Sen. Elizabeth Warren calls Wells Fargo CEO ‘evasive,’ presses bank

Sen. Elizabeth Warren called Wells Fargo CEO Charles Scharf “evasive,” saying the bank’s answers to her questions about fraud across the Zelle payment platform were misleading, “insulting and useless.”

The Massachusetts Democrat, who sits on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, said the rate of Wells Fargo customers who reported fraud or scams on Zelle was more than twice as high as other big banks and 2.5 times higher in 2022 than in 2019 among Wells Fargo customers. She said the bank “attempted to mislead me” by providing limited data from 2018 and 2021.

“Your responses to the remainder of my questions were insulting and useless to your customers, who have been the victims of fraud and scamms on Zelle and are unaware of the higher risks they face on the platform as customers of your bank,” she wrote in a letter sent Monday to Scharf.

Warren pressed the bank and and Early Warning Services, the parent company of money transfer platform Zelle, to release more data on fraud and scam complaints reported by banking customers. Requests for comment from Wells Fargo and Early Warning Services weren’t immediately returned.

She said prior requests for specific data compiled for an October analysis of fraud and scam complaints by consumers went unheeded.

“I am disappointed by your evasive and misleading reply to my October 6, 2022 letter asking about the extraordinarily high and rapidly increasing instances of fraud and scams affecting Wells Fargo customers on the Zelle money transfer platform,” Warren wrote. “Your customers – who have in recent years endured dozens of examples of lawbreaking and mistreatment by your bank – deserve better.”

Warren’s report said several big banks, including Wells Fargo, may have violated federal law by failing to refund a vast majority of customers defrauded on Zelle. She found that the seven banks that own Zelle and its parent company — Bank of America, Truist, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, PNC Bank, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo — did not repay customers most of the time in 190,000 cases in 2021 and the first half of 2022 where consumers said they were scammed on Zelle.

The amount of the fraudulent payments reached $213 million, according to the report.

Wells Fargo was among several banks that refused to release key fraud information, Warren said, though the frequency of Zelle fraud and scam reports by the bank’s customers was “more than twice as high as it was for comparable banks for which we had data,” according to the letter.

Jim Seitz, a spokesman for Wells Fargo, told CNBC in October that Warren’s analysis is “misleading and inaccurate.”

“We welcome the opportunity to have a constructive discussion about wholistic Zelle data and industry trends — not just that of 3 banks,” Seitz said.

Early Warning Services also defended Wells Fargo in its response to the results of Warren’s Oct. 3 report, saying that “recent statements regarding Wells Fargo’s fraud and scam rates are inaccurate. Wells…