The scope of Wells Fargo's fake accounts scandal grew significantly on Thursday, with the bank now saying that 3.5 million accounts were potentially opened without customers' permission between 2009 and 2016.Wells Fargo also acknowledged that roughly half a million of the newly discovered accounts were missed during the original review of the years 2011 to 2015 when the bank admitted the scandal nearly a year ago.After Wells Fargo said last year that its employees under pressure to meet aggressive sales targets had opened up to 2.1 million accounts between 2011 and 2015 without getting customers' permission, evidence quickly appeared that the bank's sales practices problems dated back even further.So Wells Fargo last year hired an outside consulting firm to do an analysis of 165 million retail bank accounts opened between 2009 and 2016.The firm found that, along with the 2.1 million accounts originally disclosed, 981,000 more accounts were found in the expanded timeline of 2009 to September 2016, Wells said. During the original time period, from May 2011 through mid-2015, Wells Fargo’s investigation found that there were actually 2.55 million potentially fake accounts opened, up from the 2.1 million fake accounts originally thought to be opened during that time. According to the bank, of those 3.5 million potentially fake accounts, approximately 190,000 accounts incurred fees and charges, up from 130,000 previously identified accounts that incurred fees and charges. That review found that during the nearly eight-year review period, the bank engaged in approximately 528,000 potentially unauthorized online bill pay enrollments. "To rebuild trust and to build a better Wells Fargo, our first priority is to make things right for our customers, and the completion of this expanded third-party analysis is an important milestone," Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan said in a statement. Wels Fargo will refund $2.8 million to the affected customers, in addition to the $3.3 million the bank already agreed to pay.In addition, Wells admitted that 528,000 customers were likely signed up for online bill payment without authorization as well. The bank also promised to pay $910,000 to refund customers for the 528,000 potentially improper online bill pay enrollments. In the weeks and months after the bank acknowledged in September 2016 that its employees opened 2.1 million accounts without getting customers’ permission, the bank agreed to look for fake accounts going back an additional two years to 2009.
Wells Fargo reports finding an additional 1.4 million potentially fake bank and credit card accounts, bringing the total problematic accounts to approximately 3.5 million.