Tester Questions Wells Fargo CEO

Thank You mr. chairman ranking member Brown for having this hearing I've been on this committee for nearly 10 years now you have done something that has never happened in the last 10 years and United this committee on a major topic and not in a good way credit card accounts were opened folks didn't know about them there were fees charged potentially fines charged and if customers were aware that unaware that these accounts were opened up there must have been many instance and since there were 2 million accounts opened up that negative information was sent to credit viewers is that accurate I the part that's accurate there's there's five hundred and sixty five thousand credit cards that were opened up that were never activated about four hundred thousand of those have customers signatures on them and 5.7 percent of you know less than six percent of those accounts that we open during that time we're not activated which is a pretty standard industry because people might have them we're going to go back to each one of those customers now and find out if that was a legitimate signature and open and if it's not we'll make it okay but that's not what I asked let me ask it was negative information turned into the credit viewers bureaus because of these actions you know I I don't know the algorithms of how great it is but but but I won't answer your question I I know that when a credit bureau is requested it has a impact on your credit score well this is a big deal yes it is and I'm telling you it is a big deal I could ask you for the brave age breakdown on there's these two million accounts that were opened up but I am Telling You that if information was sent in to the credit bureaus because of these falsely opened accounts the impacts on this are far far far more then then the fees or fines that could be associated with that what is Wells Fargo doing about that work did that information not get reported to the credit bureaus well when we pull a credit just just ask me just tell me did the information if it with there was fiends and fire mine's involved and the credit bureaus requested or even if they didn't that that information get forward to the credit bureaus I I'm trying to assist sir I'm trying to work with you I yes right no works yes yes yes we pull the credit bureau for each one of these cards okay so what's Wells doing about fixing that problem be concise okay we are calling each credit card customer to find out if this truly was a card they wanted okay if they want it we don't want to take away their way their credit if they did not want this we're gonna go back and make sure that it's made right by the credit bureau and made right by the customer and what's the timeframe for that we already started that process okay so now this took five years it's been documented 2011 maybe even started before that but 2011 till fairly recently now if I had had a credit card issued in the first volley and in the meantime between 2011 and now I decided to buy a house and that information was reported to the credit bureau it could make you probably could know the figure but maybe a half a percent maybe more than that and on a $500,000 mortgage the difference between three and a half and four percent is 50 grand over 30 years what's being done about that we will look at each one of those and determine well you're gonna go back in and find out even if they didn't do business through Wells if they bought a house and what Wells did impact their credit rating you're gonna go back and find those folks I'm gonna go back we've we've committed to go back to all of our credit card customers and find out it what about the ones that got you we've refund all their fines you've refund all their fees you've went back the credit bureau and reestablished their credit rating as of today what about the folks that may have bought a house through Chase and got a higher interest rate because of it how you gonna find those you know we're working on that I've told our people go back and make it right and I can I can as we start going through that I'm happy to have our team come back and report to you how we're working it well I think it's really important that you that it's it's this is a big deal I mean it's a big data I know you feel bad about it we feel bad about it but the truth is is there's real-world implications here on young families and old families that are going to be put into a poverty situation because of this even though we think it's just a few hundred bucks and fees it's more than that much more than that so the you found out in 2013 and I don't want to beat this horse anymore but did you find out that they were actually setting up accounts with fraudulent signatures in 2013 you know I learned that some of our team members were not doing the right thing and they were opening accounts on customers and then we truncated that because it would seem to me that if you guys knew about that a simple edict would have been pretty helpful don't do this if you do this you're gone and that's we had even more than that and and and what we should have done is get rid of our incentive program so the last thing I'm this is just a statement it's not but I can tell you that you've said multiple times here that 5300 people went and that's basically 1 percent of your workforce every time you say that you give ammunition to the folks who want to break up the big banks fifty three hundred people or more people that live in most towns in Montana two million people is twice the population of the entire state this is a major screw-up that went on for far far far far too long and I think you know that but man there's going to be a lot of work that has to be done to rectify this situation if it ever can be rectified thank you you

Channel: Senator Jon Tester

Views: 27,044

Keywords: Jon, Tester, Senator, Montana, MT, MT-Sen, Sen., U.S., United, States, Senate, wells fargo, banking

Id: gBjqqs6FDuI

Length: 6min 9sec (369 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 20 2016