In a dramatic display earlier this week in Southern California, homeowner Betty Bardo stormed the stage during a banker’s conference where Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf was in the middle of speaking.
Bardo approached Stumpf and began to question him as to why her requests for a loan modification on her home have been refused. She told Mr. Stumpf that she can afford the mortgage and had a check in hand that she was asking him to accept. She was then immediately encircled by people who are assumed to be other executives, partially blocking her view from the camera and calling for security. As Stumpf quietly slipped away from the melee, Bardo called out, “John, don’t walk away.”
As Bardo pleaded her case to those in the room, she was continuously pushed back by other men who entered the stage, and at one point a man is seen forcefully trying to grab the microphone from her.
“I’ve been working hard all my life,” Bardo said in a later statement. “I have income, I want to pay my mortgage, I just want a modification with principal reduction so that I can stay in my home. It is everything to me. John Stumpf and Wells Fargo are raking in money. They just had their most profitable year ever, but they’re profiting off the homes and livelihoods of American families.”
Watch the confrontation and ensuing protest in the video below.
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