Santa Clara County Cuts Wells Fargo Ties, San Francisco May Follow

SAN JOSE (KPIX 5) – After doing business with Wells Fargo Bank for more than 25 years, Santa Clara County supervisors unanimously voted to cut ties over the bank's fake account scandal.

The largest county in Northern California is dropping Wells Fargo as its bank, after it admitted to creating more than 2 million phony bank and credit card accounts to collect fees.

"We use them on a regular basis," Supervisor Joe Simitian told KPIX 5. "But going forward we are not going to use them for investments, we won't be using them as a broker-dealer. We won't be using them to underwrite any of our debt issuances."

Simitian said the county will continue to do its day-to-day business with Wells Fargo for now, because they are under contract for at least another two years.

Meanwhile in San Francisco, Supervisor John Avalos introduced a resolution Tuesday to cut ties with the bank.

"Wells Fargo's stagecoach has left ghost towns to eat the dust of the wind behind it." Avalos said. "Now California is rocked by the latest scandal coming out of the business model of what some analysts call control fraud."

Avalos also demanding a review of all past dealings between the City of San Francisco and Wells Fargo.

"I think it's a shame," Simitian said. "Wells Fargo has been an iconic banking brand here in California for more than a century. And you see this kind of behavior and you think, what is it that makes folks think that this is okay?"

Santa Cruz voted last week to suspend new business with Wells Fargo. The bank said it is committed to fixing what went wrong and restoring public trust.