Wells Fargo Slapped With Another Big Fine for Overcharging Customers

Wells Fargo was hit with another big fine Friday, this time for overcharging customers who used its investment advisory services.

The Securities and Exchange Commission fined the embattled bank $35 million for charging more than 10,900 investment advisory accounts $26.8 million in excessive fees, the agency said Friday.

The excessive fees stem from Wells' 2008 merger with Wachovia Securities. Wells Fargo got about 891,000 advisory accounts from Wachovia and it had roughly $1.3 trillion assets under management following the merger.

According to the SEC, Wells didn't record the proper billing rates for new advisory accounts and didn't have policies and procedures in place to confirm the accuracy of new account information.

Wells Fargo allegedly learned of the fee billing issues in fall 2018, and found that it had overcharged certain clients, according to the SEC.

Earlier this month, Wells Fargo was fined $125 million by the SEC for allowing employees to use “off-channel” communications like Apple's iMessage and WhatsApp to conduct business. Along with other firms, fines totaled nearly $550 million.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in December ordered the bank to pay $3.7 billion over illegally assessed fees and interest charges and other widespread mismanagement.

In September 2021, Wells Fargo paid $72.6 million to settle a civil fraud lawsuit levied against it by the U.S. government for fraudulently charging customers who used the bank’s foreign exchange service.