Wells Fargo & Company (WFC) announced the expansion of its class-action settlement for retail sales practices to include any customers who were impacted by sales practice issues as early as May 2002. The updated settlement will add $32M to the previous agreement for a total settlement amount of $142M.
“The expansion of this agreement is another important step to make things right for our customers,” said Tim Sloan, Wells Fargo's President and CEO. “On our journey to rebuild trust, we want to ensure our customers feel confident that we have heard their concerns about retail sales practices, which includes offering them numerous opportunities for remediation. We encourage any customer with concerns or questions about their accounts to contact us.”
The settlement builds on ongoing remediation efforts Wells Fargo is pursuing for customers who may have been impacted by sales practice issues. The company is working directly with customers to resolve issues through its complaints process. In addition, if Wells Fargo is unable to resolve issues directly, customers who believe they received a product or service they did not want or authorize are offered a free mediation service with an independent third-party mediator. Wells Fargo has submitted the class-action settlement agreement and summary of claims process in the Northern District of California to settle the lawsuit concerning retail sales practices. The updated settlement agreement takes into account findings from the Sales Practices Investigation conducted by the independent board directors of Wells Fargo. The settlement class now will consist of all customers who claim that Wells Fargo opened an account in their name without consent, enrolled them in a product or service without consent, or submitted an application for a product or service in their name without consent during the period from May 1, 2002, through April 20, 2017.
Wells Fargo expects this settlement to resolve claims in 11 other pending class actions that unauthorized accounts were opened in customers' names or that customers were enrolled in products or services without their consent.
