"Everyone hates paying bank fees. But imagine paying fees on a ghost account you didn't even sign up for. On Thursday, federal regulators said Wells Fargo employees secretly created millions of unauthorized bank and credit card accounts -- without their customers knowing it -- since 2011. The phony accounts earned the bank unwarranted fees and allowed Wells Fargo employees to boost their sales figures and make more money... ..,The scope of the scandal is shocking. An analysis conducted by a consulting firm hired by Wells Fargo concluded that bank employees opened up over 1.5 million deposit accounts that may not have been authorized,..." http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/08/investing/wells-fargo-created-phony-accounts-bank-fees/index.html OMG !
More here: "Wells Fargo will pay $185m in a settlement over illegal sales practices that included the opening of unauthorized duplicate accounts and credit cards by employees in order to meet sales quotas, it was announced on Thursday... ...On a call with reporters on Thursday, regulators said a review of Wells Fargo practices found that about 1.5 million deposit accounts and 565,000 credit cards could have been opened without customers’ permission. About 5,300 employees have been fired during the investigations, the Wall Street Journal reported...." https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/sep/08/wells-fargo-settlement-illegal-sales-accounts
"How Wells [employees] perpetrated fraud is that its employees moved funds from customers' existing accounts into newly-created accounts without their knowledge or consent, regulators say. The CFPB described this practice as "widespread" and led to customers being charged for insufficient funds or overdraft fees, because the money was not in their original accounts. Additionally, Wells Fargo employees also submitted applications for 565,443 credit card accounts without their knowledge or consent, the CFPB said the analysis found. Many customers who had unauthorized credit cards opened in their names were hit by annual fees, interest charges and other fees." http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-...e-fraud-creating-over-2-million-fake-accounts
I can address this. Nobody has a sense of shame anymore. Listen to the way business reps [any business, any level employee/owner] answer questions. The typical answer are nebulous: I think so, maybe, probably, should be, etc. And various incarnations of BS answers. Oh & try to get anyone to admit they're wrong. Not happening. Recently I was speaking to a lot of health professionals for a couple months. After the 1st week & each individuals 1st weak answer. I said this to all of them, "THE ONLY ACCEPTABLE ANSWERS ARE YES, NO OR I DON'T KNOW BUT I'LL FIND OUT." I had to hire a nursing service for an elderly relative, very expensive but needed. Anyways 1 call I made one employee was extremely rude to me & another out & out lied to me. I called the outside sales guy [solicits at hospitals], 100% aces with me. I told him unless they had a conference call with the owner present where the 2 employees admitted they were wrong & asked for my forgiveness I was taking my business elsewhere. I got that call & still it was like pulling teeth to get the liar to admit they lied to me. Amazing most people are POS these days when it comes to accountability. But wtf Wells Fargo 5,300 employees! OMG. Said to have happened over a number of years. Who did their subsequent trainings of new employees. That whole department should be fired.
"Supervisor Of "Massive Fraud" At Wells Fargo Leaves Bank With $125 Million Bonus ...the head of the group responsible for Wells' biggest consumer fraud scandal in years, is quietly leaving the bank with a $125 million bonus..." http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-...aud-wells-fargo-leaves-bank-125-million-bonus
Retire after having ripped off thousands of the bank's clients, committed bank fraud and credit card fraud and exit with $125m bonus - what a novel way to rob a bank . The mob head though caught will face no criminal charges.. A clean get-away too. You don't need a mask and gun any more, just a power suit.
If you thought it couldn't be any worse "...Wells Fargo Said To Retaliate, Fire Whistleblowers Who Exposed Bank's Illegal Practices" http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-...te-fire-whistleblowers-who-exposed-banks-ille
Hey, that's the way this world is getting "Crime Pays" it pays to be a criminal now a days. What a world.
What's so surprising that 5000 or so employees did this? Welcome to the new Utopia. The way media portrays this : Is the norm. Just get use to it. Majority of humans are takers not givers, does that make since?
While I carry no brief for these employees, keep in mind that these were low level/low salary employees struggling to get by and keep their jobs and support their families. Their actions were largely motivated by fear of Wells Fargo's senior managment's emphasis on associated accounts and it's draconian associated account sales targets. Wells Fargo has (had) an avereage ratio of 8 associated accounts for every customer, the industry average is 3 associated accounts per customer. The true culprits were few and all had (have) compensation of 7- 9 figures. They skate. I watched the House Oversight Subcommitee's grilling of the Wells Fargo CEO. They all tore into him and all expressed their disbelief of and disgust with his testimony. Yet, he's still sitting pretty, though I noticed that this morning he did resign from his advisory role to The Federal Reserve Bank, Awww shucks, my heart bleeds for him.
Similar to the Libor rigging disgrace - successful prosecutions of a few mid-level traders, yet all their bosses, and people at the BoE and securities commissions, and likely some politicians - all sitting pretty - and rewarded with the proceeds of the crime. It's simply not credible that they knew nothing - if Phil Zimbardo's book on the Stanford Prison experiment teaches you anything, it's that ordinary people will do bad things if encouraged by authority.
Considering he retired (or quit), all he has done is separate himself from his employer. Bernie Madoff was responsible for the largest case of fraud in U.S. history. He stole $65 million from his clients and was sentenced to 150 years in prison. If John Stumpf is guilty of driving the fraud at WF and/or made tens of millions in ill-gotten gains, how is this different from what Madoff did? @hawki What's the odds that the CEO will face criminal charges (State and Federal)?
