Feud Between Inglewood and Wells Fargo Heats Up

A dispute between Wells Fargo Bank and the city of Inglewood heated up last week when the bank refused to honor 110 city payroll checks totaling $133,000 because it said there were insufficient funds to cover the checks in the city’s account.

The city and Wells Fargo have been embroiled in a feud since August, when the owner of a janitorial firm that cleaned City Hall was arrested for allegedly stealing 34 blank checks from the city finance office, forging them with the signatures of city officials and cashing them for more than $1.3 million.

The city last week filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court against Wells Fargo seeking to recover the money and, as a protest, began transferring its accounts to Inglewood-based Imperial Bank.

The city said that Wells Fargo rejected the payroll request last Tuesday when bank officials knew a wire transfer was in the works to cover the checks. The city has apologized to the 10% of the work force whose paychecks bounced, reissued their checks and offered to cover any bank charges.

“We were outraged,” said Assistant City Manager Norm Cravens. “They were thinking they were going to teach the city a thing or two for having the audacity to try to recover our money.”

Bank officials said they were just being prudent.

“The city is trying to divert attention from the bottom line: That they had a negative balance of half a million dollars (in the account), which is fiscally irresponsible,” said Wells Fargo spokeswoman Mary Essary. “It was on an account they told us they were going to close. It was the only sensible thing for the bank to do.”

The city blames Wells Fargo for clearing the stolen checks, which ranged from $50,000 to $470,547, without noticing that they lacked official signatures and contained rows of typed Xs on the face, indicating that they had been voided by the city.