Speaker 1: Folks, welcome back. We've got a classic episode for you.
Speaker 1: This one is proudly not brought to you by Wells Fargo.
Speaker 2: Unless it is.
Speaker 1: Unless it is, and they.
Speaker 3: Haven't heard this.
Speaker 1: The story of one of the most popular retail banks
Speaker 1: in the United States definitely gave a couple of US
Speaker 1: Acrossroads come to Jesus moment where we got into the story.
Speaker 1: But back in twenty twenty, we, like so many other people,
Speaker 1: learned that Wells Fargo had an entire side business doing
Speaker 1: some highly illegal grifts.
Speaker 3: And when we did this exploration, I vowed to take
Speaker 3: my business elsewhere, and I'm still with Wells Fargo to
Speaker 3: this day. Out of sheer laziness.
Speaker 2: First National Bank of Atlanta into Wakovia, into Wells Fargo exactly.
Speaker 1: And a lot of people ended up in Wells Fargo because,
Speaker 1: like I saying, they just got snapped up by an
Speaker 1: increasingly gigantic Leviathan of finance. And I missed Wakovia because
Speaker 1: the name sounded like a sneetz.
Speaker 3: It was nice to say, you're gonna call you.
Speaker 1: These boks were made for COVID and that's just what anyway. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll get to this classic episode afterword from our sponsors.
Speaker 4: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 4: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 4: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 4: production of Iheartrading.
Speaker 2: Hello, Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Noah.
Speaker 1: They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
Speaker 1: our super producer Paul. Mission control decands, most importantly, you
Speaker 1: are you. You are here, and that makes this stuff
Speaker 1: they don't want you to know. Quick check in. I
Speaker 1: think this is the first time any of us have
Speaker 1: spoken today, or at least Matt, you and Knowle, it's
Speaker 1: the first time spoken with you. Paul and I go
Speaker 1: way back today. How's it going, guys, It's.
Speaker 2: Going really well. Having all kinds of interesting phone calls
Speaker 2: with people that I've never met until today. So this
Speaker 2: is just a day of new things.
Speaker 3: Really anything to write home about. Not yet, No, I
Speaker 3: see very cryptic.
Speaker 1: Matt. I like it.
Speaker 3: I'm intrigued. I too have had some unusual phone calls
Speaker 3: with people that I have never met and may never meet.
Speaker 3: Who knows if I'll ever even leave my house again.
Speaker 3: But I'd like to think that there is a future
Speaker 3: where I will be able to get on an airplane
Speaker 3: once again, because that's fun. It's fun to go other places.
Speaker 3: We'll see what happens.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm actually doing some doing some runs later today
Speaker 1: to you know, if people are immunocompromise, it's a tremendously
Speaker 1: bad idea for them to leave their house, even if
Speaker 1: they're in an area like George where the local leadership
Speaker 1: is attempting to open up various businesses and institutions. So
Speaker 1: I'm going to go do some no contact drop offs.
Speaker 1: If you are immunocompromised, please please, please, still don't go outside,
Speaker 1: even if everything else is open. It's just not worth it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Guy, I know in Brooklyn who got COVID nineteen.
Speaker 3: It was a mild case, but he just got the
Speaker 3: go ahead from his doctor to leave the house. And
Speaker 3: he pos his birthday today. Actually, yeah, so happy birthday.
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna say his name because he may not
Speaker 3: want people to know that he had the thing, but
Speaker 3: happy birthday to you, my friend, and really glad to
Speaker 3: see you get out. And he had he had a
Speaker 3: mask on, was keeping it super safe. But yeah, it's
Speaker 3: gotta be tough, you know, just like having that level
Speaker 3: of isolation, especially if someone lives by themselves.
Speaker 1: And speaking of crises, it's safe to say that our
Speaker 1: current financial system, like many individuals in the world today,
Speaker 1: is in a state of crisis. This is yet another
Speaker 1: crisis for the financial system. By the way, I think,
Speaker 1: by the time people reach the age of let's say,
Speaker 1: I don't know, arbitrarily eighteen, they've already experienced several huge
Speaker 1: behamoths of financial crisis. But individuals in countries around the
Speaker 1: world right now are being told to shore up their
Speaker 1: finances and they're being chastised for quote unquote poor financial planning,
Speaker 1: while at the same time, billion dollar corporations are getting
Speaker 1: bailed out left, right, over and under. Some people would
Speaker 1: call this the way of the world. Some would call
Speaker 1: it a series of conspiracies. Yet the world of finance
Speaker 1: and conspiracy, they're inextricably intertwined. You know, you could even
Speaker 1: say the concept of money itself is a conspiracy. As
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, we have said that on previous episodes,
Speaker 1: and I stick to my guns on banks have been
Speaker 1: accused of multitudes of financial crimes, many conspiracies, and even
Speaker 1: at times assisting with things like government overthrows or cup d'tas.
Speaker 1: This is not to say that all banks are all
Speaker 1: bad right for now, they are a necessity. Billions and
Speaker 1: billions of people rely on banks in some way, and
Speaker 1: in turn, those banks rely on those billions of customers.
Speaker 1: That's the official story. If this were a mural or
Speaker 1: a portrait, that's the background, that's where that's happening. But
Speaker 1: there's more to the episode, of course, and to get
Speaker 1: you to the point of today's episode, we have to
Speaker 1: first briefly explain how banks work. It sounds super simple,
Speaker 1: but there are a few misconceptions we need to bust
Speaker 1: and there's some things that we'll discuss that might surprise you,
Speaker 1: but don't take our word for it. Here are the facts.
Speaker 2: Yes, the bank itself, the institution, the thing that we
Speaker 2: all rely on, really is one big trust fall. A
Speaker 2: bank is really only a thing, an idea concept that
Speaker 2: works as long as everyone believes it does what it
Speaker 2: does right. It's a lot like currency in general. If
Speaker 2: you don't believe that thing in your pocket perhaps or
Speaker 2: laying in a drawer somewhere, that weird paper like substance
Speaker 2: that has some images on it, If you don't believe
Speaker 2: that thing is worth what it's worth, then it is
Speaker 2: in a thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like fairies. Like if you don't believe in
Speaker 3: tinker Bell, then she dies, you know.
Speaker 2: Kind of yes, So let's talk about what we all
Speaker 2: believe a bank is and does. Officially, it's a quote
Speaker 2: institution that deals in money, and it substitutes and provides
Speaker 2: other financial services. So really think about it this way.
Speaker 2: Banks take in deposits money and then they loan out
Speaker 2: money and drive a profit from the difference in the
Speaker 2: interest rates that are paid and charged respectively. So when
Speaker 2: you think about that, like how much money they can
Speaker 2: make by lending money out and then charging interest on
Speaker 2: that money they're lending. But the big thing here to
Speaker 2: remember is that in order to have money to lend out,
Speaker 2: they have to be taking money in.
Speaker 3: But make no mistake, I mean, the bank isn't really
Speaker 3: built for you. I mean it's a business. It's designed
Speaker 3: to make money for the shareholders. So it's primary function
Speaker 3: really isn't to be some sort of you know, safe
Speaker 3: haven for your money. That's almost like an afterthought. You're
Speaker 3: really just feeding the machine with your money and then
Speaker 3: they're investing it as they see fit. Essentially, that's an
Speaker 3: oversimplified view of it. But yeah, you deposit money. When
Speaker 3: you do, your money goes into this massive pool along
Speaker 3: with everybody else's money, and then your account is credited
Speaker 3: with the amount of your deposit, so you're able to
Speaker 3: draw on that account to pay bills and write checks,
Speaker 3: et cetera. Who still writes checks. I had to get
Speaker 3: a single check the other day because I had to
Speaker 3: pay off my car and I had to go to
Speaker 3: the bank to get one check. It's the weirdest thing.
Speaker 3: But yeah, that amounts to deducted from your account balance,
Speaker 3: and you can, you know, theoretically earn interest on that balance. Uh,
Speaker 3: and that can actually be added back to your account.
Speaker 3: This is all kind of one oh one banking basics here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I called it day one stuff because that's the
Speaker 1: primary misconception that I want to bust here. The primary
Speaker 1: function of a bank is not you as an individual customer.
Speaker 1: And although it may sound basic, it may sound like
Speaker 1: day one stuff, it is a huge misconception that is
Speaker 1: very distressingly common. The bank's primary purpose, as far as
Speaker 1: you are concerned, is just to take money from you,
Speaker 1: whether that's money you deposit, whether that's money that you
Speaker 1: pay on a loan in principle or in interest where banks,
Speaker 1: you know, want to make more more revenue. That's what
Speaker 1: that's what you are. You know, that's what you are,
Speaker 1: and you can We've talked about this in previous episodes.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to learn more about the nuts and
Speaker 1: bolts of this the banking system, especially here in the US,
Speaker 1: do check out our earlier explorations of the FED the
Speaker 1: Federal Reserve for more details. That's the gist. The amount
Speaker 1: of interest that you get on your checking account or
Speaker 1: your savings account. In the big picture, it's peanuts. It's
Speaker 1: better than nothing, but it's peanuts. Bank customers matter the
Speaker 1: absolute most when we take out loans and pay interest
Speaker 1: on those, or in a panic situation, in a worst
Speaker 1: case scenario for a bank, when every customer of a
Speaker 1: bank wants their money back in cash all at once,
Speaker 1: because you see, yeah, you see, the banks won't have it.
Speaker 1: They just won't have it.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's essentially I mean not to be de
Speaker 3: reductionist about it, but it reminds me of a Ponzi scheme.
Speaker 3: The whole thing is like a paying Peter to robbing
Speaker 3: from Peter to pay Paul scenario. Although it's all under
Speaker 3: the guise of being legitimate. I mean, if you go
Speaker 3: back and say I want my money, shouldn't you be
Speaker 3: able to get your mind? But if everyone does it
Speaker 3: at the same time, then it's not going to work out.
Speaker 3: And yet we trust in this system because it's somehow
Speaker 3: backed by some kind of promise by the government or
Speaker 3: the FDIC or what have you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's what's happening in Russia right now as
Speaker 1: we record this, which is just for peak behind the
Speaker 1: curtain right at the very end of April twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: So this can happen again countries around the world. Has
Speaker 1: happened in the US as well. So you might be
Speaker 1: asking yourself rightly, Okay, guys, if this is all true,
Speaker 1: and we assure you it is, then why am I,
Speaker 1: as an individual checking account holder important at all? Right?
Speaker 1: If I don't have a loan, if I don't have
Speaker 1: a mortgage, why do I matter? Well there are two reasons. First,
Speaker 1: as we established earlier, banks are using your money, specifically
Speaker 1: your money sometimes even if you're not working with the bank,
Speaker 1: which is weird but true. And second, and this is
Speaker 1: just basic sales psychology. Once people choose a bank, they
Speaker 1: tend to stick with that bank. So if you're the
Speaker 1: average person with a checking account at one bank, you
Speaker 1: are far far more likely to have a credit card
Speaker 1: account with them, a savings account or alone with them
Speaker 1: as well. And these accounts all have differing terms, and
Speaker 1: depending on a ton of mitigating factors, one person may
Speaker 1: have a much better deal than another. Right, some people
Speaker 1: have credit cards with maybe what like nine percent interests,
Speaker 1: and other people have credit cards with like twenty five
Speaker 1: point nine to nine percent interests. There's a lot in play,
Speaker 1: and we should add a customer with a line of
Speaker 1: credit and a line of savings. From the bank's perspective,
Speaker 1: you are far more profitable than an ordinary Jenny or
Speaker 1: Jack who just has a checking account.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's true. And it's also people often are a
Speaker 3: little bit lazy, and they might not shop around for
Speaker 3: a better rate, or you know, they might get that
Speaker 3: zero interest, you know, introductory deal and then forget to
Speaker 3: pay it off when the rate gets jacked up to
Speaker 3: like twenty percent or some ungodly And honestly, I'm not
Speaker 3: to that degree, but I'm one of those in terms
Speaker 3: of laziness. I have had a bank account that has
Speaker 3: changed hands like three times throughout the course of my
Speaker 3: my financial life, and I'm just kind of stuck with
Speaker 3: whatever it ended up being, you know, just because it's
Speaker 3: a pain in the butt to like close your bank
Speaker 3: account and start over and redo all your cards and
Speaker 3: all that stuff. And I think the banks are kind
Speaker 3: of a they're sort of capitalizing on that, right, people
Speaker 3: being stuck in a routine and being a one stop
Speaker 3: shop and just being easier to stick with what they
Speaker 3: know than to go maybe shop for a better deal.
Speaker 2: I yes, and you know, I'm in actually a pretty
Speaker 2: similar situation. Tool. And the last time I had to
Speaker 2: go into the bank, I noticed something, and it was
Speaker 2: that the person I was speaking with it wasn't just
Speaker 2: a teller, it was, you know, a banker. You know,
Speaker 2: if you, if anyone has ever had that experience where
Speaker 2: you want.
Speaker 1: One you go in the office or on a desk.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And what I was attempting to do was
Speaker 2: open a new account with them, because I've been an
Speaker 2: account holder for a while and I wanted to open
Speaker 2: a new specialized checking account. And what happened was, rather
Speaker 2: than just having that conversation opening that account, having that
Speaker 2: one transaction, they were attempting to get me to open
Speaker 2: a credit card with them. They were attempting to get
Speaker 2: me to change over a mortgage to them and do
Speaker 2: all these other things and insurance. Yes, and it's something
Speaker 2: that I'm assuming is pretty common throughout the banking world.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 3: Selling.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the concept is so common that there is a
Speaker 1: name for it in the industry. It's called cross selling.
Speaker 1: It started out as an internal term, but now, for
Speaker 1: reasons that will will become abundantly clear in a few minutes,
Speaker 1: it is a term that is in the public sphere.
Speaker 1: Success for okay, so Wells Fargo or Wacovia or you know,
Speaker 1: five Thirds Bank or whatever, any bank that you used,
Speaker 1: any bank that you walk into and have a checking
Speaker 1: account with and so on. Those are what's called retail banks.
Speaker 1: And for a long time, success at retail banks was
Speaker 1: measured by how successful the bankers or even the people
Speaker 1: on the phone were at cross selling. And that's encouraging
Speaker 1: a customer, Remember our Jenny or Jack with one checking
Speaker 1: account to open up multiple other accounts to be fair.
Speaker 1: This also happens if you have like a credit card
Speaker 1: with Bank of America or something, they're like, hey, make
Speaker 1: a savings account with us right ever thought of buying
Speaker 1: a boat, et cetera. This idea is an invention credited
Speaker 1: to a single man. His name is Richard Kovikchik's he
Speaker 1: was a Wells Fargo CEO. He's a guy who reputedly
Speaker 1: came up with the idea of cross selling during his
Speaker 1: time as a CEO at Northwest Corporation. And we've got
Speaker 1: a thing from an interview he had in nineteen ninety eight,
Speaker 1: I think with Vanity Fair maybe where he summarizes his
Speaker 1: idea and it sounds normal now, but when he said it,
Speaker 1: it was pretty innovative.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he really kind of changed the lingo of banking.
Speaker 3: He started referring to branch employees or the idea of tellers.
Speaker 3: I called them salespeople, and consumers referred to them as
Speaker 3: customers rather than clients. And another one that I've heard
Speaker 3: that I have no doubt sprang from the same kind
Speaker 3: of shift was all of the various products that the
Speaker 3: bank can sell you, you know, like these credit cards are products.
Speaker 3: All of these up cells or these cross sells you're
Speaker 3: talking about are referred to as products, which I find
Speaker 3: very strange. You know, it's such a non tangible thing.
Speaker 3: Like insurance being a product.
Speaker 2: Well, and just from personal experience, there are so many
Speaker 2: different kinds of products that these retail banks offer customers
Speaker 2: that seem extremely similar. But there's like seven different kinds
Speaker 2: of checking account, there's like six different kinds of savings
Speaker 2: accounts and all this other stuff. And it's also that
Speaker 2: you can offer exactly what the customer needs or the Yeah,
Speaker 2: the customer or not the client.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's pre convenience.
Speaker 3: No, it's definitely not. You guys. It reminds me of
Speaker 3: when I got my car loan a handful of years
Speaker 3: ago and like they made me, you know, this this
Speaker 3: offer of this interest rate and it was like higher
Speaker 3: than I thought I should be offered because I have
Speaker 3: really good credit. And then I was gonna walk away,
Speaker 3: and they said, oh ho ho, wait a minute, now,
Speaker 3: we didn't know you. If we just told us you
Speaker 3: wanted it low, that we would have I'm like, what, like,
Speaker 3: just offer me the rate that I am do based
Speaker 3: on my score, Like why are you trying to nickel
Speaker 3: and die me. It's the same thing. And this was
Speaker 3: through a small community bank, but it was all like,
Speaker 3: you know, at the hands of these kind of sleazy
Speaker 3: car dealers. Not not to malign all card dealer. I'm
Speaker 3: sure many of you are great, most of you even,
Speaker 3: but this one in particular, I felt very kind of
Speaker 3: bent over a bearl a little bit, and I got
Speaker 3: them down to where I wanted to be, but I
Speaker 3: felt kind of ichy. The whole thing made me feel
Speaker 3: like I didn't want to do business with them anymore.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's gonna The anecdote I always think of
Speaker 1: is like, imagine you walk into a fast food restaurant
Speaker 1: and you order, I don't know, a cheeseburger, and they're like,
Speaker 1: all right, do you want poop on your cheeseburger? Why?
Speaker 1: Why is that part of the conversation now, I don't
Speaker 1: even want the burger cheez.
Speaker 2: Well, look, we got to get rid of all this
Speaker 2: poop somehow, and you know, if you'll accept it on
Speaker 2: your burger, then you know we're getting rid of it
Speaker 2: in that way and you're getting what you want.
Speaker 1: We'll give you a loyalty card, how about an Amazon
Speaker 1: gift card? So that's I mean, it's true. No, you know,
Speaker 1: I had to I had to interject a little like
Speaker 1: I think it could be advertised as convenience this plethora
Speaker 1: of options I'm using over correctly. Yeah, but I think
Speaker 1: what it's I think what it's really meant to do
Speaker 1: is to make things inconvenient, to make it more difficult
Speaker 1: to find the right deal. The options are are cane
Speaker 1: by design, you know, just like a life insurance or
Speaker 1: just like a A lot of medical insurance or health
Speaker 1: insurance plans function that way. That's just a that's just
Speaker 1: a byproduct of private industry trying to maximize profit because
Speaker 1: a lot of people won't do the research. Well's fargo.
Speaker 1: It was really really good at this. They were considered
Speaker 1: for some time and not insignificant amount of time, the
Speaker 1: best cross seller in the retail banking game. But there
Speaker 1: was one problem, I know, just one.
Speaker 2: Maybe you know why there's a problem then, yes, why
Speaker 2: because imagine if you're the best seller at something, now,
Speaker 2: imagine your numbers are on a really nice trajectory upwards. Now,
Speaker 2: in order for you to maintain profitability and to increase
Speaker 2: year over year, like increase, you have to continue your
Speaker 2: track rate as the best seller, right, and then over achieve.
Speaker 3: Not to mention, you want to get that set of
Speaker 3: steak knives, you know, and the coffee is for closers.
Speaker 3: So you want to get coffee, you don't want to
Speaker 3: get cut off. You need that stuff to sell, right.
Speaker 1: It's the unsustainable, unsustainable growth model, exponential growth model of
Speaker 1: capitalism year over year, and it applies to a lot
Speaker 1: of industries. So I mean, that's what I was going
Speaker 1: to say. I said there was one problem, but really
Speaker 1: there were millions of problems. You see Wells Fargo and
Speaker 1: other banks. We're getting a lot of new accounts, getting
Speaker 1: a lot of new customers, cross selling. But these accounts,
Speaker 1: it turns out, were made up out of thin air.
Speaker 1: What are we talking about. We'll tell you after we'd
Speaker 1: from our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy. So let's
Speaker 1: say you don't have enough accounts, Well, well, why don't
Speaker 1: you make them up? As early as twenty eleven, still
Speaker 1: like nine years ago, easily, outfits like the Wall Street
Speaker 1: Journal started noting this enormous internal pressure that Wells Fargo
Speaker 1: was exerting on everybody from the bank manager level on down.
Speaker 1: They were supposed to measure up to these incredibly difficult
Speaker 1: sales quotas, these cross selling quotas. These were cartoonishly implausible.
Speaker 1: Vanity Fair in fact noted that several of these goals
Speaker 1: were proven to be literally mathematically impossible to achieve. That's nuts. Like,
Speaker 1: even if you pitched everything to everyone, every single customer
Speaker 1: got every single offer possible and they all said yes,
Speaker 1: you still wouldn't meet the quota at some points.
Speaker 3: That's crazy.
Speaker 2: That's crazy, It really is so so. Imagine that you
Speaker 2: are let's say a bank manager or one of the
Speaker 2: main salespersons at you know, bankers, or just salesperson at
Speaker 2: the bank. Imagine that you are aware that you are
Speaker 2: expected to sell x number of new accounts or open
Speaker 2: x number of new accounts, and you only you know,
Speaker 2: you see, like you literally physically see x minus fifty
Speaker 2: people a day, right, so you know that there's no
Speaker 2: way you're going to do that, There's no possible way.
Speaker 2: What do you do when you know your job is
Speaker 2: on the line. That number is directly related to how
Speaker 2: well you do, if you can get a raise at
Speaker 2: some point, if you can keep your job even well.
Speaker 2: They started doing something that they weren't supposed to do,
Speaker 2: and that's just opening new accounts that would count towards
Speaker 2: their quota but wouldn't actually be tied to somebody who
Speaker 2: wanted an account.
Speaker 3: Wait a minute, Wait a minute, isn't that called fraud?
Speaker 1: Ding ding ding? Yes, it is. Indeed there was. There's
Speaker 1: a guy named Dennis Hambeck who once upon a time
Speaker 1: was an employee at Wells Fargo. Now this guy had
Speaker 1: extensive banking experience, was his career. He got into banking
Speaker 1: as a young cat before all these massive consolidations, right
Speaker 1: before the financial whales starts swallowing the other smaller financial fish,
Speaker 1: and well, whales are mammals. But you get it, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm talking about. So he said this in
Speaker 1: a quote, just to hammer home that point that you made, Matt,
Speaker 1: about how intense this pressure was. He said, every morning
Speaker 1: we had a conference call all with the managers. You
Speaker 1: were supposed to tell them how you were going to
Speaker 1: make your sales goal for the day, and if you didn't,
Speaker 1: you had to call them back in the afternoon explain
Speaker 1: how you why you didn't make it, and how you
Speaker 1: were going to fix it. It was really tense. Uh
Speaker 1: So you can imagine that, you know, there's a little
Speaker 1: problematic if we're being.
Speaker 3: A terrible place to work, as almost as though it
Speaker 3: would drive you to do something untoward m exactly.
Speaker 1: Nol it's it's like, think about this, like, imagine you
Speaker 1: go to uh, let's say your your local hardware store,
Speaker 1: and you're planning to buy a leaf blower and a
Speaker 1: screwdriver Phillips flathead, it doesn't matter for this example, but whatever,
Speaker 1: whichever one you like most, you're supposed to get them.
Speaker 1: You pay for them, and you're gonna get them delivered. Later,
Speaker 1: you learned that the store did not just sell you
Speaker 1: a leaf blower and your favorite screwdriver. They also sold
Speaker 1: you a chainsaw, around two cases of blue power Aid,
Speaker 1: maybe some outdated lamp fixtures, and they threw it along
Speaker 1: gnome and they charged you in some way for all
Speaker 1: of it. And now imagine that delivery took months or
Speaker 1: years and you didn't find out about it until much later.
Speaker 1: This sounds silly, right, It's like an arrested development sitcom
Speaker 1: esque thing, but that's pretty much what happened in this scenario.
Speaker 1: In real life, this happened to people at Wells Fargo.
Speaker 2: Yes, Ben, the the routers and Poweraid example feels like
Speaker 2: it's out there, but we assure you it is not
Speaker 2: that different. So let's imagine one of those individual employees
Speaker 2: knowing they have to make this quota. So let's say
Speaker 2: they're talking to you on the phone as a customer
Speaker 2: and they convince you to take out a large loan,
Speaker 2: let's say, let's say a ten thousand dollars loan. They
Speaker 2: convince you to do that with the caveat that they're
Speaker 2: going to immediately repay you five thousand dollars or like
Speaker 2: pay off five thousand dollars of that loan. So really
Speaker 2: you're only taking out a five thousand dollars loan, but
Speaker 2: on paper, and according to the bank, they're going to
Speaker 2: get credit for taking out a ten thousand dollars loan,
Speaker 2: and it's just a way for them to sustain themselves
Speaker 2: within the banking infrastructure. And that is most certainly an
Speaker 2: unsustainable thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's I like the point you made about
Speaker 1: Ponzi's scheme. No, that was occurring to me as well,
Speaker 1: because it very much is an unsustainable growth situation. Things
Speaker 1: start to crack. In two thousand and five, there's a
Speaker 1: customer named Bill Moore and he goes to Dennis Hanbeck,
Speaker 1: who he mentioned earlier, and he's he's befuddled, and he's
Speaker 1: kind of indignant because he says, hey, Dennis, I see
Speaker 1: that I have a checking account and a savings account,
Speaker 1: and they like date back to five years ago. I
Speaker 1: didn't ask for them, and I don't want them. And
Speaker 1: so Hambick, being a stand up guy, is on the case.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's interesting. I mean, really is doing
Speaker 3: some pretty serious, serious slewth thing. He looks into it
Speaker 3: and discovers that the banker who opened those accounts, as
Speaker 3: you typically need to have with opening an account, there
Speaker 3: was a driver's license number that was entered as more
Speaker 3: WF zero zero zero zero zero, which sounds like a
Speaker 3: really wonky like vanity license plate if you ask me.
Speaker 3: And to boot. The date of issuance was January first,
Speaker 3: two thousand, which was a holiday when the Department of
Speaker 3: Licensing of Washington State would have been closed. And Hamback
Speaker 3: is not letting this go. He kind of is getting
Speaker 3: the brush off for management. So Hamback retires. I think
Speaker 3: he was just kind of fed up because he you know,
Speaker 3: he was the one that was looking into this, and
Speaker 3: he was the one that was finding some very fishy evidence,
Speaker 3: and he wanted to avoid being fired for not resorting
Speaker 3: to these kinds of fraudulent activities in order to make
Speaker 3: those unrealistic expectations, and Ben I wanted to mention, I mean,
Speaker 3: so it's not like management specifically instructed employees to do
Speaker 3: this to break the law, but more or less implied that,
Speaker 3: you know, put up or shut up, like you're out
Speaker 3: if you don't meet these expectations. It's sort of like
Speaker 3: there was a big cheating scandal in Georgia public schools
Speaker 3: years ago, and it was because of unrealistic expectations for
Speaker 3: standardized tests. And while you know, obviously you can't condone
Speaker 3: the cheating, you understand why some of these teachers might
Speaker 3: have done that because they felt pressured to meet these standards.
Speaker 3: But again, it's not like they're superiors instructed them to cheat.
Speaker 3: Is that similar here, benus were making these decisions on
Speaker 3: their own.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they were heavily incentivized to make those decisions. I think.
Speaker 1: I think that's a great comparisonal because the thing about
Speaker 1: it is it would be illegal for the banks and
Speaker 1: the executors to come out and say, look, make up
Speaker 1: these accounts and break the law. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: you know, we said Hamback refused to play the game.
Speaker 1: It's interesting in official company literature, this kind of unethical
Speaker 1: behavior is referred to literally as gaming, and so they
Speaker 1: can't They won't ever compromise themselves by saying, you know,
Speaker 1: go break numerous financial laws. They'll just say, hey, why
Speaker 1: aren't you meeting these sales quotas your job is in jeopardy,
Speaker 1: And usually that's all the incentive people need.
Speaker 3: But to your point, Ben, they almost laid out how
Speaker 3: to do it by having it in their company literature
Speaker 3: as a thing you should not do, and even give
Speaker 3: it a name. I think that's pretty interesting and teachable here.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's just like the frozen grape concentrate from
Speaker 1: the days of prohibition that said do not do the
Speaker 1: following steps because it will result in fermentation and make
Speaker 1: wine number one. You know, it's exactly like that. And
Speaker 1: to quote to quote Yates from the Second Coming, the
Speaker 1: Center could not hold right, or to paraphrase them, this
Speaker 1: was unsustainable and very very soon things would fall apart.
Speaker 1: Will explore the fallout which continues today. After a word
Speaker 1: from our sponsors.
Speaker 3: And we're back talking more about banking, because it's it's
Speaker 3: not as boring as it might seem. You guys, there's
Speaker 3: some pretty shady stuff going on at Wells Fargo their
Speaker 3: own analysis that they did between twenty eleven twenty fifteen
Speaker 3: found that it's employees that opened more than one point
Speaker 3: five million deposit accounts and more than five hundred and
Speaker 3: sixty five thousand credit card accounts that may or may
Speaker 3: not have actually been real. Uh, but then we can't forget.
Speaker 3: And this is always the point that I but when
Speaker 3: I thought back on this story, these weren't like made
Speaker 3: up identities. These were like duplicate accounts of real people.
Speaker 3: How did they think this was? That they were gonna
Speaker 3: get away with this for very long? It just seems
Speaker 3: like such a desperate move, which clearly it was.
Speaker 2: It feels like one of those things that you get
Speaker 2: away with until you can't, and you you sustain what
Speaker 2: you've got and how everything is going until it all
Speaker 2: falls apart. It's building that house of cards situation where
Speaker 2: you know, at some point the bill comes due, but
Speaker 2: it's not going to be today or tomorrow.
Speaker 3: Probably.
Speaker 1: It's like the boiler Room. You remember that film? Mm hmm, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I just liked the boiler Room. Oh I'm
Speaker 1: that But you're right, So some customers, obviously we're gonna
Speaker 1: find out about this because some of those accounts opened
Speaker 1: in their names had fees, so they would get they
Speaker 1: would be asked to pay these fees on accounts that,
Speaker 1: as far as they knew, did not exist. Some customers
Speaker 1: even had collections agencies calling them due to these unpaid
Speaker 1: fees because again they didn't know that the accounts existed.
Speaker 1: They weren't getting notified of the fees. Even the first
Speaker 1: time they would find out about one of these fraudulent
Speaker 1: accounts is when they were getting shaken down by a
Speaker 1: collections agency. So just imagine what that does to your
Speaker 1: credit as well. This has lasting financial consequence for people totally.
Speaker 3: And I mean I think that, you know, I'm just
Speaker 3: guessing here that Wells Fargo employees were banking on the
Speaker 3: fact that, you know, a lot of these fees are
Speaker 3: little nickel and dime fees here and there that you
Speaker 3: might not even notice. I certainly don't scan through my
Speaker 3: bank ledger and try to pick, you know, pick out
Speaker 3: every single little fee or whatever. I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: I definitely glance at it from time to time, but
Speaker 3: I don't go through it with like a fine tooth comb.
Speaker 3: And it's such a negligible amount. It's not like you
Speaker 3: take a big hit to your bank account and all
Speaker 3: of a sudden thake, something's up, right.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm gonna do immediately following this episode,
Speaker 2: go through that bank account.
Speaker 1: Yeah, fine, tooth a lot of people while you're there.
Speaker 1: Go ahead and check just in general, fellow listeners, go
Speaker 1: ahead and check your cell phone bill. See what kind
Speaker 1: of service charges have just popped up over time. And definitely,
Speaker 1: I'll say it, I'm not get in trouble for this,
Speaker 1: but definitely keep an eye on Comcast. They are, you know,
Speaker 1: they're they're voted again number one most hated company in
Speaker 1: the US. That's not my opinion, that's a fact.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just whoever your ISP is, really it doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: Just check it.
Speaker 2: Check all those bills, keep.
Speaker 1: An eye on them because those plans change, right, They're
Speaker 1: meant to change in ways that you might not be
Speaker 1: aware of unless you are paying mindful attention. So this gaming,
Speaker 1: as they called it, this unethical behavior, was so ubiquitous
Speaker 1: that it even created related kind of terms, slang terms internally.
Speaker 1: There's one called pinning, and that meant assigning customers pin
Speaker 1: numbers without their knowledge. That's incredibly disturbing because, as you know,
Speaker 1: a pin number is supposed to be yours. It's like
Speaker 1: it's sacro sanct It's similar to a bank's version of
Speaker 1: your Social Security number. No one else is supposed to
Speaker 1: know it. But if someone makes up a pin number
Speaker 1: that you do not know, that means they can impersonate
Speaker 1: you on a Wells Fargo computer and then boom, boom, boom,
Speaker 1: they can enroll you in all sorts of quote unquote
Speaker 1: products without your no. So boom, Now you've got auto insurance. Boom.
Speaker 1: Now you had a Carlan boom, Now you had a
Speaker 1: credit card. And this was nuts, because the most mystifying
Speaker 1: thing about this still is not even how widespread it
Speaker 1: is to me, it's how blatant it was. The LA
Speaker 1: City's Attorney Office found that there were one hundred and
Speaker 1: ninety three thousand non employee accounts opened between twenty eleven
Speaker 1: and twenty fifteen. And get this, the only email name
Speaker 1: listed for them was Wellsfargo dot com. This is just
Speaker 1: at Wells Fargo dot com.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: Wow, it's not like even not even trying, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like not even doing like level one improv. I
Speaker 1: bet we could make I bet we could make like
Speaker 1: right now, we could make as many fake names as
Speaker 1: we wanted. You know, Tad Dorgenson, that's not a real name.
Speaker 1: That's still better than Wells Fargo dot com.
Speaker 2: Or you get even if you just put like ceu
Speaker 2: u st as in customer and then put a string
Speaker 2: of like, you know, numbers and letters or something. It's
Speaker 2: that easy, cheeze. But that takes time. And I guess
Speaker 2: you had to make so many so quickly age what they.
Speaker 1: Did going to that point of desperation, you know. And
Speaker 1: on September eighth, twenty sixteen, Wells Fargo did settle with
Speaker 1: some authorities. They paid one hundred and eighty five million
Speaker 1: dollars to three institutions, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the
Speaker 1: Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which is a thing,
Speaker 1: and the City and County of Los Angeles. They wanted
Speaker 1: to settle the charges of a massive fraud. As part
Speaker 1: of this agreement, they were able to avoid admitting that
Speaker 1: they had done anything wrong.
Speaker 2: Now that sounds familiar. That sounds pretty dang familiar, you know.
Speaker 3: To be fair, they absolutely have plausible deny of ability.
Speaker 3: The only thing they were guilty of was having high standards.
Speaker 1: There we go, there we go. Yeah, as you can
Speaker 1: tell in a universe to the left of this, the
Speaker 1: four of us are are lawyers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 1: I think we would be good in the courtroom. So
Speaker 1: it's weird because they all they did, they did do
Speaker 1: one other thing aside from pay one hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: five million dollars. They fired. They fired around a thousand employees,
Speaker 1: maybe a little more. And these were mostly juniors. They
Speaker 1: were fired for gaming. If you think about it, these
Speaker 1: were sacrificial goats just sort of meant to be a propitiation.
Speaker 1: They were meant to appease the gods of regulation. And
Speaker 1: we know what you're all thinking. You know what everybody
Speaker 1: is thinking. Hey, one hundred and eighty five million dollars
Speaker 1: is a big deal to me. But isn't that chump
Speaker 1: change for such a huge bank. The answer is yes.
Speaker 2: It was about three percent, right, three percent of second
Speaker 2: quarter profits of that year. So there are four quarters.
Speaker 2: One of those quarters had to shape off three percent
Speaker 2: in order for them to be Okay, that's crazy.
Speaker 3: It's also way less than some executives have made over
Speaker 3: the past five years. Gentlemen, I propose that we join
Speaker 3: our forces and start a bank. What do you say,
Speaker 3: get out of this podcasting rat race and start ourselves
Speaker 3: up a bank. Surely, no, you won't do it.
Speaker 2: I won't do it. My soul shall not allow boys.
Speaker 3: That's fair. I respect that.
Speaker 1: So yeah, but you know I kind of started a bank.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, well yeah, the Ben Bank. The Ben Bank
Speaker 3: deals exclusively in ben bucks.
Speaker 1: Unencumbered by souls. Yeah, also true.
Speaker 3: But you know, so you then you understand Ben as
Speaker 3: the head of the Bend Bank. This is all just
Speaker 3: the cost of doing business, my guy, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I want to say, in case this plays
Speaker 1: in court later, technically I am not on the executive board.
Speaker 1: I am a consultant, so nice try.
Speaker 3: For the record, that was me lapsing into my douchebag
Speaker 3: executive voice when I said, my guy, there, I just
Speaker 3: had to walk that one back a little bit.
Speaker 1: I like it.
Speaker 3: People say, yeah, I just you know, it has to
Speaker 3: be tongue slightly in cheek. But yeah, man, seriously, I
Speaker 3: mean this is it was a slap on the wrist
Speaker 3: is even putting it uh strongly? You know?
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, that's a great point. I mean a thump
Speaker 1: on the ear, you know, yeah, yeah, a finger wag
Speaker 1: and a strong sentence using your full name exactly. That's
Speaker 1: that's the issue with it, because this was I mean,
Speaker 1: this literally is a cost of doing business. They didn't
Speaker 1: emit wrong, Douane. They had plausible deniability. In short, this
Speaker 1: bank thought they got away with it until that is,
Speaker 1: employees like Hamback started coming forward, and there's there was
Speaker 1: a list of employees who complained internally, because like any
Speaker 1: large institution, there are channels through which you're supposed to
Speaker 1: send your complaints. The list of employees who were skized
Speaker 1: out by this and complained it stretches back over ten years.
Speaker 1: People knew what was up, you know. Like again, it
Speaker 1: might sound like we are vilifying Wells Fargo, but we're
Speaker 1: talking about the crimes of an institution. Really, we're not
Speaker 1: talking about any of the employees in the banking industry.
Speaker 1: We're not talking about any of the employees in Wells
Speaker 1: Fargo specifically. Right, These people are not the ones who
Speaker 1: said make these impossible sales quotas.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So, as of this year twenty twenty, Wells Fargo
Speaker 3: has agreed to rebillion in settlements for criminal charges and
Speaker 3: a civil action that's stemming from its widespread mistreatment of
Speaker 3: its customers in its community bank over a fourteen year period.
Speaker 3: Court papers show that prosecutors described the insane environment that Ben.
Speaker 3: I mean, honestly, I was responding to when you first
Speaker 3: said at the top of the show, you know, checking in,
Speaker 3: explain to me why you didn't make it, you know,
Speaker 3: justify your actions every single day. I mean, sure, accountability
Speaker 3: is one thing, but this was very much like you
Speaker 3: described it, Ben in your notes, as a pressure cooker
Speaker 3: environment that was kind of created, just absolutely toxic work environment,
Speaker 3: right so to very low level employees.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, this is this is I don't know, We've
Speaker 1: got a lot of people in the audience who've worked
Speaker 1: in sales jobs or something with commission I don't know
Speaker 1: if you guys have ever done that. I have not,
Speaker 1: but it feels like a very demanding situation to be
Speaker 1: put in, even when there's you know, absolutely no unethical behavior.
Speaker 1: Most commissioned sales do not require unethical behavior. But like,
Speaker 1: think about the pressure the next time you're in a
Speaker 1: brick and mortar store. Think about the pressure and employees
Speaker 1: under when they ask you those series of questions and
Speaker 1: a purchase like have you ever bought something? And you know,
Speaker 1: you just buy one thing you need, like maybe a
Speaker 1: cable somewhere, or you're buying some pants or you know,
Speaker 1: whatever you want to buy, and then the cashier starts
Speaker 1: asking you a series of questions like what's your phone number,
Speaker 1: you want to sign up for our credit card, you
Speaker 1: want to sign up for a rewards card, and so on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I always say I'm good, Like when they ask
Speaker 3: for my phone number or email. No, I don't ever
Speaker 3: want anyone to have that, because there's no reason for it.
Speaker 3: They act like it's said, oh so we can better
Speaker 3: serve you next time, or have you on my database
Speaker 3: and know what you like. I don't know why anyone
Speaker 3: would ever give out their information at a brick and
Speaker 3: mortar store like that, because you can.
Speaker 2: You can get special perks guys, right, and now we're
Speaker 2: family once they have all my info, Look, just give.
Speaker 3: Me a card and punch a hole in it when
Speaker 3: I buy a thing, and then give me a free
Speaker 3: thing when I've punched enough holes in it. You know,
Speaker 3: I'm old school like that. I'm finally that model.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, so imagine that you are. Again. We keep
Speaker 2: trying to put ourselves in the position of the lower
Speaker 2: level employees at you know, in an institution like this
Speaker 2: when you like, maybe you have experienced a maybe a
Speaker 2: quarterly meeting or a meeting with your company where everybody
Speaker 2: gets together and they talk about the state of the
Speaker 2: company and what's going on, and everything you know is
Speaker 2: going up or down or for this reason, for that
Speaker 2: other reason, things are going great or terribly. And imagine
Speaker 2: you're in one of those meetings and you know that
Speaker 2: you your your bank, your local chain of the bank,
Speaker 2: and your manager. You guys did meet up to the standards.
Speaker 2: But you guys did everything right, and you tried as
Speaker 2: hard as you could, and you made some pretty good numbers.
Speaker 2: But they're not quite what they were looking for. They're
Speaker 2: not really even close, actually, But again, you did a
Speaker 2: great job. Then, over this meeting, in this call, or however,
Speaker 2: it goes some other branch, you know, let's say dozens
Speaker 2: of miles away, for some reason, they exceeded this goal
Speaker 2: that was way out of reach, and on this call,
Speaker 2: your boss's boss's boss on this call says, man, you
Speaker 2: guys just just killed it. You did a great job.
Speaker 2: You guys are just rocking these numbers. Man, We're so
Speaker 2: proud of y'all. You're getting bonuses, you're getting this, you're
Speaker 2: getting that everybody on this call needs to look up
Speaker 2: to this particular group, to this bank and do what
Speaker 2: they did, and you know, imagine feeling that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, then those those people who were meeting these increasingly
Speaker 1: difficult sales goals, they were the minority for a while,
Speaker 1: you know, and fairly often, and they often had to
Speaker 1: achieve these things through unethical or illegal means. So that's
Speaker 1: where we are, you know, as you said in all,
Speaker 1: that's February of twenty twenty, just a few months ago.
Speaker 1: What lessons we're learned from this retail bank conspiracy? Again,
Speaker 1: not a theory, it's a conspiracy. Here's the thing. Part
Speaker 1: of that twenty twenty deal with that three billion dollar
Speaker 1: price tag includes a deferred prosecution agreement. That's an agreement,
Speaker 1: a pact that could the positive way to say it
Speaker 1: is that the bank could get further criminal or civil
Speaker 1: charges if it engages in new criminal activities. So basically,
Speaker 1: pay US three billion dollars, no criminal charges, but you're
Speaker 1: in trouble because you got caught, and you'll be in
Speaker 1: trouble if you get caught again. Okay, So trouble is
Speaker 1: somewhere in this equation. My guy, smart en up.
Speaker 3: We had our eye on you. Yeah, it's true, it's wow.
Speaker 3: I just I can't believe that they're still around because
Speaker 3: I guess you know, they're one of those too big
Speaker 3: to fail organizations, right, So it's like, I don't know
Speaker 3: how you get away with this and how people didn't
Speaker 3: do as you said, man and just pull all their
Speaker 3: money out. Yeah you know. I mean, And even though
Speaker 3: this is this ongoing, it feels even to me, kind
Speaker 3: of like a distant memory. I just feel like the
Speaker 3: attention span for stuff like this for consumers is often
Speaker 3: pretty short, and if it doesn't actually affect me personally,
Speaker 3: then why should I do anything about it? Why should I,
Speaker 3: you know, go to that inconvenience of pulling all my
Speaker 3: money out and starting over, you know, even though it's
Speaker 3: not that big a deal to start any bank account,
Speaker 3: but it's slightly inconvenient, inn't it, right?
Speaker 1: And you know there are I don't know about you guys,
Speaker 1: but I go to extraordinary lengths to avoid any slight inconvenience.
Speaker 1: I like a lot of people out there would like
Speaker 1: to play life on easy mode. It barely ever happens,
Speaker 1: but it's a nice thought. You're right, there was a
Speaker 1: run on the bank, but it wasn't necessary. I mean,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of terrible pr fallout from this,
Speaker 1: and they went into overdrive on the Bernese front. But
Speaker 1: a lot of investors reacted because remember they're kind of
Speaker 1: like customers at a bank, but more important, you know,
Speaker 1: they're the better customers. So the bank also, Wells Fargo
Speaker 1: also set up a five hundred million dollar fund to
Speaker 1: compensate the investors who took a hit or what do
Speaker 1: investors say, who took a bath when Wells Fargo didn't
Speaker 1: tell them that the banking business they had was not
Speaker 1: as strong as all as fake accounts made it seem.
Speaker 1: But asterisk that five hundred million dollar dollars is included
Speaker 1: in that three billion dollars settlement total. So it's not
Speaker 1: like they paid three billion dollars and then five hundred
Speaker 1: million again. And this leads us to the conclusion as
Speaker 1: it is, you know, to your point, to your point, Noel,
Speaker 1: Obviously Wells Fargo was still around, It survived the Great Recession.
Speaker 1: It assures the public, for its part and investors that
Speaker 1: this will not happen again. This was, you know, somewhere
Speaker 1: between a grave miscommunication in the in the command chain
Speaker 1: or a few bad actors, but the bank itself. This
Speaker 1: is true. The bank itself never condoned this activity.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is true. They just.
Speaker 2: They forced it to happen without realizing it. Let's say,
Speaker 2: but here's the deal. It's not as though Wells Fargo's
Speaker 2: acting alone. We've all talked about before the Wacovia dealings
Speaker 2: and the problem that they had before they were absorbed
Speaker 2: by or I guess bought out and absorbed by Wells Fargo.
Speaker 2: The problems with other major banking institutions, including very similarly,
Speaker 2: a little regional bank from Ohio called Fifth Third. You
Speaker 2: may have heard of this. You may have seen one
Speaker 2: of their branches. They've got them all over the nation.
Speaker 2: There are thousands of them, and they have roughly one
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty billion dollars in assets. And guess what
Speaker 2: they're accused of, the same thing, pretty much the same thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't know anything about that. One actually had
Speaker 3: my mortgage through Fifth Thirds back when I owned a
Speaker 3: house in Athens years ago. That's fascinating. Now that's news
Speaker 3: to me. Yep.
Speaker 1: They've been accused of, as you said, Matt, the same thing.
Speaker 1: Right now, The litigation is ongoing, so we can come
Speaker 1: back to this story with an update to pay on
Speaker 1: how it all shakes out. And at this point, fellow
Speaker 1: conspiracy realists, we pass the torch to you, because there
Speaker 1: is a dilemma here. It's a big problem and something
Speaker 1: we're thinking about, and it's something that maybe doesn't have
Speaker 1: a satisfactory answer yet. Retail banks are it's an understatement
Speaker 1: to say they're a huge part of the economy. It's
Speaker 1: an understatement to say they are irretrievably embedded in our
Speaker 1: financial lives. I mean, we've had people right in before
Speaker 1: talking about, you know, from our cashlest Society episode, just
Speaker 1: how difficult it is to live without some kind of
Speaker 1: bank account, you know what I mean, and still be
Speaker 1: in the real world system. So is a multi billion
Speaker 1: dollar fine punishment enough? Are the banks, like you said, no,
Speaker 1: are they truly too big to fail even when they're
Speaker 1: caught red handed cheating? And you know to that point
Speaker 1: that I think you had been making earlier too, Matt,
Speaker 1: what would the approach punishment be if this is not appropriate.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you, yes, Ben. You remember you guys, remember
Speaker 2: an episode we made quite a while back where we
Speaker 2: interviewed Robert Maser. Yes, the infiltrator, the guy who helped
Speaker 2: bring down an international bank because they were caught money
Speaker 2: laundering for cartels. So I think I think there is
Speaker 2: a world in which banks can be brought down. I
Speaker 2: don't think this is gonna be it right.
Speaker 3: You know, for reasons.
Speaker 2: But I guess we have ourselves experienced, you know, just
Speaker 2: through our interview and our connection with Robert, that it
Speaker 2: is possible for a bank caught red handed to be
Speaker 2: brought down.
Speaker 3: I better requires such a burden of proof. The way
Speaker 3: he traced the money and followed the money and was
Speaker 3: like literally, you know, running secret ops within the bank,
Speaker 3: you know, I mean, it was like it you can't.
Speaker 3: It's it takes a lot, a lot, a lot a lot,
Speaker 3: it would seem, and it requires absolute proof of knowing wrongdoing.
Speaker 3: Because the thing here is again you really they could
Speaker 3: easily argue, well, yeah, no law against having aggressive sales goals,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean, these are these are great points.
Speaker 1: And I love that you're bringing up. I love you're
Speaker 1: bringing up that earlier case meant because I you know,
Speaker 1: I was thinking when we were talking about doing this episode,
Speaker 1: I was thinking, what's what's going to happen. People are
Speaker 1: listening to this and they hear a wells Fargo ad
Speaker 1: in our in our show. You know this is not
Speaker 1: None of what we have examined today is speculation, right.
Speaker 1: I think we're very clear when we're saying, well, this
Speaker 1: is our opinion, right, you know, one or all three
Speaker 1: of us, all four of us, one of our opinions.
Speaker 1: But these are simply the facts. This is crazy. This
Speaker 1: did happen, and really it is a matter of your
Speaker 1: own personal judgment. What do you think the punishment should
Speaker 1: have been. Do you think this was too much? Do
Speaker 1: you think it wasn't enough? What do you think will
Speaker 1: happen in the future. We want to hear from you.
Speaker 1: You're the most important part of this show that remains
Speaker 1: true today as it did from our first YouTube video.
Speaker 1: So let us know. You can find us on Facebook,
Speaker 1: you can find us on Instagram. You can find us
Speaker 1: on Twitter. Not just as a show or an institution,
Speaker 1: dore I see, but as individuals.
Speaker 3: That's right. If you wish to follow my core time activities,
Speaker 3: you can do so on Instagram where I am at
Speaker 3: how now, Noel Brown, I've been posting a lot of
Speaker 3: Dutch oven cooking videos which marry me. I'll interest you.
Speaker 3: I made my very first there's lamb Rogan Josh last
Speaker 3: night with a big old lamb shoulder that I slow
Speaker 3: cooked on the bone in this delicious Indian gravy for
Speaker 3: about five hours, and I show like the progression of
Speaker 3: it becoming delicious and falling off the bone. It was
Speaker 3: a very successful experiment. I'm really excited about that Dutch
Speaker 3: of him.
Speaker 2: That's making me very very hungry. Oh my goodness, time
Speaker 2: for dinner.
Speaker 1: I think this, Matt, Is this the part where is
Speaker 1: this an episode where you talk about your Instagram? Or
Speaker 1: is this an episode where where you keep the audience
Speaker 1: in the dark as dark as your awesome recording spot again?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah you can. You can follow me. There are
Speaker 2: some great updated pictures of my new haircut. Just search
Speaker 2: for Richard Blaze on Instagram. You'll find me. You'll see it.
Speaker 3: You cut your own hair, you cut your own hair,
Speaker 3: mat or is that you let your your lovely wife
Speaker 3: do it, perhaps your young son.
Speaker 2: I haven't touched my hair with shears or any other
Speaker 2: cutting implement since this whole thing begins.
Speaker 3: So mainly just tearing it out and madness. Is that
Speaker 3: what says yeah, it's all manual. Minds starting to fall
Speaker 3: out in clumps. You know, I decaid, don't know. I
Speaker 3: think I'm going to emerge from this with a receding hairline.
Speaker 1: I actually I'm actually getting kind of old testament now
Speaker 1: with not shaving the beard or cutting my hair. But
Speaker 1: what I've been trying to do to have some regularity
Speaker 1: during the day is to is to put on clothes
Speaker 1: when I talk to you guys, and turn on lights
Speaker 1: so that I'm not just a voice of glowing eyes
Speaker 1: in the dark. But if you want to check out
Speaker 1: my quarantine beard on Instagram, you're more than welcome to
Speaker 1: follow me at Ben Bullen on Instagram, at Ben Bullen
Speaker 1: hsw on Twitter, wherein I investigate any number of strange,
Speaker 1: unusual things and keep you updated on the useless skills
Speaker 1: I am honing during quarantine. I don't know if I
Speaker 1: mentioned it to you guys on air, but now I
Speaker 1: can name all one hundred and eighteen elements the periodic
Speaker 1: table and it does not matter. Let me just assure
Speaker 1: you no one else bothered doing that. It does not
Speaker 1: affect your life in any way whatsoever.
Speaker 3: I think it enriches your life. Ben and I'm I
Speaker 3: say kudos to you for that.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you if there was an element called
Speaker 1: thank you, Neil, which I know there's no.
Speaker 3: No, you know what I did, you guys, this is
Speaker 3: my biggest claim to fame during this time. I'm not
Speaker 3: gonna say which ones, but I definitely did a whole
Speaker 3: day of recordings and zoom calls wearing no pants. Just
Speaker 3: waiting that out there. Wait a second, No, I'm pants today. Pants? Okay,
Speaker 3: yeah it was. I'm not gonna say if it was
Speaker 3: this show or not. I do other shows, but I
Speaker 3: definitely had some pretty high level executive producer type zoom
Speaker 3: calls wearing no pants, and no one was the wiser
Speaker 3: and if it felt like it gave me the upper hand.
Speaker 1: Honestly, you gotta stay seated, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: unless at the very end you want to pull one
Speaker 1: of those groves. Oh well, wow, I'm wearing pats.
Speaker 3: Wow, I can verify.
Speaker 1: But so so what if someone has something to tell us?
Speaker 1: What if you are listening, you have something to share
Speaker 1: with your fellow audience members, but you hate social media?
Speaker 2: What then you can give us a call. Our number
Speaker 2: is one eight three three std WYTK we've been going
Speaker 2: through a ton of messages lately. Please call us. We
Speaker 2: are waiting to hear from you. We we may you know,
Speaker 2: we may respond with it a call in kind, or
Speaker 2: we might just you know, listen and then talk about
Speaker 2: it here. We've got a huge doc now running. It's great,
Speaker 2: so please continue to write to us, give us your
Speaker 2: thoughts on this episode, any other episode, a future one,
Speaker 2: or just things you want to chat about while you're
Speaker 2: hanging out in quarantine while we do the same. Please
Speaker 2: do give us a call one eight three three st
Speaker 2: d WYTK.
Speaker 1: And additional for longtime listeners, we have a show called
Speaker 1: Strange News Daily that we'll be moving on to this feed,
Speaker 1: so you'll be hearing something from us Monday through Friday
Speaker 1: until the lights go out until Wells Fargo disappears. As
Speaker 1: for this episode, you'll have to get in line behind Nesley.
Speaker 2: Oh and we're really excited about that show. It's gonna
Speaker 2: be kind of like this one, where you're gonna get
Speaker 2: lots and lots of researched information packed into a shorter episode,
Speaker 2: hosted by our very own Ben Bollen. We think you're
Speaker 2: gonna love it. So now let us know what you
Speaker 2: think about that show as well as you're calling in
Speaker 2: and writing to us and talk to us on Twitter
Speaker 2: most boorly.
Speaker 1: It's produced by Dylan Fagan, which was a big get
Speaker 1: for us. So we're, you know, like everybody else will
Speaker 1: working live. We're rolling with the punches. But there's one
Speaker 1: thing that will never ever change. That is this. If
Speaker 1: you hate phones, if you hate social media, you can
Speaker 1: always contact us about any old thing twenty four to
Speaker 1: seven at our good old fashioned email address where we.
Speaker 3: Are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2: Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.