[quote]
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, according to the CFPB.
The way it worked was that 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.[/quote]
Watch as a few mid level executives are dismissed and quietly given nice severance packages as the extent of ‘punishment’ for anyone higher than a grunt.
Wells Fargo says they refunded $2.5 million to customers.
You can bet sure as hell that those overdraft fees were a lot more than $2.5 million. And people who get overdraft fees are already living paycheck to paycheck; you just made their lives worse.
Summary execution is what I suggest. We need to put the fear of god back into bankers.
I just added another account there last week so this is a feel good moment.
None of it really makes sense though and the article is light on real details. Why would the employees be motivated to do this without pressure from the boss? Sounds like 5k+ scapegoats.
Are these new accounts like new sub saving/checking/credit/cd/mm/etc accounts? That is it what it sounds like but those show right with online banking and if I got hit with a fee (which we monitor like a hawk) because they changed the account number the proverbial shit would be hitting the fan.
Over 20 years they have hit me with one fee which they refunded when I threatened to just cancel that CC. It wasn’t even a terrible fee, I understood their point of view. I am thinking this was orientated towards the lower income or even disadvantaged market segment who might not know better or feel helpless when dealing with a large bank. Hence them falling victim to even worse monsters like payday loan/check cashing shops.
That’s the worst part. Refunds are fine, but by moving people’s money around without their knowledge, I guarantee utility payments and rent checks were screwed up for some folks.
[quote] Spurred by sales targets and compensation incentives, employees boosted sales figures by covertly opening accounts and funding them by transferring funds from consumers’ authorized accounts without their knowledge or consent, often racking up fees or other charges.[/quote]
[quote]
Wells Fargo’s violations include:
Opening deposit accounts and transferring funds without authorization: According to the bank’s own analysis, employees opened roughly 1.5 million deposit accounts that may not have been authorized by consumers. Employees then transferred funds from consumers’ authorized accounts to temporarily fund the new, unauthorized accounts. This widespread practice gave the employees credit for opening the new accounts, allowing them to earn additional compensation and to meet the bank’s sales goals. Consumers, in turn, were sometimes harmed because the bank charged them for insufficient funds or overdraft fees because the money was not in their original accounts.
Applying for credit card accounts without authorization: According to the bank’s own analysis, Wells Fargo employees applied for roughly 565,000 credit card accounts that may not have been authorized by consumers. On those unauthorized credit cards, many consumers incurred annual fees, as well as associated finance or interest charges and other fees.
Issuing and activating debit cards without authorization: Wells Fargo employees requested and issued debit cards without consumers’ knowledge or consent, going so far as to create PINs without telling consumers.
Creating phony email addresses to enroll consumers in online-banking services: Wells Fargo employees created phony email addresses not belonging to consumers to enroll them in online-banking services without their knowledge or consent.[/quote]
There’s a scene in Going Postal where the protagonist is told by his golem helper that, through his fraud and graft, that Moist was responsible for 2.8 murders. Each act, collectively may not have been violent and killed someone directly, but over time the financial harships he imposed on others, statistically, would have eventually led to someone’s death.
Later he meets someone whom he had bilked through bank fraud, and learns how he had very nearly been the cause of her death.
Point being is I would not be surprised if these actions had a very real, very life threatening, set of consequences for a large number of people. How many people lost housing, were unable to buy food, perhaps lost jobs even. Given the scale it is quite possible that several people died as a direct result of this fraud and theft.
Obviously you’re being a bit facetious with the summary execution, but I’d be all on board for confiscating everything of value these scammers did, and using that as redress for the victims. Especially anyone higher up who knew, or aided, these schemes.
Honestly I wonder how much of this is a larger cultural problem.
So many companies today seem to have very little oversight over their increasingly mediocre employees. From hospital staff and rehab facilities, nursing homes to hotels, big box stores to large corporate projects, it’s impressed upon me how the companies running large facilities have little to no oversight over their day to day operations. Middle management is mediocre and underpaid, understaffed and unqualified. Things are run by crossing your fingers and hoping it all works out, and just dealing with the consequences when they don’t.
Both Bank of America and Wells Fargo branches in my town are worn out and falling apart, propped up with a few new signs. They’re chronically understaffed (it took me 45 minutes waiting in line to deposit a check in my GM’s account). Their agents have absolutely no authority to make a decision about anything; all they do is hammer on the computer and call the real decision makers elsewhere. Even the highest ranking employee there is nothing more than a glorified switchboard operator. Every time I’ve gone in to address a problem it turns into an hourlong affair of them waiting on the line to talk to the real bankers.
People who are summarily executed cannot testify about the knowledge and complicity of their bosses, or about how those bosses created the culture that allowed this to take place.
I imagine you and Wells Fargo’s top executives are on the same page on this one.
Heh, wonder if that explains the sudden change in behavior at my local Wells Fargo branch. My HOA account is there and I was added to it a few months back. I guess they had some sort of computer problem at the time and they requested that I come back in and sign the paperwork again.
I frankly didn’t really care about being on the account so it hasn’t been a high priority, but about a month ago I suddenly started getting near-daily phone calls from them, hounding me to get in and re-sign the paperwork. I even had some sort of regional manager calling me practically begging that I sign the paperwork ASAP. I ended up doing so last week, and she expressed relief, explaining that due to the system outage at the time I was originally added, they were out of compliance.
I guess this situation would explain the greater scrutiny and the intense effort to get this particular situation involved.
I bank at a couple places, both business and personal, and this is now common at every bank. Tellers can only handle the most mundane of transactions and everything else requires some other employees approval.
I had to sign like 4 different documents and initial the terms for a simple account as well, which at the time I thought was odd but yeah, makes sense now because I certainly didn’t have to do that before.
Ok that makes a lot more sense, thanks. I bet they targeted people without online banking, which would make it a lot easier to hide (hence the fake email addresses)
As long as our society glorifies profit, and holds the right to make money as the most sacred of liberties, trumping all others, this will be commonplace.
Oh. I can say that with my business banking I moved from Wells Fargo to WestAmerica maybe 20 years ago (or more) because my account rep moved. Nobody else seemed capable of understanding that a construction company doesn’t build widgets. An ex-Wells Fargo employee at WestAmerica gave me everything I needed.
