It’s just the opposite.
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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.
Not surprisingly, many people have called for Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf to resign amid the revelations. To regain the trust of its customers, the company has announced to eliminate its product sales goals in its retail banking segment.
Walking the talk? Sure, Wells Fargo repeatedly receives high rankings from the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBT advocacy group and political lobbying organization in the United States.
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. The bank has already fired 5,300 scheme-related employees.
“This is like McDonald’s saying that now there is “real meat” in chicken nuggets”.
Last year, in response to an advertisement featuring a lesbian couple, noteworthy evangelicals like the Rev. Franklin Graham said they’d had enough and closed out their accounts.
“This was a staggering fraud”, Warren told CNN last week, adding that she’s skeptical Wells Fargo management was unaware of illegal activity of this scale.
“It is hard to believe a large-scale, coordinated [scheme] like this took place without knowledge of some higher ups”, Menendez said in an interview. In some cases, employees created fake email addresses to sign up customers for online banking services, regulators said.
“Wells Fargo’s Global Fund Services is well known for its expertise in administering real estate equity and credit strategies”, Bill Stone, SS&C chairman and CEO, said in a statement. “Employees who do not reach their quotas are often required to work hours beyond their typical work schedule without being compensated for that extra work time, and/or are threatened with termination”.
The behavior was first brought to light by an investigation by The Los Angeles Times in 2013.
So who’s to blame? “To say that no one is responsible for the behavior of thousands of employees besides the employees makes no sense”, says Ragatz.
Wells said it had fired over 5,300 employees over the past five years related to the unauthorized accounts.
As a parting gift, Tolstedt will earn a purported $125 million payday, the lion’s share of which stems from the exercise of stock awards that she received from the bank along the way.
Following criticisms that USA authorities had failed to hold bankers to account in the aftermath of the financial crisis, the Justice Department last September issued a policy requiring all civil and criminal cases begin and end with a focus on individual accountability.
Quite the contrary, if the Wells Fargo scandal is any indication.
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Critics have been weighing in to signal disapproval of the malpractice from Wells, with Treasury secretary Jack Lew the latest to condemn the bank.
