Podcasts about John Stumpf

Re-Connected is a weekly live show where we go over boutique blu ray announcements, physical media sales, and sometimes we go over unboxings/collection updates. We are a community of cult movie fans that enjoy getting together to discuss what is releasing. This week we are joined by John Stumpf!! We are going to be going over the announcements for the week and discussing our favorite David Lynch projects!! It is going to be a blast! Join us! Hope to see you in the chat! - Follow John on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NOthejohnstumpf John's Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/johnstumpf93/ - Follow Shelf Shock Rewind on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Shelf_Shock Follow Shelf Shock Rewind on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shelfshockrewind/ Follow Shelf Shock Rewind on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ShelfShockRewind Follow Shelf Shock Rewind on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@shelfshockrewind1231 - Become a patron here: https://www.patreon.com/DiscConnected - Like the page and follow on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/TheDiscConnected - Join me on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/thediscconnected/ - Or on Twitter: https://twitter.com/disc_connected - Email: DiscConnectedMedia@gmail.com -- Merch: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-disc-connected - Podcast: https://thediscconnected.podbean.com - If you happen to be shopping on Amazon for something and would like to share some of Lord Bezos' profits with my channel at no additional cost to you, please consider shopping through my link: https://amzn.to/39mcX1t - Tip Jar: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=TDEVSPJZ9EFCW or paypal.me/RVinls (friends and family only) or  Amazon wish list: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/20CR2ZN456P1B?ref_=wl_share - Music is by Michael J. LeRose- michaelxcreates@gmail.com. Outro is K(NO)W by Crusoe via a Creative Commons Attribution License and verbal/written permission from the artist. - Links above may be affiliate/promotional links that provide me a tiny commission to support the sight and do not charge the consumer anything extra.

We've talked about how much Wells Fargo and CEO of Wells Fargo until 2016, John Stumpf sucks for the "unauthorized account scandal" of 2016. He was fined and banned by the OCC in January and fined $2.5 Million again this past week. But I talk about why he should be in jail. But I did something in this podcast. I talk about his ascent to the top of Wells Fargo, which included a stop in my home state of New Mexico, and the real possibility that he had conversations with an aunt of mine, who was on the board of directors of a bank acquired by a company that became Wells Fargo. I try to figure out why his upbringing led him to a life of crime and why being 1 of 11 kids and bottom of your class in high school will push you to never feel that way again, and let your unethical flag fly. I speculate how Wells Fargo should change their name like Valujet did in the mid 1990s to avoid scrutiny from a fatal plane crash. Plus, I talk about Vigilante Customer Service with Giselle. A customer screwed over by Evil Zelle and Bank of America for only $299, but it's the nature of how they blew her off blew my mind! All My Links HERE MY PATREON Page! For as little as $1, you can help James in his fight against big banks. http://patreon.com/NotoriousBanker TheNotoriousBanker.com for detailed info on yours truly, and ways you can follow The Notorious Banker The Notorious Banker is on TikTok - @NotoriousBanker Youtube Channel - Click Here Sponsors -james@NotoriousBanker.com - Advertise your business with a growing, cutting edge podcast. Visit our Twitter Page @BankBetterGuy - Bank Advice, humor, observations, deals and VIGILANTE CUSTOMER SERVICE & Host James B on Twitter @jamesbisright Voicemail Line: 575-322-4127 (3M Max)

In this episode, we speak with John Stumpf, a Technology Solutions Consultant from Advisor Group. With over 25 years experience working in financial services, he shares best practices in measuring your business and timing your move to a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool.

Welcome back to Book of Lies Podcast. Your hosts Sunni and Brandi cover the breaking Wells Fargo Scandal where millions of accounts were created without customers consent during the rein of CEO John Stumpf. Visit our website www.bookofliespodcast.comVisit us on Patreon www.patreon.com/bookofliespodcastVisit our shops - Beauty's Biscuits use offer code "LIES" for 15% off www.beautysbiscuits.com orwww.gioandgrace.comSend us a email at bookofliespodcast@gmail.comVisit our Shwag Shop hosted by Tee Spring https://teespring.com/stores/book-of-lies-podcastPromo from One Movie PunchThank you for Listening

Most people like to think that they always make decisions based on logic and facts, but the truth is that emotions usually play a role for all of us in the decision-making process... Important Links Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381 ----more---- Transcript Of Today's Show: Speaker 1:Hey, everybody. Thanks for tuning in to this edition of Plan With the Tax Man with Tony Mauro. As always, we appreciate your time here on our podcast while we talk about investing, finance, and retirement. What's up, Tony? How are you, bud? Tony Mauro: I'm good. Cold here in the Midwest, and we're bracing for colder. Speaker 1: Well, yeah, big fun. As February is winding down, it's about that time of the year. But you're also heating up because you got more and more going on with the tax side of things, right? Tony Mauro:We do. Yeah. We're just getting into the throes of it, and everybody's starting to receive all of their info and are calling in for their appointments and asking a lot of questions. Yeah, so February, March, very busy for us on the tax prep/compliance side. Yeah. Speaker 1: There's a big Wells Fargo component out there, so I wanted to ask you about this. Obviously, this deal with the CEO, John Stumpf, I guess... if I'm saying that right... where he's been barred from the banking industry and has to pay back almost $18 million in fines, due to some issues that had been going on. I wanted to get your take on that. Tony Mauro: Yeah. And I get asked that a lot from our tax clients who are our clients who happen to be Wells Fargo employees. And, of course, they're hearing it on the front lines. It was hard to miss it over the last couple of years. Everybody knows kind of what happened there with... Speaker 1: Creating fake bank accounts. Tony Mauro: They created some fake accounts at the retail banking level to make things look better than they were... Speaker 1: Like sales quotas or something. Tony Mauro: ... because they were under a lot of pressure. Speaker 1: Yeah. Tony Mauro: And I've heard from employees there that, besides him basically being barred and getting out, a number of others as well. Of course, I feel for the employees because they take a lot of heat. But their clients, the public, are very upset about it... Speaker 1: Sure. [crosstalk 00:01:50]. Tony Mauro: ... obviously. It gives them a black eye, so to speak. Taking a lot of bad press because of it, just because of that whole trust issue. [crosstalk 00:01:59] Speaker 1: Right. Right. Tony Mauro: ... down to. And I don't know. We tend to laugh about it, but it's a serious matter. But it does go on at these big companies, more than some things. And, unfortunately, this one kind of reared its head. And I'm not justifying it by any means. Managers in the branches probably thought they were doing what they needed to do. It sounds to me like there just was a breakdown in supervision and some things like that. Some checks and balances. Speaker 1: Yeah, possibly. Yeah. Sometimes in these companies you just get directives from higher above, and you just kind of are doing what you're told or whatever the case is. And sometimes it's just not a matter of taking a minute to think it through and think, "Well, does this make any sense?" or whatever. And emotions can factor into those things because you want to keep your job, so you want to do the things that you're being asked to do, and... Tony Mauro: Exactly. Speaker 1: ... and so on, and so forth. So I thought we would spend a little time today talking about how to account for emotions in our financial plan. Not solely just this type of situation, but just kind of leading us into it. Because they do factor into everything we do, whether it's at our work, whether it's at home, whether it's in our financial decisions. Obviously, in this situation, for this gentleman, greed got in there, but what, typically, do you find are the most common emotions when you're sitting down to work with clients, or prospective clients, that drive their financial decisions? Is it usually the big two, which is fear and greed? Tony Mauro: I think it's both of those, and I think we have too much news coming at us 24/7, and people get fixated on the latest and greatest. And I think that drives a lot of it, too. 20 years ago, 25 years ago, all of those channels that run 24/7 weren't really around. Speaker 1: I know. Tony Mauro: We have a lot of information at our fingertips, but I think people make their decisions based on how the market does in one day, and then they listen to CNN or somebody else giving their opinion. Speaker 1: Right. Tony Mauro: And they want to change everything they're doing. And we try to advise them. That's not the best way to... obviously... to invest for the long term. But generally, I think, it's more fear. Lately, I think, it's more greed because everybody thinks that this market that we've had... for the last few years, especially... is going to always continue. And we're trying to temper it a little bit. It's just, "Let's stay the course here." Speaker 1: Right. Well, is that the most common mistake? I was going to ask you. What are the big ones that you typically see? I use my brother a lot as an example, on shows that I'm hosting, because he's 61, and he is forever very skittish about, "Oh, is this the thing that's going to cause the market to finally fall?" Right now, obviously, it's the coronavirus thing, and he's like, "Oh, yeah, production is going to come to a halt and yada yada yada." So he's forever hopping back and forth. What are some other things you see people do? Tony Mauro: I see a lot of people basically jumping into things that they don't know anything about, especially on some information they've gotten and... Not so much the retirees, but this would be the younger people. Speaker 1: Okay. Tony Mauro: Instead of just sticking with their goals and systematically investing, I see a lot of them, right now, wanting to... They're point-blank asking me, "Well, what do you think I should invest in because everything's going up?" And I tell them, "Well, if I knew that, I wouldn't be still working here. I would have already done it and I'd been gone." So I think they take a real chance by doing that. And I think that's a mistake unless that's truly part of their goals. Tony Mauro: Now, on the retirees, a little different. Retirees are constantly on that fence of, "Boy, I don't want to take any risk, but I'm not getting enough return. So maybe I'll dump a bunch of money into a high-yielding dividend-paying stock." And that may not be the best, either, so... Speaker 1: Right, right. Okay, so, if we're definitely looking at our listening audience, which is typically pre-retirees and retirees, are there some times when it's appropriate to factor in the emotions into the decision making, knowing that it's probably going to happen anyway? Is there some that maybe make more sense than others, I guess? Tony Mauro: I think so. I think fear... It would be the big one. I think you always have to understand that these markets go up and down, depending on what you're in. And it's got to be sensible for you, and you've got to be willing to accept the return based on the risk that you want to take, not what just the S&P 500 is doing. Because sometimes, I think, people think a little bit irrationally. And I try to tell them, "If you're basing our relationship on return, and return only, you're going to be sorely disappointed. But not only with me, I think. With any adviser." Because if you want the return of the S&P 500, for example, I can do that. We'll just go out and get you an index fund, but you're going to have to stomach what happens in that index fund over time. Speaker 1: Right. Tony Mauro: So we try to talk to them a little bit about some of that and the fact that maybe you don't need the best return. Maybe the risk you want to take, it's X. And I think that's the one that I would lean towards. Speaker 1: I was also thinking... And tell me what you think on this. Sometimes, if we're thinking emotions and financial decision, the first thing that pops in my mind for a lot of retirees is the homestead. Maybe it makes logical or financial sense to downsize the home, but obviously an emotional factor goes into it if it's the home where you raised the kids. Right? Tony Mauro: Right. Exactly. Speaker 1: So sometimes you have to work people through those. So what do you do in those situations? Do you present the data and say, "Okay, here's what the math says, and now let's figure out a happy ground"? Because let's say one part of the family, maybe the wife, wants to stay in the house, and the husband wants to move. You've got to help them through that, too, right? Tony Mauro: Yes, that's correct. Yeah. And a lot of times we'll work, especially with retirees, drawing up different plans and offering advice. And I do like to be visual, but I don't like to get real technical because most people aren't into the numbers like most finance people are. Speaker 1: Sure. Right. Tony Mauro: But- Speaker 1: That's why we come to you guys. Tony Mauro: I try to show them mathematically, and in simple terms, "Here's what, based on what you said you need and what you said you want... This can work, but you need to do it this way. And here's the pluses and minuses of doing it that way. And if you can live with that, then this is a great way to go. If not, then we have to change some things up a little bit so that you're comfortable on the emotional side." Because the last thing you want, especially in retirement, is to be worried about, "Oh, my gosh, I just saw the news today that something happened." The coronavirus. Speaker 1: Right, right, yeah. Tony Mauro: Whatever it might be. "And I'm all panicked about my future." That's not what we're about at all. So, it's definitely worth constructing a plan based on, I think, your emotional needs as well as... The math's got to work, at the end of the day, for- Speaker 1: Right, right. Tony Mauro: For everybody. Speaker 1: Yeah. And that's kind of how I was going to finish this podcast off. I was going to say, "At the end of the day, I guess, you really do have to balance both sides of this coin," right? Tony Mauro: You do. Speaker 1: Of this equation. You've got to say, "Okay, what are the concerns you have emotionally?" And then, "Here's what the math says, and where can we strike that balance?" So I imagine the outcome of every plan has to take both of those things into account. Tony Mauro: It does. Absolutely. Speaker 1: All right, well, there you go. So we got to account for emotions in our financial planning because we're emotional creatures, right? It's just something we do, in all aspects and walks of life, and we can try to let something like math be kind of cold, hard data, but it's still going to creep in there. So we want to make sure that we're balancing both of those, being smart about the decisions we're trying to make, obviously, from a mathematical and from an emotional standpoint. And working with an adviser can certainly help you do that because they're going to be able to take some of that emotional component out. Because they're not, obviously, emotionally invested like we are. Right? So that's a way... Tony Mauro: That's right. Speaker 1: ... to look at that. Yeah. All right, well, so, if you've got questions or concerns, you want to get on the calendar with Tony, give him a call. Come in, have a conversation with him. It's going to be getting busy, so definitely reach out and let him know if you've get some tax questions. If you want to spend some time with the team at Tax Doctor Inc, let them know at (844) 707-7381. You may have gotten this a podcast through their email blast or a newsletter. Reach out. Let them know you want to come in and have a chat, maybe get on the calendar. Speaker 1:You can also go to yourplanningpros.com. That is yourplanningpros.com. Tony's an EA and a CFP with 23 plus years in the experience... or experience in the industry. Excuse me. And, of course, you can always subscribe to our podcast to catch future episodes as well at that website, yourplanningpros.com or at various different outlets, like Apple, Google, Spotify, and so on. Speaker 1:This has been Plan With the Tax Man with Tony Mauro. Tony, my friend, thanks so much. I'll let you get back to your busy day, and we'll talk soon. Tony Mauro: All right, sounds good. Take care. Speaker 1: All right, folks. We'll see you next time, right here on Plan With the Tax Man.

Former Wells Fargo CEO banned from banking industry Former Wells Fargo chief executive John Stumpf has been ordered to pay 17- and- a-half million dollars over the 2017 fake accounts scandal. Regulators have also barred Stumpf from the banking industry for life. The fourth largest US lender has been under fire since it was revealed that employees had opened millions of fake accounts to meet sales targets. Just Eat, Takeaway.com delay listing after probe Takeaway- dot-com and Just Eat have delayed plans to list their combined company on the London Stock Exchange by one week. The move comes a day after UK competition authorities launched a last-minute probe into the nearly 8-billion dollar merger between the two meal delivery companies. Shares were expected to begin trading on Monday. George Soros pledges $1B to battle nationalism billionaire philanthropist George Soros has pledged 1-billion dollars for a new university network project to battle rising nationalism around the world. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the 89-year-old called the project 'the most important one of his life'. He also used his speech to attack the Chinese government and US President Donald Trump.

A powerful rebound in Intel’s data centre division drove a stronger than expected recovery in the final quarter of 2019, former Wells Fargo chief executive John Stumpf has agreed to pay $17.5m as part of a settlement with US regulators over the bank’s fake accounts scandal, and the European Central Bank begins its first strategic review in 16 years. Plus, the founder of the opioid maker Insys has been sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison. The FT’s Hannah Kuchler explains what this means for other US pharmaceutical executives. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

https://www.occ.gov/news-issuances/news-releases/2020/nr-occ-2020-6.html Read the OCC Report on Wells Fargo Scandal. John Stumpf, Fresh off his $9 Million home purchase "his wife" made for them in Phoenix, got fined $17.5 million and banned from Banking. Damn, that fresh faced youngster is only 66, whatever will he do for a career? I share my thoughts, and my parallels during my time at Bank of America, along with commenting on some of the interesting notes in the report. From an exec oversold and told to shut up about it, to a veteran of war saying the stress was worse at Wells, to a threat of sending someone to a "Wells Fargo where someone was killed" as a punishment for poor performance, it's all there. Someone deserves a punch to the face! Ugh. Listen and be angry with me! patreon.com/notoriousbanker - Donate to the pod - Help Me Fight Back!!!! james@notoriousbanker.com - email if you have more info on more locations 575-322-4127 - VM Line. @bankbetterguy on Twitter - DM ME --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Title: Enterprise Bank's Leader, Chuck Leyh: Accountant, Banker and Deal Maker, Part 1 Subtitle: A two-part discussion with a successful banker fulfilling a COMMON BANKING need with an UNCOMMON BUSINESS solution. “Being a banker is like being the pilot of an aircraft.  It is years of boredom and seconds of terror.” Kelly Coughlin is CEO of BankBosun, a management consulting firm, helping bank C-Level officers navigate risk and discover rewards.  He is the host of the syndicated audio podcast, BankBosun.com.  Kelly brings over 25 years of experience with companies like PWC, Lloyds Bank and Merrill Lynch.  On the podcast, Kelly interviews key executives in the banking ecosystem, provide bank C-Suite officers, risk management, technology and investment ideas and solutions to help them navigate risk and discover rewards, and now your host, Kelly Coughlin. Greetings, this is Kelly Coughlin, CEO of BankBosun, helping bank C- suite execs navigate risks and discover reward in a sea of threats and opportunities.  Being a banker today is an enormous challenge.  I like to say the three “Rs” that are constantly threatening and challenging then are risks, regulation, and revenue creation.  And within each of the three “Rs” you have varying layers of threats.  In the risk bucket you have cyber risk, operational risks, compliant risk, market risk, interest rate risk and, of course, credit risk. That is the risk that in your core business, lending, you make a bad loan and it doesn’t get paid back. There are some great quotes on banking in the lending business.  Warren Buffet says, “Banking is very good business if you don’t do anything dumb.”  Carl Webb, Co-Manager of Ford Financial Fund said, “Banks get in trouble for one reason, they make bad loans.”  And now you have an ironic quote from another now infamous banker, “Irrational lenders come and go, but mostly they go.” That’s from John Stumpf, former chairman and former CEO of Wells Fargo.  And, of course, Stumpf was the banker who appeared in front of Congress a while back and got completely hammered, rightly or wrongly, and now he, just like other irrational lenders, is of course gone. And then you have one of my favorite quotes from Fred Schwed, author of Where are the Customers Yachts. He writes, the conservative banker is an impressive specimen.  He spends his day saying, no.  He says yes only a few times a year. His rule is that he reserves his yeses for organizations so wealthy that if he says no some other banker would quickly said yes.  His business might be defined as the lending of money exclusively to people who have no pressing need of it.  In summary, he affirms what Bob Hope, one of my favorite comedians of all time, said, A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don’t need it.  Consequently, because of these dynamics banks typically are not the place one goes to get early stage or startup or venture or distressed or risk capital for a number of practical reasons.  Regulators don’t like it.  The revenue could be tricky to accrue, especially when collectability is either not assured or perhaps uncertain.  Bank auditors are frequently stuck in an audit review model that challenges their ability to think outside the box on revenue recognition collectability.  The end result is only a few banks step into this world of lending to companies who truly need it.  I came across a bank, a while back, that breaks the mold on this. I was frankly looking at some historical financial data on banks.  As most of you know, I spend a significant amount of my time helping community and regional banks improve their revenue growth rate by improving their ability to compete with big banks, brokers and advisors. So, in doing that research I came across a very unique bank located in Allegheny County in a suburb near Pittsburgh PA. The bank is fairly traditional in a few areas. They accept deposits.  They make personal loans.  They make business loans and they sell some insurance products.  I don’t believe they provide wealth management or trust services but it’s where they are unique that really got my attention.  Number one, they offer consulting services.  Number two, they offer book-keeping services.  Number three, they offer marketing services, and number four, they offer temporary services, primarily, temporary short-term CFO type services.  Number five, they lend to the small business, the startup and the small distressed business market. And most importantly, their uniqueness is most apparent in its five-year cumulative annual growth rate of approximately three times the industry average. They have a growth rate of 25 percent and the industry average is about 8 percent. And with that type of uniqueness, I decided I need to talk to this company.  So, with that in mind, I hopefully have the CEO and chairman of the Board of Enterprise Financial Services group, Chuck Leyh, located in Allison Park, Pennsylvania.  Chuck is a CPA with more than 30 years of experience in public accounting with an emphasis on tax and business consulting and he has experience in business analysis and business valuations and he is a member of the AICPA and a member of the Pennsylvania Institute of Certified Public Accountants.  Hopefully Chuck is on the line.  Chuck, are you there? Chuck:             I am here. Kelly:               Chuck, how are you doing today? Chuck:             Very good. Kelly:               Well, did I make any mistakes in my introduction there? Chuck:             No, I think you kind of covered it.  I’m not sure the growth rates are quite what you have stated but certainly over a long haul they have been very significant. Kelly:               I just took some summary financial data prior to today, you are substantially higher than the industry average? Chuck:             Yes, yes, we do a lot of, as you stated, startup businesses, businesses in distress, means we do a lot of risk mitigation with SBA, real estate, and what traditionally happens is in more challenging economic times we have more loans than we know what to do with. And in the competitive times is when it becomes more challenging for us to grow, because the economy is strong and a lot of business are healthy and banks are out lending and there is a lot more competition and there are not as many people, believe it or not, starting businesses or going through distresses when times are strong, and when times are weak those trends go up and that’s when we typically grow a great deal. Kelly:               Chuck, I have a lot of questions here but before we kind of get into the guts of this let me ask you this, are you fundamentally an accountant or are you fundamentally a banker? Chuck:             I am fundamentally an accountant.  I still am a partner in a CPA firm and that’s what my chosen profession was.  Twenty years or so I got this bright idea with some friends to start a bank and after a few years it wasn’t doing what it was supposed to.  So, when you usually start something with your friends and clients they look at it and say, yeah, this isn’t working out here, well, you got us here, you better go fix it.   And so that’s kind of how I got into banking. Kelly:               Alright, let’s talk about the history of enterprise.  Is this first-generation enterprise or does what we see now kind of the second generation after you have fixed this version?   Chuck:             So, this is the same business concept.  Basically, this business concept grew out of me having a friendship with a banker and looking at modeling out a business plan.  The way I kind of created the business plan to model out was to go to my accounting firm clients and get a list of the things they did not like about banking and see if I could draft a business plan that address those issues, and that’s kind of how this whole system grew.  It wasn’t run quite the way it was intentioned and it struggled for a few years and, like I said, that’s been how I got into it on a day to day basis.  And I have continued for the last 18 years to oversee day to day operations and turn things around and put it on the right foot. Kelly:               The version of enterprise that we see now, what was the market and was the opportunity?  What void did you fill? Chuck:             I think, when you go back to when we started the bank, that list of things that my clients didn’t like about banking, there was basically a few premises and we kind of built a plan along that line.  The lack of continuity in relationships, probably a lack of business empathy, and almost, what I term, the phase banker’s arrogance, where bankers felt that they know how to run a business better than the business person.  So, that was kind of one issue and, obviously, the other was continuity where things get in our relationship, those people get promoted, move on and you start all over again trying to educate your bankers as to how your business run. And probably the unique focus of Enterprise Banking structure was to address those two issues.   And one of the ways that we did that was to create a relationship manager concept where, that’s not unique, every bank has what they term relationship managers, but in this situation a relationship manager functions as a small business inside the bank. Basically, it’s treated as the branch gets its percentage of revenue based on the bank’s net interest income, monies to bad debt reserve, which we build and allocate on a per loan basis.  So basically, they get a percentage of that and out of that you hire their staff, have fringe benefits, expenses, whatever it is that all run through that little business unit. By them running their own business inside the bank, it kind of address the empathy and the continuity because they don’t get promoted or anything else.  The stronger, the larger the branch gets, the more money they make so they get empathy and get rid of that banker arrogance by running the business themselves.  So, they experience the same problems their clients and borrowers are experiencing.  The continuity issue is addressed because they are in that position and that’s a lifetime relationship type position like a CPA would have with their clients.  So, that’s a kind of a unique situation in the bank and a lot of it is quality assurances and checks and balances and everything that revolve around that structure and that structure was created to address those two basic issues. Kelly:               At the parent bank level, is there a credit committee that approves any sort of investment that the bank would make then? Chuck:             Yes, there is actually in this bank, one of the problems that we created to address was the timely decision on credit.  More than, if there was a “no”, setting goals for people so that they can address those goals and perhaps come back and then have a different answer if they have taken time to prepare themselves better for the lending relationship.  And so, because there is a senior loan committee that’s actually made up of board members that meets weekly and it addresses all the credit requests.  So, the relationship managers have a financial stake in what happens with the loan.  And, obviously, that is something in their minds and it has to pass their comfort level before they will introduce it to senior loan committee. But the senior loan committee then is the ultimate approval source so, pretty much, every relationship and loan, so that there is a strong checks and balance in the system. Kelly:               So, in terms of the types of deals that you guys do, let’s just talk about the nuances of the start-up business.  Are you looking for deals, whether it be a startup and that their cash flow is limited but there is some sort of a asset protection there that you have got some collateral protection? Chuck:             Yes, as I am sure you are aware, most banks emphasize historical consist in cash flow as the basic foundation for assessing risk for making a loan.  If you have a start-up business or a business that’s gone going through distress where it has lost money for a period of time, you don’t have that cash flow continuity and strength to support the lending relationship.  This is still a bank.  It still takes bank risks so it reverts back to looking for an underwriting that’s almost a worst-case scenario.  It almost assumes that the business will go under then it looks at it and says, can we assess the risks and protect ourselves?  And that typically then leans towards collateral of some sort or government guarantees that mitigate the risks if there is not enough collateral so that the elevated risk of failure is offset by this collateral that mitigates the amount of the losses potential. Kelly:               Your success in the distressed business vertical, if you will, versus the startup.           Chuck:             I don’t know that there is a whole lot of difference between the two.  Actually, the distressed area is a different type of thought process and underwriting.  You know, when you have a startup, business projections are never what reality ever is in either business.  So, you are kind of looking at the management background, the experience level, the concept and, is it a well thought out program?  That’s what you are sort of looking at for the startup program.  But, it’s a little different with the distressed business because in there, typically you come in and they have been successful for a period of time, now they are going through a problem and you have to assess that problem.  Is that the real problem?  Do they have the fix identified? And you believe that fix is the only thing that’s necessary.  And so there is a little bit of an analytical difference between the two.  Both, you have to have a good sense that management has a hand to hand, either in the start-up situation or the distressed situation but the validation is a little different in the two different scenarios Kelly:               I don’t need to tell you that management is first and foremost a factor to be evaluated, how are you doing in that area, and especially in the stress mode where you have management that kind of attribute their distressed situation to market factors as opposed to themselves and their own management decisions? Chuck:             I have been in the marketplace for 40 years and you have kind of seen a lot of examples of good and bad management, you’ve seen a lot of examples of mistakes and people learning from their mistakes or basically saying it’s somebody else’s fault.  And so you kind of go through the situation and you see how people analyze the situation, how they take responsibility for it and what their game plan is, moving forward.  And that is the intangible analysis you go through to try to assess your probabilities for success, but, ultimately, in this type of lending you are going to have a lot more failures than you will in a traditional bank environment.  And so you have got to stress the collateral practical liquidation analysis and assess the risks a little differently based on collateral.   Because until you experience somebody first hand going through distress and pressure and how they react to it,  you actually don’t know for sure how an individual’s character will hold up to pressure. Kelly:               The team you have that help you in the due diligence and acceptance of a deal, I suppose you are looking at their market plan, certainly their internal control systems, their accounting systems, all those core things to run the business but, in my opinion, businesses typically fail on the revenue side, not so much on the back-office side. How do you guys go about really evaluating the  revenue projections and their ability to get their first customers, if they are a startup; or to substantially increase their ability to get customers, if it’s a turnaround? Chuck:             There are obviously, based on the pedigree of management, the experiences they have, the type of idea, the amount of competition, all of those things, that are into a risk analysis and then you look at that perceived risks and then you mitigate it with either collateral or guarantees or something else.           As a CPA and as a banker, the one thing I disliked with when bankers would tell my clients that that business plan doesn’t have a prior, it will never generate to revenue, and then five years later those people are multimillionaires because they really did know what they are doing. And, you know, that banker arrogance is again the thing that you watch because just because a revenue is planned doesn’t seem to make sense to you, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t have the chance of success. The most successful people are the people who does something unique and outside the box.  Because you haven’t seen it succeed you feel there is a greater risk. You want to try to balance that mind set so that you don’t turn down a deal because the revenue is not apparent.  But you do look at the deals where you are more skeptical of the revenue and you say I want more protection with collateral or more of a government guarantee or more some risk mitigation when I don’t feel real comfortable or think this revenue stream is going to happen soon.  And every situation is done on a case by case basis, and that is the key.  In a small bank like this where everything is customized to the specific circumstances you don’t have prepackaged products.  You try to design something just for that particular client.  For instance, somebody starts up a driving range and they come in and say, you know, I have a better idea and I can do a better job running the driving range, my people skills, my networking, my background.  Well, you look at those kind of things and you know it’s going to take time for reputation to grow, you know things are going to have to work out in a certain way and you know there is going to be curves and steps backwards, you know, the best of us, hopefully, take two steps forward and then one backward.  It’s inevitable to happen.   So, you start to look at the design, for instance, you might go say, okay, clearly these people don’t have any revenue from say, November through April, well, then you may design a loan structure that it goes interest only in the off season and then it kicks up to a greater than normal principal and interest payment on the in season so you kind of help them budget themselves and help them structure things.  And you advise them in that relationship as to how you are going to mitigate your risk in the off season in the business plan.  If you have a facility where you can conduct parties or do something in the off season or some other revenue that complements the off season to get rid of some of the cyclical nature of the business.  And then you start to look and see how does that perspective borrower react to your advice and your thought process.  And all those things come together to determine whether it’s a relationship you want to work with or not.  Kelly:               Let’s say, a term of the compensation on these deals, are you taking any warrants, options, any sort of equity or is it straight interest rate? Chuck:             We haven’t done that up to this point in time.  It has been a straight interest rate.  I will say that up through the recession, the spread for taking this kind of risk when you are using the SPA, for instance, they will have a maximum rate that you can charge and have a guarantee.  The spread that you got from your cost of funds to the rate that you would get for doing this type of lending was significant, the money was very good. I will say that since the recession, flattening of the interest rate curve here, recently, but really since the recession that margin shrunk a lot and so we are looking at different ways to perhaps supplement revenue to get the margin back to where it was say 10 years ago versus where it is today. Kelly:               Right.  Like any bank, your core source of funds are going to be customer deposits and you always have some assets to liability risk management you have to do there, are you able to get sufficient deposits from your customer base, knowing that this is your business model, so are they fearful of that? Chuck:             Actually, when we work with a client obviously we are showing a loyalty towards them that the other banks aren’t showing because we are doing a loan that others won’t do.  We kind of expect that loyalty to come back so we’re kind of writing things upfront that says if we are going to take this risk loaning you this money.  You have got to have your operating accounts with the bank.  Everybody is pretty good about that and obviously when the businesses become successful and strong and get out of their start up period then deposits can become very significant.   And that funds a big portion of the bank but we are not a retail consumer oriented group so that’s our sole client base and small business deposits is not sufficient to fully fund the operations.  So, we will go in and do borrowings from federal loan banks, we will do self CDs, you know, and then use even a broker CD market, as long as the funds are reasonably priced, and competitive with home loan bank borrowings.  We actually push our class of funds higher than most banks because while we are taking what most would deem to be more credit risk than most financial institutions, we take extremely low credit risks and interest rate risks.  So, what we are giving away on the credit risk part we are taking back on the interest rate risk part so that we have pretty much a neutral situation for our funding and our asset to liability management so that drives our cost of funds up also by having a lot longer term borrowings than a lot of institutions. Kelly:               Let’s talk about your consulting services that are packaged into your offerings.  I see that you have got marketing, bookkeeping and temporary services and I believe that there are primarily CFO services, what purpose do they fill and are they important to your overall offering?         Chuck:             Well, they are very important, especially to the start-up businesses.  And the original premise of forming the bank was to make banking into a service value oriented proposition versus a purveyor of money.  The concept here with a relationship manager is to be a consultant, a financial consultant similar to a CPA.  But CPAs are typically more in a tax oriented consulting approach and then some general business consulting, and these people are a more general business consulting, finance consulting.  That’s the training they get, to be a relationship manager.  Now, the subsidiaries that we have, given to more of a specific and stronger expertise in certain disciplines, whether it is real estate, marketing, bookkeeping services, IT services, and then general business consulting with different specialties niches so that when, you know, a startup business has the idea, if you build it they will come.  We all know it doesn’t work that way, people have to know about it and so our marketing people will take it to the next level. And what it does is, it improves the probability of success for the startup businesses, and obviously that has a strong synergy with the bank because it improves our success rate and reduces the bad debts.  And at the same time, we price the services that we are not making a big profit on it, we are making some money on it and then that synergy of making our underlining businesses get stronger.  Those two things together create a strong value for the bank and for the client.  When we have a new relationship come on board from a borrowing perspective we do analyze and have our consultant go out and look at their accounting system and make sure that they have the capabilities to report to us the way the loan documents require.  And we have somebody from our IT subsidiary go out and review their computer systems to make sure that they have a security level that makes it safe to do business with us and them.  And so those two things are looked at and if they identify a problem then we go to the client and say, you need to beef up these areas and if you want we can help but you don’t have to work with us or you can find anybody but there is an issue here.  So, those are the two areas we look at where we say there is a certain level we have to get to but we never go with our people and say you have to use them or something like that.  If the client wishes to that’s great, if they don’t then so be it. Kelly:               Oh, that’s very smart, very smart. Chuck:             Most of the clients have assembled a team of people and we are more than happy to work with that team of people.  Let’s say, if something doesn’t work and that team drops the ball somewhere that’s typically when our people starts to get involved.  So, it’s more of helping a client and being there to pick them up when they stumble rather than try to push services and grow the service aspect of the business.  This is a bank, we look at those services and seeing them being complementary to the bank, not so much as a huge profit center in and of themselves. Kelly:               Do the cost and the revenues from those services, do they run through the bank or do they go through a consulting subsidiary? Chuck:             They go through a subsidiary but they get consolidated but most of them are operated a little above break-even but not much. And that’s how the pricing is affected to keep it almost overly competitive so that people that are going through distress can actually afford to get the help. Kelly:               I love that business model. I really do. In terms of your footprint, where do you operate geographically? Chuck:             It’s pretty much Allegheny County and the bi-contiguous counties but what really drives it is not so much a geographic distance.  That is something that with remote banking and all the electronic world, the way it is today, geography isn’t really an issue.  What is important for us is the evaluation of collateral and the accretive evaluation, and if we get into a troubled loan, having it be within an area that we can dispose of assets to get our money back.  And this bank does some things pretty unique in that area and like, for instance, many times when you reap with us a piece of property and it’s in a distressed situation we can actually have a little subsidiary that comes in, repairs the facility, gets it ready for market and then our real estate group goes and sells it. And so in this particular bank we are not sitting there selling a distressed property at thirty cents on the dollar.  We don’t do that.  We go in, we make sure we fix it up so it’s presentable and it’s safe and then we’ll market it in a conventional sense and market for its fair market value.  You have to be close enough to our Allegheny County location for us to efficiently carry out that aspect of the business plan. And so it pretty much runs in western Pennsylvania.  Kelly:               That’s terrific.  That concludes part one of my interview with Chuck Leyh, CEO of Enterprise Financial Services, in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.  In part two we are going to talk to Chuck about how   his unique business model presents challenges in dealing with both regulators and the auditors.   Thanks for listening.  We want to thank you for listening to the syndicated audio program, BankBosun.com.  The audio content is produced and syndicated by Seth Greene, Market Domination, with the help of Kevin Boyle.  Video content is produced by the Guildmaster Studio, Keenan, Bobson Boyle. Voice introduction is me, Karim Kronfli.  The program is hosted by Kelly Coughlin.  If you like    this program, please tell us.  If you don’t please tell us how we can improve it. And now some disclaimers, Kelly is licensed with the Minnesota Board of Accountancy as a certified public accountant.  The views expressed here are solely those of Kelly Coughlin and his guest in their private capacity and do not in any way represents the views of any other agent, principal, employee, vendor or supplier.

In the Department of Justice’s Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs, Prong 8 Incentive and Disciplinary Measures it states: Incentive System –How has the company considered the potential negative compliance implications of its incentives and rewards?  This week I have been considering how a company could use incentives to further a compliance program and the role of HR in this process. I want to consider how incentives might lead to the converse but looking at the intersection of sales incentives and compliance which led to the problems at Wells Fargo. When you misalignment these two concepts with a faulty sales strategy it can lead to a catastrophic failure, literally costing a company millions of dollars in fines, loss of business and depreciation of shareholder value.  The sales incentives under which Wells Fargo came to such grief is simple and even benign, cross-selling of products. As noted by Rachel Louise Ensign, writing in a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article entitled “Banks Simple Strategy Gets Tangled”, “the concept sounds simple enough. If a customer has a checking account, why not sell him a mortgage, wealth management services and credit card as well?” She went on to write, “with banks becoming larger over the past two decades, cross-selling has become a mantra.” You can also think of the cross-selling McDonalds engages in every time you buy a Big Mac when the representative asks you “Would you like french fries with that?”  Yet there are other reasons for engaging in this type of business practice. Each and every time a company has a touchpoint, particularly a commercial touchpoint with a business, it strengthens the relationship. According to Gary Silverman, writing in the Financial Times (FT) in an article entitled “John Stumpf, the Labrador of Main Street”, Wells Fargo’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) “Mr Stumpf’s take on traditional Wells teaching was to promote deeper, more frequent contact with the people it serves. “If there’s one word to describe this company, it’s ‘relationship,’” he told the Financial Times in May. “What we’re trying to do is make sure that every team member, in every interaction with a customer, gets it right. If we don’t get it right, we try to make it right, really quickly.””  So what starts off as a legitimate, legal and beneficial business strategy becomes not only high risk but illegal because of the manner in which Wells Fargo administered its approach to cross-selling. As with any sales initiative, if a company wants to push it, it will set up incentives for the sales team to engage in such behavior. This can be done by increasing commissions around the service or product being emphasized, such as the banks products. Ensign noted, “Banks have tried to create incentives for cross-selling.” At some banks, “Branch employees can get bonuses—sometimes 10% or more of their salaries—when they sell additional products.” Companies can also increase sales by making clear that you will be evaluated on how much you sell a product or service. In other words, whether you receive a bonus, pay raise or even keep your job will be evaluated, in some part, on how much you cross-sell.  You can even have a hybrid of the above, which may be the worst of all worlds. At Wells Fargo, employees were evaluated for continuing employment by supervisors on cross-selling. Yet they did not receive the same financial incentives to make such cross-selling. Branch managers and supervisors could receive bonuses of up to $10,000 per month for meeting cross-selling quotas when employees who hit their monthly quotas, received, in addition to continued employment, $25 gift cards.  A panel at Compliance Week 2016, entitled “The Unsolvable Problem: Performance, Pay, Pressure and Misconduct”, contained an academic type, Marc Hodak, adjunct Professor of Business at New York University, Alexander Proels, Compliance Head Americas at Siemens, and Michael Weisman, Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer at The Kraft Heinz Company. They had some interesting thoughts around compensation, which I think you should consider in your role as a Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) going forward. One key area is the amount of your variable compensation relative to risk? What does your discretionary bonus program consist of? Is it corporate performance based? Group performance based? Only personal, i.e. eat what you kill? Or is it some combination of all of the above?  What are some of the indicia that your compensation structure might be off the rails from the compliance perspectives? Weisman gave three examples: (1) Lofty goals but no direction for employees on how to get there; (2) that is a paucity of communication between management and line employees, meaning there was raw fear from employees to inform their immediate supervisor of bad news. Conversely, it could be the supervisors who do not want to hear such bad news; and (3) if your company has singular focus on numbers, meaning that is the single judge of your worth as an employee.  Tied directly into this concept is that for every incentive there is an offsetting risk. Managing that risk must be done on an ongoing basis. As a CCO or compliance practitioner, you need to know your business and be a trusted business partner. You will need to understand the design of incentive plans and finally to be able to monitor incentive plans to identify underlying links that may arise through compliance violations.  Hill ended his piece by citing to Oxford Saïd Business School Professor, Jonathan Trevor, for the following “whether the strategy, purpose and structure of companies are aligned often makes the difference between a good organisation and a bad one. Expunging phantasms is essential, but not enough. Leaders also need to make new truces, lest the dead hand of past behaviour strangles new ways of working.” This is particularly true in the convergence of compensation and compliance. Whatever the structure, there will be employees who try to game the system. Some will do it with the tacit or explicit approval of management. You, as the CCO, may be required to act.  Three Key Takeaways Even a benign sales incentive program came become skewed. A sales incentive program can become high risk or illegal if not properly monitored. If there is alignment between the strategy, purpose and structure of an incentive system, it often makes the difference between a good and a bad one. This month’s series is sponsored by Advanced Compliance Solutions and its new service offering the “Compliance Alliance” which is a three-step program that will provide you and your team a background into compliance and the FCPA so you can consider how your product or service fits into the needs of a compliance officer. It includes a FCPA and compliance boot camp, sponsorship of a one-month podcast series, and in-person training. Each section builds on the other and provides your customer service and sales teams with the knowledge they need to have intelligent conversations with compliance officers and decision makers. When the program is complete, your teams will be armed with the knowledge they need to sell and service every new client. Interested parties should contact Tom Fox. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Charlie Peters remembers the New Deal. Things have gone off the rails since then, but he remains optimistic. Why? “We have no choice,” he says. Fred Rotondaro says he is NOT optimistic, but thinks Trump will be impeached. And Bill Press talks free college with Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal. Support the Show Are you tired of Tea Party Republicans and Rush Limbaugh dominating the airwaves? Do you want the facts you won't get on Fox -- or even on CNN? Then stay tuned.     Charlie Peters Charlie Peters, an influential voice for the working class AND for progressives, says he is optimistic about the American story and that Trump is one of the great wake-up calls in history for Democrats.   Fred Rotondaro Fred Rotondaro says Donald Trump is the most anti-American president we’ve ever had – a selfish farce who plays coal miners, and others, for dummies.   Pramila Jauyapal Bill Press interviews Washington State Congresswoman Pramila Jauyapal   Jim Hightower The sad saga of John Stumpf  

Episode #005 John Stumpf, former Wells Fargo CEO Article #1 Article #2 Article #3, bonuses

This week on The Mandatory Sampson Podcast, Chris and Joey sit down to discuss John Stumpf's retirement from Wells Fargo, Ruth Bader Ginsburg walking back her Colin Kaepernick remarks, Ecuador cutting Julian Assange's access to internet at its London embassy, outlandish charges brought against North Dakota Access Pipeline protesters, and a 2016 Presidential update featuring full coverage of the third and final Presidential debate. Enjoy. Thanks! twitter.com/ManSamp // twitter.com/JoeyFromJerzey Please rate and subscribe on iTunes: itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/manda…id932147356?mt=2 Email us: MandatorySampson@gmail.com

Join us in taking A Seat At The Table this week as we discuss Solange, Paris Fashion Week, Amber Rose's SlutWalk, Global Warming and the trashiest of them all John Stumpf. Watch President Obama with Leonardo DiCaprio and Dr. Katharine Hayhoe talk global warming at the First-Ever SXSL (South X South Lawn) here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/sxsl Also, don't forget its October people! It's Cancer Awareness Month! We want to bring awareness to all cancers...breast cancer, liver cancer, uterine cancer, we don't discrimnate! #AllCancerMatters

Learn why the scandal at Wells Fargo is even worse than you’re hearing. Have you checked out the Creating Wealth podcast yet with Jason Hartman? It’s full of amazing information and over 700 podcasts about real estate investing. If you like this podcast, you’ll like that one too. http://bit.ly/wealthpod It’s listener question Friday and one of our listeners asked: Do you think the penalties were big enough for Wells Fargo? The media reports the Wells Fargo fraud as “you received an extra account.” Ah no, that’s not what happened. Money was taken out of accounts without customer permission to create bogus accounts. Fees were charged in the new accounts. Loans were generated without asking, effecting credit scores negatively. Senate Banking Committee hearing last week into the bank’s sales tactics, which earlier resulted in a $185 million fine and regulatory action. During his appearance before that panel, Mr. Stumpf and the bank were roundly criticized for firing 5,300 employees over five years, yet taking no action against top executives. As many as two million accounts were opened using fictitious or unauthorized information. Clients of mine have found that they have 2 - 3 more accounts than they thought they had. They aren’t showing up on the computer. One person lost a business loan because of Wells Fargo. The first class action lawsuit has been filed. IMO, much more will come of this. No executive in the C-suite has lost their job. Only employees doing what they were told. They did announce millions of dollars in stock options would be forfeited. CEO John Stumpf to forfeit $41 million in unvested equity awards, forgo salary during investigation; former retail banking head Carrie Tolstedt to forfeit $19 million in unvested equity awards The female exec in charge is retiring with over $100 million. The CEO has not taken responsibility, but will give back $40 million in options. There are reports by whistleblowers that they were fired for reporting illegal practices. The illegal activities weren’t even caught by Wells Fargo auditors! It was caught by a reporter. This has continued, undetected by senior management, so they say, for several YEARS. This is THE most egregious act of fraud I have ever seen in my life. The harshest penalties should be charged for people who take money out of your account without authorization. This has gone on years after they caught it. I strongly suggest you close your account if you bank there and move to a credit union or small town bank with more integrity.

(Bloomberg) -- Taking Stock with Kathleen Hays and Pimm Fox. GUEST: Peter Andersen, chief investment officer at Fiduciary Trust Company, discusses Wells Fargo's recent troubles with accounts and John Stumpf's testimony before the House of Representatives.

John Stumpf, CEO of Wells Fargo, faced another round of criticism, outrage and anger during a Congressional hearing Thursday. It was his second trip to Capitol Hill after the bank agreed to pay $185 million to settle accusations it had engaged in illegal banking activities — specifically, opening more than 2 million accounts on behalf of customers without their knowledge. The bank continues to deny any wrongdoing, but Stumpf is now forfeit $41 million in stock awards and any bonuses this year. Carrie Tolstedt, the executive who ran the branch in question and retired this summer with $124.6 million in stock and options, will have to give up $19 million in stock awards. This week on Money Talking, Rana Foroohar, author of "Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance & the Fall of American Business" and Sheelah Kolhatkar, staff writer at The New Yorker, take a second look at the increasing anger towards the bank and its consequences.

Wells Fargo chairman and CEO John Stumpf's testimony before the Senate Banking Committee raised new questions about banking culture and incentives but offered little clarity on what went wrong. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The company's chief executive John Stumpf came under intense scrutiny from a panel of Senators and was urged to resign by Elizabeth Warren as a scandal over bogus accounts rocked the company. But will anybody complicit in Wells Fargo’s crimes actually face prison time?Yesterday marked 40 years since a former Chilean diplomat’s life was taken in a bombing in the streets of Washington, D.C. Who was Orlando Letelier and why was he targeted in the capital of the United States by a military dictatorship installed in a CIA orchestrated coup? Becker speaks with Chilean historian and author Victor Figeuroa Clark.Hillary Clinton was nowhere to be found at the Clinton Global Initiative’s final annual summit, as President Obama also kept his distance from this year’s event. But will both of them staying away do anything to improve the image of the Clinton Foundation? Daniel McAdams, executive director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity, joins Becker.

I don't know if you've noticed this, but when people talk about how it came to pass that Donald Trump is the presidential nominee of a major political party and looking more and more like he could win, one group that often gets the blame is...well, us. The media. Has the press become the brilliant ally of democracy's gravedigger? Joining us to sort through this is the New Republic's Brian Beutler. Meanwhile, we return to the matter of Wells Fargo bank, who face huge fines for having feathered their bottom line on the backs of a massive scam perpetrated against their customers. This week, Wells Fargo head John Stumpf was called before Congress to answer for his bank's malfeasances, and while there were the expected pyrotechnics from Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, there were also helpless shrugs from other parties. We're joined by Slate Columnist Haleine Olen to discuss the matter. Finally, are we headed toward yet another government shutdown? Probably not. Hopefully not! But once again, Congress... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Independent investigative journalism, broadcasting, trouble-making and muckraking with Brad Friedman of BradBlog.com

Independent investigative journalism, broadcasting, trouble-making and muckraking with Brad Friedman of BradBlog.com

Okay, here it is, the information you've waited years for:- How bank fees got so prevalent, what they are- How to avoid them- How to complain about them, escalating to top management (contact info)- How to report banks to regulators over fees- How to file lawsuits against them. Show Audio Here.Here are all the links / sources used in the podcast by timestamp when they are heard in the show and some useful information in between:We start our aftercast with some outraged people who tell of their experiences with Bank of America, Wells Fargo (chanting from the protest on Wall Street - Wells Fargo this sucks! Where's our $25 million bucks!), Citibank, and Chase bank.  Can you relate to these people?  Are you mad as heck and don't want to take it anymore?  Protesters walk Broadway in Manhattan, NY, they walked in Chicago, and other cities!  Are you mad enough to want to join them if and when there is another protest?Scott's pet peeve is FEES and specifically, in this aftercast, he takes on bank fees (credit card fees will be featured in another podcast).  In this discussion, free checking (is there such a thing?), small print on bank notices, and other bank fees.  Scott will take us through the fees and how to report these outrageous fees to many different agencies.7:45: Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depository_Institutions_Deregulation_and_Monetary_Control_Act8:45: First National Bank of Chicago Teller Fee in 1995http://redtape.msnbc.com/2008/04/paying-cash-at.html In 1995, First National Bank of Chicago started charging a $3 teller fee which forced people to use the ATM and profits doubled for 28%.  Banking customers have become nickeled and dimed ever since.10:15: Financial Times August 2009 on Bank Fees:http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/43d18c68-851d-11de-9a64-00144feabdc0.htmlBanks make $38 billion from fees yearly.  Fees have nearly doubled since 2000 - Financial Times, August 2009. Banks made 75% of their money from fees, not interest. 13:20: PocketMoney checking account register software for Iphone:http://www.catamount.com/iPhoneApps/PocketMoney.html17:37: Coverage on the courtesy overdraft scam where fees and interest are charged to move funds to cover itemshttp://www.billshrink.com/blog/7898/bank-of-america-overdraft/19:15: Usury references in the Bible:http://www.tentmaker.org/lists/UsuryScriptureList.html20:00: Usury defined:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usury20:15: Fed Moves to Limit Overdraft Fees:http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/federal-reserve-issues-new-rules-restricting-overdraft-fees-on-d/19235338/22:00: Banks move to limit Overdraft Fees:http://newsroom.bankofamerica.com/index.php?s=43&item=8538http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2009/09/24/wells-fargo-to-eliminate-overdraft-charges/24:15: Red Tape Chronicles MSNBC Reporter Bob Sullivan Reveals BOA's ATM Denial Fee:http://redtape.msnbc.com/2005/10/now_even_atm_de.htmlThank you to Bob Sullivan, Red Tape Cronicles, for revealing an ATM denial fee of $1.50 from Bank of America when he was over his DAILY withdrawl limit. 24:50: One Consumer (of millions) gets stung with the daily spending limit when shopping:http://consumerist.com/2008/02/bank-of-america-wont-let-you-access-your-money.htmlEven worse: Stranded when they cut you off when you are abroad:http://consumerist.com/2008/06/bank-of-america-tries-to-ruin-your-vacation-for-your-own-protection.html25:30: History of ATM's - They started out Free (Thanks to K.D. Weinert) http://www.stopatmfees.com/newpage3.htm  29:45: The Wells Fargo Rewards Debit Card program Elaine describes:https://www.wellsfargo.com/checkcard/rewardsThe Wells Fargo Rewards Program is free if you ONLY register your credit card, but of course, when you try to register your Debit/Visa Logo card to that, there is a yearly fee of $12.  This information comes directly from a customer service representative who I spoke with in the Rewards Dept.  Even though you will get $1 reward for each $1 you put on your credit card, the debit card with visa logo is less than that. 30:15: Chase Leisure Rewards Program referred to in Short Show:https://www.chase.com/ccp/index.jsp?pg_name=ccpmapp/shared/assets/page/leisure_rewards_faq30:30: How Points and Loyalty programs work:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyalty_program31:15: TCF Bank $50 bonus promotion:http://www.tcfbank.com/PersonalBanking/pb_checking_free_cash_50.jsp33:52: Wells Fargo Coin Counting Program:  CORRECTION: Elaine stated there is a program to only count coins on certain days and only for WF members. It was information given to her by her local branch of Wells Fargo. Although, when calling to check on this I was advised WF will count coins for no fee for either customers or non-customers IF they have a coin counting machine in the branch, but if they do not, then the tellers will not take the coins (they should) and will refer the customers to another branch.  WF was unable to tell me if they have a policy spelled out on their website, and I could not find one. 34:15:  WF and others charing non account holders $5 fee to cash checks drawn on their bank:http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2005/09/05/daily12.html35:20: Regulations D Savings Fee Info:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_D39:00: Bob Sullivan's book "Gotcha Capitalism"http://www.gotchacapitalism.com/44:22: http://www.moveyourmoney.info  is the site helping you find other smaller more local banks to bank with instead of these big 4 banks the fee you to death and took your tax bailout money, yet won't pay you decent interest or loan you money. Huffington Post coverage: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/move-your-money-a-new-yea_b_406022.html45:45: How banks play games with waiting to credit your deposit to your account:http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/chk/19991102.aspThis article also has 6 great tips to avoid this affecting you or making your account go negative. 46:09: Check 21: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Check_2146:25: The Expedited Funds Availability Act: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expedited_Funds_Availability_Act46:45: Here is some good strategy for getting the fees waived:http://money.blogs.time.com/2010/02/23/the-customer-service-confrontation-what-to-say-to-get-fees-waived/Escalation Resources:47:41: Federal Reserve Bank: Consumer Complaint Form: http://www.federalreserveconsumerhelp.gov/consumercomplaint.cfmContact Info listed on that same page as well. 49:00: Office of Comptroller of the Currency:Complaint Form: https://appsec.helpwithmybank.gov/olcc_form/Contact Info Here:http://www.helpwithmybank.gov/contactus/index.html50:00: Complain about a Credit Union:http://www.ncua.gov/Resources/ConsumerInformation/Complaints/index.aspxPick the right category of Credit Union, then pick your state, and the contact info for the correct regulator will be revealed.50:47: Karney Hatch's Video "Overdrawn" featured his successful suit against Wells Fargo fighting outrageous overdraft fees. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUXRBehEuH0Overdrawn homepage: http://www.overdrawnmovie.net51:45: Consumerist.com article link to web page for small claims court process in all 50 states:http://consumerist.com/2008/01/suing-big-companies-in-small-claims-court-is-fun-and-easy.htmlDirect link to the resource: http://law.freeadvice.com/resources/smallclaimscourts.htm52:30 Kopelowitz & Ostrow law firm is another possible legal option:  See if there is a class action suit and join it, or start a new one: http://www.bankoverdraftlawyers.com/how-to-avoid-bank-overdraft-fees.phpSocial Media Sites to Publicize your story and complain at:53:15:  Consumerist.com:  http://www.consumerist.com (Email your story to them, if they cover it, seen by thousands of people, but note, they redact the story so the actual location of the business isn't revealed.)The rest of these sites do NOT redact stuff, which I feel is better.Rip Off Report: http://www.ripoffreport.com My3Cents.com: http://www.my3cents.comPlanetFeedback: http://www.planetfeedback.comComplaints.com: http://www.complaints.comEpinions.com: http://www.epinions.comThese sites are geographically oriented.  When other consumers search for that business, they just might see your review and not shop there! :)Yelp.com: http://www.yelp.comGoogle.com: http://www.google.com.  (Look up the business and then you should see link for reviews, write a review, many others will see it.)CitySearch.com: http://www.citysearch.comYahoo Local: http://local.yahoo.com/Insider Pages: http://www.insiderpages.comThink Local: http://www.thinklocal.comMetromix: http://www.metromix.comZiphip: http://www.ziphip.comKudzu: http://www.kudzu.comBank Executive Contact and Salary Info:55:00:  John Stumpf, CEO of Wells Fargo:Contact Info: http://consumerist.com/2008/09/contact-info-for-wells-fargo-ceo-john-stumpf-and-friends.htmlSalary Info: http://people.forbes.com/profile/john-g-stumpf/85891(Sarah is his personal assistant as per Elaine.)57:00: Jamie Dimon, CEO of Chase Bank:Heather Joyner, Resolution Specialist: http://consumerist.com/2010/03/having-a-problem-with-chase-bank-heres-where-to-turn.htmlCEO Contact Info: http://consumerist.com/2008/05/contact-information-for-chase-ceos.htmlSalary Info: http://people.forbes.com/profile/james-s-dimon/4663059:50: Brian Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America:BofA is a finalist in Consumerist.com's Worst Company in America Contest:http://consumerist.com/2010/04/worst-company-in-america-overtime-rules.htmlCEO Contact Info: http://consumerist.com/2010/04/reach-bank-of-americas-ceo.htmlSalary Info: http://people.forbes.com/profile/brian-t-moynihan/1005960:48: Vikram Pandit, CEO of Citibank:CEO Contact Info:: http://consumerist.com/2008/10/reach-citibank-executive-customer-service.htmlSalary Info: http://people.forbes.com/profile/vikram-s-pandit/19716Also: 27 Citibank executive emails! :)  http://consumerist.com/2009/03/27-citibank-executive-emails.html62:07: Correction: I had stated that Vikram's share of Old Lane netted him $79 million, but two articles say he actually made around $162.5 million on it:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikram_Pandithttp://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ausa1oLaMjBs&refer=home67:05: Chase Bank Unemployment Card Fee Scandal:http://cbs4denver.com/investigates/unemployement.debit.cards.2.1531314.htmlExtra Resource Not Mentioned in the Episode:Big 4 banks fee disclosures:Chase: https://apply.chase.com/oao/DisclosureRetriever.aspx?DI=aHR0cDovL2FwcGNvbnRlbnQuYmFua29uZS5uZXQvUlNJL0RlcG9zaXQvUEVSU19DT19BQlNGX0VOR19WMzEuZmRmWells Fargo:https://www.wellsfargo.com/wfonline/deposit_acct_feesBank of America:http://factsaboutfees.bankofamerica.com/manage-banking-fees/Citibank:http://www.citigroup.com/uae/gcb/info/docs/fin_charges.pdf