Former Wells Fargo Advisors Sue the Company Over Cross-Selling
3 min
Two former Wells Fargo advisors are suing the firm for breach of contract, unfair business practices, and retaliation after they say they resisted pressure from their supervisors to secretly transfer sensitive client information from the advisor and brokerage side of the company to the private bank.
The advisors, Karen Keusayan and Richard Green, are also alleging that Wells Fargo improperly withheld deferred compensation after they resigned in 2021 and joined Morgan Stanley , where they are still registered.
In their complaint, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, the advisors describe themselves as high-producing employees who were loyal to the company even through the “nightmarish” years of 2015 to 2017, when Wells Fargo’s banking division was “publicly scorned” for the fake account scandal.
“This is not the ‘sour grapes’ case of a disgruntled employee(s) who sought a promotion and did not get one,” the advisors say in their complaint. “Neither Ms. Keusayan nor Mr. Green ever wanted to leave Wells Fargo. The goal for each had always been to retire at Wells Fargo.”
Wells Fargo declined to comment on the lawsuit.
The two advisors joined forces in 2015 to form a “production partnership,” according to the complaint, which says they grew their book of business to more than $1 billion by 2020.
In 2018, Wells Fargo introduced a new element to its advisor compensation plan, according to the complaint. Advisors were expected to complete forms called client discovery reviews, or CDRs, detailing information about advisory clients. The plaintiffs say they were directed by a compliance officer to keep the forms secret from the clients themselves.
Instead, the CDRs were intended for Wells Fargo’s private bank, “not the broker-dealer/financial services side where plaintiffs worked,” according to the complaint.
They contend that advisors were pressured to work with clients to complete CDRs, which would be secretly shared with Wells Fargo private bankers who could use them as sales leads.
Before submitting the forms to count toward a quota that resulted in additional compensation, the advisors had to check three boxes stating that they had discussed the information with the client, that the information was accurate, and that they had offered the client an opportunity to obtain a copy of the document. On that last item, the plaintiffs allege that Wells Fargo essentially instructed the advisors to lie, explaining that the document didn’t belong to the advisors, but the bank, even though the information came from their own clients.
“[H]igh-ranking compliance personnel at Wells Fargo Advisors repeatedly told plaintiffs to never deliver or present the CDR to the client since, as it was explained by compliance, the CDR was a bank document,” the complaint states. “Worse, plaintiffs were told not to inform the client that a CDR had been prepared.”
The plaintiffs say that these “dishonest instructions” put them in an “impossible position” and that they soon began raising concerns with their superiors. But each time they spoke out, they were told by their supervisors to continue submitting the forms as a requisite part of the company’s compensation plan.
The complaint describes the advisors’ growing unease with being pressured to falsify the CDR submission document, as well as concerns over the personal privacy of their clients, whose information was allegedly being shared internally without their knowledge or permission.
The advisors say that their bosses undertook a retaliatory campaign against them for continuing to raise objections to the CDR program, “including by failing to provide the banking support that plaintiffs and their clients had come to expect as a benefit of being associated with a large, full-service, retail bank,” according to the complaint.
They also say that the advisors felt their jobs were at risk, offering examples of a hostile or coercive work environment. “Mr. Green was berated by a yelling supervisor in front of fellow employees, and Ms. Keusayan was informed that the bank would not issue a routine credit card to her sister (a customer) if a CDR was not on file,” according to the complaint.
The advisors say the deteriorating work environment ultimately led them to resign around July 2021, after which they were informed that they were ineligible for large sums of deferred compensation—$662,000 for Keusayan and nearly $814,000 for Green.
The advisors are seeking to recoup the deferred comp they say they are owed, and are asking the court for additional damages, as well as an injunction barring Wells Fargo from engaging in the conduct alleged in the complaint, among other relief.
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The voices reshaping how Australians think about money — and why credibility matters more than reach.
6 min
The best financial advice many Australians are receiving right now is not coming from licensed advisers charging by the hour. It is coming through a phone screen, in the ten minutes between work and dinner, from creators who have built credibility the hard way: by being right, being transparent, and being specific in a space where vagueness has always been the easy default.
This is not a ranking by follower count. Follower count is a measure of distribution, not of quality. What follows is a ranking by substance — credentials, accuracy, community depth, and the quality of what an audience actually learns from following these accounts. The distinction matters, because the Australians acting on this content are making real financial decisions with real money.
1- Queenie Tan – Corporate Authorised Representative; Co-Founder & Director, Invest With Queenie & Billroo
There are finance influencers who talk about building wealth, and there are those who document it in real time with receipts. Queenie Tan belongs firmly in the second category. Starting from a $400-per-week income, Tan built her net worth past $1 million while publishing the actual numbers — income, savings rate, investment decisions — for an audience of more than 400,000 across platforms.
She is a Corporate Authorised Representative, co-founder of the personal finance app Billroo, and the author of a book that has become a practical reference for young Australians navigating ETFs, superannuation and property. What separates her from the crowded field of money educators is precision: she does not talk in principles when she can talk in percentages.
2- Alan Kohler – Editor-in-Chief, Eureka Report; Editor-in-Chief, InvestSMART Group; ABC News finance presenter, host of Inside Business.
If Queenie Tan represents the new wave of personal finance creators, Alan Kohler represents something the new wave will spend decades trying to build: institutional credibility that has survived multiple economic cycles. As Editor-in-Chief of the Eureka Report and InvestSMART Group, and a decades-long presence on ABC News, Kohler has spent more than thirty years making financial analysis accessible without dumbing it down.
His coverage of RBA decisions, market movements and economic policy is cited by podcasters, journalists and fund managers alike. He is not chasing virality. He does not need to.
3- Aleks Nikolic – Corporate lawyer; host, Big Swinging Stocks podcast
Most finance creators address the mechanics of money. Aleks Nikolic addresses the psychology — and that distinction explains why her following is as loyal as it is. Operating as Broke Girl Wealth across Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, Nikolic covers ETFs, crypto and investment strategy, but her real differentiator is a willingness to discuss the emotional architecture of financial decision-making.
Shame around debt. Fear around market volatility. The limiting beliefs that stop people acting on what they already know. In a space where confidence is routinely performed, her candour is a genuine competitive advantage.
4- Bryce Leske & Alec Renehan – Equity Mates Media
Equity Mates did not build a following. They built a media company. What began as a podcast by two friends learning to invest has grown into Australia’s most established investing media brand, covering ASX stocks, ETFs, global markets and fund manager interviews across podcast, social and YouTube.
The longevity is the credential. Equity Mates has operated through multiple market cycles, a global pandemic, and a generational shift in how Australians engage with investing — and its audience has grown through all of it. When the hosts speak, their listeners know they have been paying attention for years.
5- The Lazy CEO – CEO & Founder, Showpo; Shark Tank Australia investor
The metric that matters most on social media is not followers — it is engagement, because engagement signals trust. Jane Lu, known as The Lazy CEO, maintains an engagement rate of approximately 1.15 per cent on Instagram, which is exceptional for a finance account of his size. Her 242,000-plus followers are not passive consumers: they ask questions, share experiences and apply what they read.
Her content focuses on business finance and wealth building, and the active comment sections are the clearest possible evidence that her audience does not merely scroll past.
6- Tash Invests – Founder, Tash Lends; Forbes Australia 30 Under 30
Tash Invests built her following on a premise that sounds simple but is rarer in practice than it should be: she publishes the actual numbers. Not approximations or ranges or anonymised case studies — her salary, her savings rate, her portfolio value, her net worth, updated and on the record.
Having bought her first property at twenty-two and grown her documented net worth past $1 million, she has become the primary reference point for young Australians trying to understand what building wealth on a moderate income genuinely looks like. The specificity is the product.
7- David Scutt – APAC Market Analyst at StoneX Group
The authority of most finance social media content rests on research and reading. David Scutt‘s authority rests on having done the job. A former Treasury Dealer at Arab Bank and the Commonwealth Bank, former ASX Business Supervisor, and former Global Markets Editor at Business Insider Australia and anchor at ausbiz TV, Scutt now brings that direct market experience to his role as APAC Market Analyst at StoneX Group, rather than relying on secondary commentary.
When he discusses foreign exchange movements or ASX dynamics, it is not because he has read about them. It is because he has traded them.
8- Meddy Demars – Investing & crypto content creator
The gap Meddy Demars fills is specific and underserviced: connecting global macroeconomic events to the practical reality of Australian investors. When the US Federal Reserve adjusts interest rates, when inflation data moves, when commodity prices shift — most Australian finance content either ignores the local implications or translates them poorly.
Demars, operating across TikTok and Instagram from Sydney, does the translation well: explaining what global conditions mean for Australian stocks, savings rates and investment portfolios in terms that are accessible without being condescending.
9- Simran Kaur – Founder, Friends That Invest
Friends That Invest is arguably the most successful community-building exercise in Australian personal finance, and Simran Kaur is the reason why. The New Zealand-based creator — whose audience is predominantly Australian — built a podcast, a book and a social media presence around a single insight: that the personal finance world was not speaking to young women, and that the consequences of that gap were significant.
The measurable cultural shift that followed — women engaging with investing concepts in communities that had not previously existed — is the kind of impact that most financial literacy programmes aim for and rarely achieve.
10- Effie Zahos – Money Editor at 9News
Effie Zahos is one of Australia’s most recognised financial commentators, appearing regularly across 9News, A Current Affair, Today and Today Extra as 9News Money Editor. Her role puts everyday money questions, from mortgage rates to cost-of-living pressures, in front of a national broadcast audience.
Before television, she spent years as editor of Money magazine, building the editorial foundation for her current commentary. She is also Director and Money Commentator at InvestSMART, an ambassador for Canstar, and a published author, with her financial advice available in print as well as on screen.
That combination, decades of editorial experience, an active broadcast presence, and a body of published work, is what makes her commentary carry weight beyond any single platform or post.
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