Goodbye Wells Fargo

I logged in to my Wells Fargo account online today. Oh, no, it won’t be the last time. It will take me, what, a week or two to move my money to a different institution after the recent scandal.

I was hoping the website would display how long I’ve been a customer. No, couldn’t find that anywhere. It’s probably been 15 years. Maybe more. I remember leaving my previous bank in my frustration with their increasing fees, decreasing customer service, and inability to support some of the basic online technologies of the day. Now, it’s Wells Fargo’s turn.

So… why am I leaving Wells Fargo?

I’m not leaving just because of the scandal. Sure the news coming out is pretty bad. Incredible pressure on their employees to meet unrealistic sales goals is pretty disgusting. But I’m not foolish enough to believe this is probably something unique to Wells Fargo.

No, I’m leaving because I just can’t stand by anymore when lower level employees are the fall guys while an executive runs away with $125 million dollar golden parachutes. If that’s not bad enough, Carrie Tolstedt is retiring with praise and called “a standard-bearer of our culture.” No, I’m not making this up.

Dating back to the 2008 financial crisis when the “too big to fail” institutions received huge bailouts and nobody responsible saw any major penalties, I’ve just had enough. I’m just incredibly tired of watching the people who make the decisions walk away scott free… or even worse end up with huge windfalls.

I know losing this piddly little account won’t really hurt this huge institution, but I can only do what I can do.

I won’t tell you exactly how I really feel, because there would be a lot of objectionable words in this letter.

Goodbye Wells Fargo.

EDIT:

To add insult to injury Wells Fargo sent me a spam email about how they didn’t have their finest hour and really appreciated my business. I replied and the email bounced back. Not an acct which accepts replies. Fail. You really suck @wellsfargo