Lawyers Say Fake Wells Accounts Number 3.5M

Lawyers for the plaintiff side are projecting that Wells Fargo employees opened up approximately 3.5 million accounts without customer consent. In this $142 million settlement lawsuit, this estimate filing was made in a San Francisco federal court this past Thursday evening. At its new estimate, these unauthorized accounts have reached 1.4 million higher than federal regulators initially assessed.

While the Keller Rohrback law firm on the plaintiff side says these estimates reflect “public information, negotiations and confirmatory discovery,” Wells Fargo’s spokesman Ancel Martinez said it was “based on a hypothetical scenario” that did not reflect “actual unauthorized accounts.”

The preliminary approval of this lawsuit settlement is set for a May 18 hearing by U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria.