An Open Letter To Charles Scharf, CEO of Wells Fargo.
Charles Sharf,
Congratulations on your new position as CEO of Wells Fargo. I think I can speak for many around the US who are looking to you as a beacon of hope for a better banking future. I’m the Founder of ALECIA.com who filed a lawsuit against Wells Fargo earlier this year. The lawsuit was filed after repeated attempts to resolve the problem were ignored by Wells Fargo, with management engaging in corporate gaslighting to avoid investigating the matter. Filing the lawsuit was not the way I wanted to rectify the situation, it was the very last thing I wanted to do. I believe that most of your customers share my feelings and do not want to sue you or drag you through a scandal… they want you to hear their concerns and fight for them, not against them. I’m requesting that you start by hearing me.
I became a customer of Wells Fargo, as a young, minority female who had founded a company in the tech space. The odds were already stacked heavily against me as only 2% of funding goes to founders like me. I was sleeping on an air mattress and fighting challenges at every turn. I had no idea that of all the things I would face, my biggest challenges would stem from opening accounts at Wells Fargo for checking/saving, ACH processing, and merchant services. In the months to follow, my company quickly grew to millions, passing a large number of transactions through the Wells Fargo network every month. Many of those transactions vanished, leaving millions in revenue misappropriated and unaccounted for to this day. I am still reeling from this reality. When I started the company, I never fathomed that it would be worth millions, but that I would never see those funds. I never imagined I would be forced to lay off a staff of 43 amazing people because the money for their paychecks would be suddenly unavailable. In no scenario, did I foresee that after incredible success, that I would end up back on an air mattress because my accounts could no longer be found. It never occurred to me the magnitude of collateral damage a banking relationship could cause.
I’m sure you recognize the widespread impact decisions of senior executives like you have on people every single day. In my case, a decision was made at the senior level to ignore my repeated and escalated requests for assistance regarding the situation. Management was made aware of the fraud and deliberately chose to cover it up instead of acting in my best interest. I’m just one person, one story and one business, yet that decision had a profound impact on the lives of hundreds of people and families. You are a family man, so please consider just how many families are hurting, because their bank ignored their pleas and failed to act in their best interest. I’m requesting that you do everything in your power to make this right.
My situation could have been prevented had the employees of Wells Fargo been encouraged and incentivized to support their customers, instead of exploiting them. I imagine things would look very different if the employee who opened my accounts, didn’t care if I had one account or three accounts. We probably wouldn’t be in this legal battle had management been incentivized and rewarded for reporting and combating the fraud on my accounts, instead of engaging in gaslighting to cover it up.
You have the opportunity to set a new standard and redefine what banking at Wells Fargo means for its customers. You have the power to make the bank one that is trustworthy again. Your customers and the entire financial industry are eagerly waiting to see what you do next, and even though it might not seem so, we are all rooting for you.
Sincerely,
Alecia Vimala
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