Wells Fargo says rehires workers wrongly fired in accounts scandal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tim Sloan, the chief executive officer of Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N), apologized for a phony accounts scandal and said the bank has hired back more than 1,000 workers wrongly fired or who left due to the wrongdoing, according to prepared Congressional testimony.

“We expected to find more shortcomings ... and we did,” Sloan said in prepared remarks to the Senate Banking Committee obtained by Reuters. The hearing is set for Tuesday.

Sloan said the bank found abuses in an auto insurance product and that more customers were affected by the phony accounts scandal than originally thought.

Sloan said more than 1,780 bank employees who were wrongly fired or left the bank have been rehired since the scandal broke.

Sloan will testify at the hearing, “Wells Fargo: One Year Later,” to examine events that led up to affair that resulted in a $190 million settlement with regulators.

For years, Wells Fargo employees created checking, saving and other accounts without customer approval.

About 3.5 million phony accounts may have been created, with about 190,000 of them incurring fees and charges, Sloan said.