I did a diary two days ago on how the Wells Fargo had originally been reported in the news in 2015:
www.dailykos.com/…
It turns out I was off by two years! The actual first rumblings of this massive scam was published in a L.A. Times article dated October 3, 2013:
articles.latimes.com/…
Even though the article was relatively short it had a great deal of damning evidence. It opened with this startling revelation:
Wells Fargo & Co. has fired about 30 branch employees in the Los Angeles region who the bank said had opened accounts that were never used and attempted to manipulate customer-satisfaction surveys.
The piece continued with the following confessions by an anonymous former employee:
One of the fired employees said that in some cases signatures were forged and customers had accounts opened in their names without their knowledge. In other cases, the customers went along with the opening of the accounts.
The employee, who spoke to The Times on condition of anonymity pending a meeting with an attorney, said the pressure to meet sales goals was intense at Wells Fargo. At times, managers required workers to stay in the branch after the close of business, calling their friends and family members, if they failed to open enough accounts during the day, the worker said.
This was followed up by an even more shocking article published on December 21, 2013:
www.latimes.com/…
This article is more thorough, in-depth, and shocking than the previous one, but here is the three paragraph summary:
Wells Fargo & Co. is the nation's leader in selling add-on services to its customers. The giant San Francisco bank brags in earnings reports of its prowess in “cross-selling” financial products such as checking and savings accounts, credit cards, mortgages and wealth management. In addition to generating fees and profits, those services keep customers tied to the bank and less likely to jump to competitors.
But that success has come at a cost. The relentless pressure to sell has battered employee morale and led to ethical breaches, customer complaints and labor lawsuits, a Los Angeles Times investigation has found.
To meet quotas, employees have opened unneeded accounts for customers, ordered credit cards without customers' permission and forged client signatures on paperwork. Some employees begged family members to open ghost accounts.
Nonetheless, I encourage you to read the whole article. It contains many shocking revelations such as employees being forced to work overtime without pay and how managers told their employees to open multiple accounts for customers, sometimes without even asking them. However, the sickest story was when a Wells Fargo employee persuaded a homeless woman to open up six accounts and then charged her $39 dollars a month in fees for them.
These two articles received a lot of good publicity and many former Wells Fargo employees wrote to L.A. Times and confirmed the truth of these stories:
articles.latimes.com/…
articles.latimes.com/…
Some of these letters revealed that this culture if not this scam had been going on since the 1990s. Here is one former employees named Kathryn Newman recounting her experiences:
From 1996 to 2002, I worked at a Wells Fargo branch in Brentwood. My experience was just as The Times reported for other workers.
I was criticized numerous times for not selling according to the bank's wishes. Contrary to the bosses' demands, I chose not to push products on people who did not want or need things like loans or credit cards.
Customers were called in the evenings, as the article describes. Employees misbehaved. The pressure created a workplace that fostered fear-based conduct.
Here are the experiences of Raul Ramirez:
I left Wells Fargo in October 2010 for the same reason and without another job lined up. The places they would send us to get accounts were just insane. One place we were sent was to blood banks, where people would donate blood cells for money -- individuals who were struggling for money. I saw a lot of people come and go as they were caught doing unethical things just to meet their numbers. The environment turned from having experienced and knowledgeable bankers to kids straight out of high school.
And Leigha Woodall:
Hats off to the employees who had the courage to come forward and speak out. I too was a Wells Fargo manager, for just over two years. It was the most miserable “professional” experience I’ve ever had. The work environment was hostile, the chastising never stopped, and finally one Friday before Memorial Day I set my keys on the desk and walked out. I had a mortgage, car payment and I’m single, but I simply had to take the chance. I was very fortunate to find work at another fantastic financial institution ... and I’ve been with them for 10 years.
Overall, these disturbing revelations further demonstrate the corruption at Wells Fargo. They need to be thoroughly investigated.
P.S. I am still new to Dailykos and so I am not completely sure about the copyright rules. I assumed because I linked to my sources and only used three paragraphs from each article I am okay, right?