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| Wells Fargo paid a massive fine for opening millions of fraudulent customer accounts. |
Commercial banks don't have your best interests in mind. They serve the interests of their owners, the big banking companies or their investors. You can buy stock in a commercial bank and feel like a millionaire but you have no say in how they conduct business or treat their customers.
As a member of a credit union I at least get to vote for or against the board of directors. I could also apply to run for the board. I don't have any illusions of running a credit union. But I do understand that they don't have corporate masters. Credit unions exist to serve their members' interests. You still have to live with what works best for the greater good, but you're treated better by a credit union.
I can't understand why any decent person would want to work for a company that pressures its employees into committing fraud. I've heard some people say the employees who were fired were scapegoats. Maybe they couldn't afford to quit their jobs because the economy hasn't fully recovered yet. But they should have stood up for what's right. Now that they've been fired anyway what did they gain by staying around and committing fraud?
Yes, it's easy for me to judge people I don't know. For that I apologize as much as I can. I just don't like the way Wells Fargo treats its customers. When I was banking with them I never knew how many new fees would hit my account. It was like they dreamed up ways to cheat me out of money. "Hey, this guy deposited $1000 at 4 PM but we processed a check he wrote at 8 AM. Let's hit him with an insufficient funds charge!"
There should be a law against banks charging their customers any fees they don't pre-authorize. I never authorized anyone to charge me an NSF fee on checks I covered with deposits.
There is more to this story than meets the eye. Why do investors look away when their companies commit crimes? The people who owned Wells Fargo stock when this was going on should be forced to pay penalties. The investors who bought the stock only after the company was caught but before the news broke are the ones who are being hurt most. Isn't that unfair to them? Shouldn't that be a crime?
I can say I have never owned a bank stock. I don't want any part of the commercial banking system. Okay, being in a credit union makes me part of the larger banking system. What I mean is that I don't want to be associated with the banks that intentionally hurt consumers' credit and personal finances.
No one forces bank executives to be evil. They just seem to like being that way.
