To: Eric Holder, Attorney General

Attorney General Holder: You said no bank is "too big to jail". Prove it starting with Wells Fargo.

Attorney General Eric Holder: We demand you live up to your words from May 5, 2014, “No bank is too big to jail”, starting with Wells Fargo and its CEO John Stumpf.

Why is this important?

$21.9 billion. That’s Wells Fargo’s profit for 2013. It’s their most ever. [1] And it’s coming off the backs of foreclosure victims and underwater homeowners like me.

My name is Yolanda Andrews, and Wells Fargo bankers are trying to steal my home. That’s why I went to San Antonio, Texas on April 29th to directly confront Wells CEO John Stumpf and ask him to work with me to keep me in my home. I brought with me 6,000 signatures of people like you telling him to do the right thing.

Then last week, on May 5th, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder uttered words I’ve been waiting for him to say since Wall Street bankers destroyed our economy, foreclosed on 5 million families and kept 20% of homeowners underwater: “No bank is too big to jail.” [2] [3]

Losing your home hurts the same whether you are African American, Latino, Asian or white. But Wells Fargo has been investigated and paid multi-million dollar settlements for racial discrimination in lending and how it deals with foreclosed homes.

Here’s why Wells Fargo and its CEO John Stumpf should be the poster children for proving there is no such thing as “Too Big to Jail”:

Just two years ago it settled lawsuits by Memphis, TN and Baltimore, MD for a combined total of $607 million. [4] In 2013, the New York Attorney General sued Wells Fargo for systematically violating key servicing standards national $25 billion foreclosure settlement regarding loan modification practices. [5] Also in 2013, Wells Fargo settled a fair housing complaint with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for $39 million because it “maintained and marketed foreclosed properties in White areas are much better… than such properties … in African-American and Latino Neighborhoods.” [6]

Two months ago, news reports show that in 2011 and 2012 Wells Fargo published an internal manual showing how to forge proof of ownership documents in foreclosure files. [7] And just last month, a report from the University of Minnesota shows that Wells Fargo systematically denied credit and refinancing of sub-prime mortgages to communities of color in the Twin Cities. [8]

I’ve been fighting for an affordable loan modification from Wells Fargo for 5 years now – Wells Fargo’s last offer was for a $49 reduction – and it has impacted my health to the point where I can no longer get steady work. Earlier this year, they filed for foreclosure on my house. I’ve been on the receiving end of every kind of abuse Wells Fargo has admitted to and pledged to stop. We need to ensure that they live up to their word.

Stand with me and demand Eric Holder live up to his own words and start prosecuting Wells Fargo.

[1] http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/01/14/wells-fargo-4th-quarter-profit-rose-10-slightly-ahead-of-estimates/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
[2] http://diversity.berkeley.edu/underwater-america-report
[3] http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/no-company-is-too-big-to-jail-holder-says-of-justice-dept-probes/2014/05/05/e133e49c-d45f-11e3-aae8-c2d44bd79778_story.html
[4] http://money.cnn.com/2012/05/30/news/companies/wells-fargo-memphis/ and http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-07-12/news/bs-md-ci-wells-fargo-20120712_1_mike-heid-wells-fargo-home-mortgage-subprime-mortgages
[5] http://www.ag.ny.gov/pdfs/NMS%20MOL.pdf
[6] http://www.nationalfairhousing.org/Portals/33/News%20Release%20for%20NFHA%20Wells%20Fargo%20Complaint%20120410%20Pdf.pdf
[7] http://nypost.com/2014/03/12/wells-fargo-made-up-on-demand-foreclosure-papers-plan-court-filing-charges/
[8] http://www.law.umn.edu/metro/index.html