was a con job, and good the Warren Borscht dude, if that's his real name, retires, no doubt Scott got his cut. These are hideous insecure nasty uptight losers. Do not invest with them, and do not, for crying out loud, hire them as a trustee. YOU CAN'T Trust them to do a single thing they promise, and I was forced to deal with these scum, and still am because the guy is such a smarmy manipulator. He knows just how to play my mother and get his way. Little ingratiating ass kissing knob. Scott Snyder2 @ wells fargo . we suck.com. Scott Joseph Snyder of Kentucky. Narcissist at best. Scamming con artist, and dumber than a stump. He's gonna get sued.. No doubt, his ego will force him to screw this up and he will get that bank, investment whatever, in deeper shit than it;s already in.
