Stumpf, whose presence has been requested at the September 20 hearing, said Tuesday that the company has “significantly strengthened our training programs, controls and oversight”. Banks lend and borrow money, and accept customers’ deposits and pay interest in return.
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“Twice when I was dealing with WF I had over $7500.00 stolen from my account”, said Sharon of Halethorpe, Md., in a recent ConsumerAffairs review. Nonetheless, Wells Fargo remained resolute in its activist stance – and has the right to do so.
For the first time since the financial crisis, the most toxic bank in America is nowhere near Wall Street.
“This is a wake-up call. How you reward people, how you motivate people and what values you hold people to matters”.
While many say the bank’s aggressive sales targets were what pressured 5,300 employees to open phony accounts, Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf is putting the blame on employees, Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo said on “Morning with Maria Bartiromo” Wednesday.
There doesn’t look there will be any repercussions for Tolstedt or any of the employees that engaged in forging documents and creating false accounts. “This is often the case in financial institutions, where upper management puts more emphasis on pressuring employees to hit their sales numbers than it does on training them to obey the law”.
Also Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew called Wells Fargo’s sales practices “bad behavior” and said they showed the need for tough oversight of financial firms. “It’s tailed off since then”, he said.
Wells Fargo sought to control the unethical sales practices that brought settlements totaling $185 million, announced September 8, by hiring mystery shoppers and dropping sales quotas effective January 2017.
“The risk is not worth it, it is not critical to the growth of the company”, Stumpf said.
It marked a significant shift by Wells Fargo, which prides itself on “cross selling” customers as many “products” – like checking accounts and debit cards – as possible.
The announcement comes days after federal authorities alleged widespread misconduct at the bank. The pause in offering additional products is temporary, a company representative said.
“We regret every interaction that was not handled properly”, she said, adding, “The number of instances and team members involved represent a very small portion of our business”. “We are doubling down on that”.
The US Senate Banking Committee has scheduled a hearing on Well Fargo for next week at which Stumpf is expected to testify. The committee has been finalizing details for that hearing. She has earned a base salary of $1.7 million for at least the last four years, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings.
Given that 5,300 employees, not just a handful of bad actors, were fired for what boils down to identity theft for profit, Wells Fargo would be better served serving its objective, rather than investing time and energy bartering in social and political activism. You get a big payday.
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“I find this exceedingly disappointing for a company that has a gold standard reputation”, Oja said.
