The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau noted that the $100 million it will collect as part of the deal was the agency’s “largest penalty” ever. The financial expert thinks Buffett most likely shares the sentiment of disgruntled employees and would be all in favor of “tying Stumpf up to the Wells Fargo stage coaches and letting the horses run”, Schiffer tells TheDCNF.
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“The sales pressure from management was unbearable”, Sabrina Bertrand, who worked as a licensed personal banker for Wells Fargo in Houston in 2013, told CNNMoney. But even though that was the biggest fine assessed by the CFPB in its five years of operation, it’s still materially less than Tolstedt is set to walk away with. District managers discussed daily sales for each branch and employee “four times a day, at 11 am, 1 pm, 3 pm and 5 pm”, the lawsuit said. She announced her retirement in July at age 56 and was scheduled to retire at year’s end, according to a release by the bank.
A stock photograph showing the exterior of a Wells Fargo bank building in New York, New York.
Tolstedt’s annual base salary is $1.7 million per year, and she made more than $9 million total last year with bonuses and stock options. Wells Fargo held almost $1.7 trillion in assets as of the end of March, compared with more than $2 trillion at industry-leading JPMorgan, according to the Federal Reserve.
Wells Fargo & Co. said Tuesday that it would eliminate all sales goals for credit cards, checking accounts and other retail banking products as the financial giant tries to fix its image following a $185 million settlement over aggressive sales tactics. PIN numbers were created for debit cards that customers did not know they had – “pinning” in the bank’s argot. “It is not acceptable to do things that are created to increase either individual or firm bottom lines by deceiving customers or passing along charges that are either invisible or they don’t know about”. Wells Fargo also said that it had fired 5,300 employees over the sales conduct.
Strong credit and a heretofore stellar reputation are the lifeblood of Wells Fargo’s mystique.
Wells Fargo had almost $15 billion in SC deposits, or about 20 percent of the statewide total, at 149 branches at the midpoint of 2015, according to the latest figures filed with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
At the center of the bad behavior appears to be an effort by the bank to persuade customers to sign up for multiple products, known as “cross selling”.
8 settled allegations that it opened credit-card and deposit accounts for customers without their approval, while not admitting or denying wrongdoing.
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Wharton professor of legal studies and business ethics Peter Conti-Brown traces the scandal at Wells Fargo to the practice of cross-selling in the financial services industry.
