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Wells Fargo Employee Informed the Bank of Fake Customer Accounts in 2006 (vice.com)
Wells Fargo recently paid fines totaling $185 million for the creation of 2 million unauthorized accounts since 2011. But the international banking and financial institution could be committing this fraud since as early as 2005, according to a letter obtained by Vice News. From the report: A Wells Fargo bank manager tried to warn the head of the company's regional banking unit of an improperly created customer account in January 2006, five years earlier than the bank has said its board first learned of abuses at its branches. [...] A letter written in 2005 and obtained by VICE News details unethical practices that occurred at Washington state branches of the bank, suggesting the conduct began years before previously understood. Dennis Hambek, a former branch manager in West Yakima, Washington, sent a certified letter in January 2006 to Carrie Tolstedt, then Wells Fargo's head of regional banking, outlining unethical "gaming" activity at area branches. In 2007, Tolstedt was made the company's head of community banking, the division where many of the unethical practices occurred.
I'm super stoked to see absolutely nobody see the inside of a prison cell over this, Wells Fargo slapped with a fine a tiny fraction of a percentage of what they took in by this scam, and then go about business as usual.
I click on the vice link and the url indicates it should be an article about Wells Fargo but the article is really about US military involvement in Yamen.
That bank is, by far, the worst when it comes to ethical treatment of customers.
Especially those who live on the edge (paycheck to paycheck). They have downright sinister overdraft policies and practices.
I ditched WF years ago and I am happy to be rid of them.
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
As anyone who's watched Mr. Robot knows, Just cheating the system doesn't stop a company from doing it, even when they're aware of it happening.
If the fees minus inflation are less than the profits, why would a profit maximizing company ever decide to do the right thing? Its ludicrous. The company is simply charged a fee. The middle-managers and peons are rarely prosecuted and the executives always feign that they had no idea what was happening. There's no requisite paper trail to audit, so the only thing that could catch them is conspiracy to evade prosecution, but there'd have to be caught with a lot of 'shredding' in order to get that to stick.
The laws are 100% stacked so that profit maximization is the only goal to achieve. Being a purely law abiding corporate citizen is a losers bet.
Bye!
The company did nothing because it made them money and thus became company policy.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
My account with Wells Fargo is my longest sustained credit item on my credit report. I've had an account with them since 1983 (well, it was a local bank that then got bought by them). It out-distances any of my other accounts by about 15 years of longevity (parents opened it for me when I was an infant). It'll knock my credit score down if I get rid of it....but maybe I should just stick the minimum balance in there and then never use it again.
O-ho the Wells Fargo Wagon is a-comin' down the street,
Oh please let it be for me!
O-ho the Wells Fargo Wagon is a-comin' down the street,
I wish, I wish I knew what it could be!
Oh wow, that's a catchy tune you are blowing on that whistle! Would not have occured to me on my own!
why they moved so quickly to get the settlement in. It absolves them of any other doings "just in case" something else rears up, ugly and painful.
I wonder if that settlement can be tossed when it's shown that the execs knew or should have known that further breaches of the law, like these, had yet to be reported.
Dennis Hambek, a former branch manager in West Yakima, Washington, sent a certified letter in January 2006 to Carrie Tolstedt, then Wells Fargo's head of regional banking, outlining unethical "gaming" activity at area branches. In 2007, Tolstedt was made the company's head of community banking, the division where many of the unethical practices occurred.
Another person failed to understand the phrase: "don't give them any ideas".
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Is that there are at least a few examples of employees reporting to very senior leaders what happened and facing a targeted campaign of reprisal intended to ensure they could not work in that industry again (by revoking certification).
We need a white collar crime equivalent of Felony Murder while we're at it. If someone suffers financial loss as a consequence (foreseeable or not) of your criminal conduct, you are held liable as though you intended to cause it. Level of intent doesn't matter anymore once you reach legitimate felony intent.
I know I've said it before, but customer complaints about the phantom accounts go back to at least 2001.
The big thing here is that we now have a certified letter from a high ranking Wells Fargo employee that the crooks in charge of the illegal program were notified as early as 2006.
I never do this, but here goes: "[T]he international banking and financial institution could be committing this fraud since as early as 2005." How could you fuck up verb tense that badly?
"Could be committing" should be "could have been committing."
I find it difficult if not impossible to believe that Wells Fargo management didn't know this was going on. "Improperly created accounts" is one of the classic ways to steal from an employer. They're also great for laundering ill-gotten funds. Banks, insurance companies, and other financial institutions all have audit processes designed to ferret this out. So they knew, and they understood that it was their customers getting ripped off, and they were OK with that. Someone needs to go to jail, but that won't happen.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
An internal whistle-blower. So you see? Banks are more than capable of regulating themselves!
Funny how government grills the CEO but in reality nobody has any power to do anything but make the CEO uncomfortable. Of course when the jig is up all subordinates end up fired like its their fault somebody higher up instructed them to make up accounts so as to make the company look good. Should be no surprise this went on for some time and is probably going on elsewhere. When you look at the two people running for President. Is it any wonder that we have nobody with any ethics or moral values anymore? Hillary Clinton is pretty much owned by Wall Street and Trump might say he's independent of being owned by these types because he does run a much more self serving campaign. I doubt the FTC will gain little power with either to hold accountable companies like Wells Fargo.
The fact that this was sent as a CERTIFIED letter shows that it was ...and that it was bad enough that Hambek felt he had to cover his OWN ass with a letter like this.
a) widespread
b) being actively ignored by management
I'm guessing at LEAST a year of bullshit preceded this letter, could be three or more.
-Styopa
2 million seems like a lot of fake accounts. They reported they have 70 million customers in their last quarterly report, does this mean about 3% of their accounts are fake? That seems high enough for anyone investing in them as a company to reconsider.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
We knew that WF was cramming peoples accounts with extra stuff way back when. I'm surprised that no one caught on until this news posting.
Well, I'm glad that the fed caught up with WF and dropped Mr. 2-Pound on the CEO's toes for what they did.
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
Being a worker at many Dilbertvilles, what the top managers do is set stringent goals, and order their immediate underlings to carry out the goals. Any "problems" are to be solved by the underlings, and the underlings get any of the blame. Example:
Level 3 Boss: "Hey, Level 2 Boss, these tough sales quotas are resulting in our region's staff doing underhanded things to reach them."
Level 2 Boss: "Well, tell them not to, and fire them if they keep doing it!"
Level 3 Boss: "Then we wouldn't have any employees left because these are tough quotas."
Level 2 Boss: "I have full confidence in your ability such that I know you'll find a way to solve the wayward employee problem AND reach the sales quotas."
During a trial, the Level 3 Boss can say, "I asked my subordinate to solve the problem, and they didn't. It's not my fault: they failed to do their job."
A given level rigs it so that they get the credit for the good news and the level below them gets the blame for bad news. It's happened many time that if I build a great mouse-trap, my supervisors take the credit, and if something goes wrong (my fault or not), *I* get the blame. "Mr. Tablizer pushed the wrong button and F'd it up. I reprimanded that slacker." I've generally come to accept it as standard practice and psych myself up not to take the blame personally. I'm essentially a professional scapegoat/lightning-rod: go with the flow. (Sometimes I can trade being the scapegoat for more interesting projects as compensation. Fortunately I'm not in a sales-driven section for now.)
Plus, to compete with other cheaters at the same level, the bank employees also have to cheat. Thus, it's cheat or be fired to keep up with the cheating Joneses.
The top managers probably indeed know its a pressure cooker, but the problems of the pressures are aimed at and pushed on their underlings. The Blame Pyramid is carefully crafted that way. How do you objectively measure "unrealistic pressure"? Since cheating isn't tracked, they can claim they have no way to know if its a bank-wide problem. If they discuss it as a possibility, it's not written down.
Table-ized A.I.
their comment in the subject line and then continue
it in the comment section.
It's super annoying to read.
Why are Americans so incredibly stupid?
So of course they haven't been prosecuted.
Now get back to your shit 9 to 5 job and endless bills, goyim...
Wells Fargo management ordered employees to take the fall on this
These guys need to be strung up
Twinstiq, game news
How come the gun nutz never shoot people like the Wells Fargo jerk?
Ken Lay lived in Texas for fuck sake and nobody took a shot at him.
Charles Keating, poster boy for the 1980s Savings and Loan crisis walked away unscathed and he was working in fucking Arizona (and please don't tell me that weird state isn't full of gun nutz).
They rant and rave about people like Hillary and Obama and Commoniztz and hate big gummint and big bidness and shoot up abortion clinics/practicioners or Jewish talk radio hosts or Kennedys or union organizers or anybody not hetero, but they never shoot these assholes.
Why?
Banks and credit union undergo annual third party audits to prepare for annual exams by FDIC or NCUA. The auditors or examiners should have found this sooner. In general, larger institutions are scrutinized more and held to a higher standard. Their Compliance dept should have been scanning accounts on at least a monthly basis for suspicious activity to ensure they are complying with OFAC, Bank Secrecy Act, and Patriot Act.
So I was told by a former VP, who was fired and threatened for reporting deposit, credit, real estate accounts fraud up to HQ.
This bank has been committing fraud for far longer. Dig any major newspaper's morgues and you'll find some major scandal here and there where this bank figures prominently.
Illegal gaming should always be punished.
I've been a long-time WF customer, and some years ago they started offering "Credit Defense". Credit Defense is an opt-out program that takes something like 0.8% of your current balance as a monthly charge to be used to make minimum payments on your card "in the event of injury or loss of employment". I was clued into it when I started looking closer at my statement after I made a couple large purchases.
After calling the bank about it, I was told it's some separate party that handles that. Great, so my bank is giving my money to some company I've never heard of for something I never signed up for. Doing a little research, you can get a refund... but you have to be persistent. I was offered $50, then $150, then told I could have an "elevation request" or whatever submitted on my behalf. So I did just that. A couple weeks later I got a credit back for over a grand. For them to keep my money, they would have had to prove that I signed up for this (and I use the term loosely) 'service'. I never did, so they had to pay up.