Wells Fargo employees were creating fake accounts in customers’ names without their authorization as early as 2005, according to a letter obtained by Vice News. The letter comes from a former branch manager at a Washington state-based Wells Fargo Branch and was written in January 2006. Wells Fargo recently paid fines totaling $185 million for the creation of 2 million unauthorized accounts since 2011. The bank has said that it will investigate additional unauthorized accounts opened in 2010 and 2009, but it has not acknowledged that such a practice occurred as early as 2005.
Former branch manager Dennis Hambek wrote the 2006 letter to Carrie Tolstedt, who was Wells Fargo’s head of regional banking at the time.
