Consumer Confidential: In this, my final column, one last consumer problem to be solved
John and Dorothy Laguna opened a Wells Fargo checking account in 2014.
Wells Fargo opened three more accounts in the Lagunas' name not long after — several of the millions of bogus accounts the bank opened without people's permission to meet sales quotas.
The Dana Point, California couple subsequently joined a massive class-action lawsuit against Wells, which in 2017 resulted in a $142-million settlement. The bank also paid billions of dollars in fines.
The Lagunas' share of the settlement was about a hundred bucks. But OK, the couple decided. They were ready to move on.
"I thought we were done with them," John Laguna, 82, told me.
Nope. Last fall, they started receiving notices from Wells that a payment of $104.79 was overdue for a charge to one of the fake accounts opened in their name that the Lagunas assumed had been closed years ago.
