# AI incidents at Wells Fargo

Source: https://www.bankingnewsai.com/banks/wells-fargo/ai-incidents
Last updated: Oct 21, 2026

## Has Wells Fargo had a publicly reported AI incident?

Yes: 2 publicly reported AI incidents on record since January 2022.

| Date | Institution | Incident | AI? | Role | Category | Severity | Status |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Jan 4, 2023 | Wells Fargo | [DoNotPay says an AI voice clone got Wells Fargo to refund fees; the bank says the call didn't happen as shown](https://www.bankingnewsai.com/ai-incidents/wells-fargo-2023-donotpay-voice-clone-refund) | AI (stated) | AI used against the institution | Voice clone | 1/5 | Disputed |
| Feb 17, 2022 | Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. | [Suits alleged Wells Fargo's automated mortgage underwriting discriminated against minority applicants](https://www.bankingnewsai.com/ai-incidents/wells-fargo-2022-mortgage-underwriting-bias-suit) | Automation, not AI | Governance finding | Litigation | 3/5 | Settled |

### DoNotPay says an AI voice clone got Wells Fargo to refund fees; the bank says the call didn't happen as shown

In January 2023 DoNotPay chief executive Joshua Browder posted a video he claimed showed a bot, speaking in an AI-generated clone of his own voice, calling Wells Fargo customer support and getting wire-transfer fees on his account refunded, as reported by Vice's Motherboard and Futurism. Browder said the tool combined Resemble.ai, the GPT-J language model and DoNotPay's own models. Wells Fargo disputes the account: it told Motherboard its call recordings showed "the customer's call to Wells Fargo didn't happen the way it's presented in the video" and that the video appeared edited. Browder denied editing it beyond removing his account number. It was a demonstration on his own account, not fraud, and no loss was reported.

https://www.bankingnewsai.com/ai-incidents/wells-fargo-2023-donotpay-voice-clone-refund

### Suits alleged Wells Fargo's automated mortgage underwriting discriminated against minority applicants

From February 2022, Black and Hispanic mortgage applicants filed six putative class actions against Wells Fargo in the Northern District of California, alleging that its centralized automated underwriting, which they called CORE/ECS, denied them loans, delayed them or gave them worse terms. The suits followed a March 2022 Bloomberg analysis that Wells Fargo approved 47% of Black refinance applicants in 2020 against 72% of White applicants. Wells Fargo said human underwriters decide and that its scoring models are simple scorecards that do not use AI. On 5 August 2025 the court denied class certification for lack of commonality, and the Ninth Circuit declined to hear an appeal. The named plaintiffs then settled individually; on 30 September 2026 the court closed the case. No terms were disclosed and no court found discrimination.

https://www.bankingnewsai.com/ai-incidents/wells-fargo-2022-mortgage-underwriting-bias-suit

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Part of [BankingNewsAI](https://www.bankingnewsai.com/) — the register of AI incidents at banks: https://www.bankingnewsai.com/ai-incidents. Markdown versions of every reference page: append `.md` to the page URL; index at https://www.bankingnewsai.com/llms.txt.