The Scandal Of Wells Fargo

In California, eight Wells Fargo employees were convicted of committing fraud facing a maximum penalty of 30 years in federal prison, also each employee is charged with at least one count of aggravated identity theft, which carries another two years in prison (https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/eight-people-charged-bank-fraud-scheme-allegedly-used-information-stolen-wells-fargo). In the wake of the scandal, over 5,300 employees were fired over the course of five years for their involvements in the creation of the fake accounts. Some of the initial whistleblowers of the scandal faced retaliation by being terminated for speaking out against the orders to open fake accounts. CNN Money correspondent Matt Egan spoke with Bill Bado, a former employee of Wells Fargo, who has not been able to security another banking securities job since his termination for calling the Ethics Hotline to report the fraudulent activities.

According to the book, “The term trust refers to the confidence in a relationship that the other party will act honorably and fulfill legitimate expectations” (Friedrichs 9). Individuals put their faith in a corporation or individual because some people want to see the best in people. “We put our faith in the banks that store our money, the corporations that employ us, the retail stores where we purchase our items, a stockbroker in which we invest in and so much more” (Friedrichs 9). The book is trying to tell us that trust is involved in everything that we do every day. In the book it also states that, “trust and it violations are certainly key elements in white collar crimes” (Friedrichs 9) Trust between two individuals can be broken.. According to the FBI, “white collar crimes are not dependent on threat or physical violence” (FBI). The FBI wants us to note that corporations or individuals do not threaten anyone or physically harm the individual. Wells Fargo is a perfect example of trust and white collar crimes. Wells Fargo

Bank of America Corp employees have alleged that the bank deliberately denied eligible home owners

Banks such as Wells Fargo gain full ownership of foreclosed homes after they were unsuccessful selling the property at auction, explains Investopedia. The common term for bank-owned homes is real estate owned properties, or REO.

On September 8 2016, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFBP) announced that it was taking an enforcement action against Wells Fargo Bank . Wells Fargo is a Fortune 100 company and one of the "Big Four Banks" of the United States. Investigations conducted by the Bureau revealed that employees of the bank created unauthorized deposit and credit card accounts across the country to meet sales goals. Over the years, the bank’s employees opened over 1.5 million fraudulent bank accounts and 0.5 million fake credit card accounts for customers, to meet sales targets and obtain bonuses. The affected consumers, were being harmed by the associated charges and fees for these accounts. The fees include insufficient funds or overdraft fees for the deposit accounts and annual fees for credit card accounts.

However, the customer did not know about some of the services being provided because the financial advisor would not reveal the services being charged. A particular service was insurance on the vehicle a customer was financing even though the customer had their own insurance. This action alone cost Wells Fargo over $200 million in a settlement to over 800,000 customers for the insurance fraud (Goldfarb, 2017). Wells Fargo has not lived up to the management’s ethical values stated for the organization to follow. The CEO and board chairman has not led by example because their salary and bonus was depending on the amount of services provided.

The ethics of the bank requires that there is ethics of integrity. It is supposed to be created through a culture in the bank and it should be one of the banks priorities because this is a business and they gain the profits from the people they serve on daily basis. Even if the bank shall survive this wave of scandal is so difficult now to convince any client to join this Wells Fargo which shall cause them a lot of money. Also all the old customers may start withdrawing and looking for other banks which they feel are more secure when they are keeping the money for them. It is so hurting and distrustful for a banking instead of accruing money in the accounts of their customers what they wells was doing was that it was misusing their money and giving them extra fees.

Embezzlement is an act withholding assets for the purpose of conversion of such assets, by one or more persons to whom the assets were entrusted, either to be held or to be used for specific purposes. Embezzlement is a type of financial fraud. a lawyer might embezzle funds from the trust accounts of his or her clients; a financial advisor might embezzle the funds of investors; and a husband or a wife might embezzle funds from a bank account jointly held with the spouse.

In September of 2016, it was revealed that there was alleged misconduct at one of the largest and safest banking institutions in the United States. Wells Fargo Bank was ranked among the nation’s safest financial institutions according to an analysis done by Global Financial, (Inside Tucson Business, 2009). Alleging that between May 2011 and July 2015, there were more than 2 million bank accounts or credit cards opened for customers without their knowledge or permission (Blake, 2016). Clients started complaining the they were receiving debit/credit cards from the bank that they had not ordered. Wells Fargo employees also started complaining that about the unethical behaviors they witnessed or were asked to participate in to the Human Resource Departments, the bank’s internal ethics hotline, branch’s individual managers and supervisors. All which led to the discovery of the fraud scandal.

Scandals in the business world are not an uncommon topic to appear in new headlines. Recently Wells Fargo has fired over 5,000 employees for creating over 2 million fake accounts. New bank and credit card accounts were created without prior knowledge from their customers. The accounts that were created resulted in those customers inquiring fees such as overdraft fees. These fake accounts have been created over a five-year timeframe.

Wells Fargo has not been held accountable for the damages of their customers or employees. They are yet to admit or deny the accusations but has refunded the money to their customers and paid the fine. They have left many employees without jobs and no one has been taken into custody for laws they broke. The executives of Wells Fargo will keep their bonuses and leave with $25 million dollars. This company has lost trust from their customers and damaged their reputation. What will be next for Wells Fargo and banking in

Well Fargo is currently being sued over 185 Million Dollars and 5,300 were fired for making fake account.

Hiding or divulging information: Goldman bet against their clients several times. They knew material information on certain investment; however, they never communicated that to their clients because they were making money off them.

In light of the recent scandals that rose around big multinationals such as Enron and WorldCom, it has become evident that reform in the traditional corporate operations and objectives was to be encompassed in the organisations corporate strategies. Indeed throughout the years, companies main objectives were defined primarily as being economic objectives, Multinationals developed with sight of profit maximisations regardless to the other incentives, Friedman considered that to be the foundation for a well-managed company, it was further considered that the financing of any other sort of social corporate activities rather unnecessary. The expenses were regarded as expenditures for the owners and investors; this was a time where shareholders rights were regarded as conflicting with other constituents namely the employees, creditors, customers or the community in general. However this interpretation is seen as rather inadequate due to the nature of the amalgamated relation between both constituents. Stakeholders in modern corporate doctrine are considered as a core apparatus for the well functioning of a business. It is however often argued that the only way for a corporation to achieve better results and maximise its profits is to include other people in the process, individuals or organisations with direct or indirect interest in the well performance of the company, that is the reason why modern regulations and codes include a number of stakeholders other than the

5,300 low-level employees were dismissed while the CEO, John Stumpf, who accumulated $137.1 million in company stock while the scam was ongoing, left the bank and walked away scot-free. (Merie, 2016)