Unethical behaviors within organizations exploit workers, customers and the public in certain situations. There are unethical behaviors that could be legal or illegal in some cases (Ferrell, Hirt, & Ferrell, 20019). Wells Fargo Bank banking foundation is built off retail deposits which in turn has helped the organization recuperate from credit crisis and become a stronger nationwide presence. The company also relies on its cross- selling ability to its customers as a way to become more profitable.
In the case of Wells Fargo, executives put a great amount of pressure on its employees to hit sales quotas, which lead to employees opening false accounts in current customers name. In this situation employees faced a dilemma and chose to commit unethical
There is a possibility of leakage of information by some or the other person in the organization. So, I doubt that nobody in Wells Fargo or in regulation did have any part to play in this, maybe they turned a blind eye. I believe that corporates always take the easiest way to get out of any imperative ethical issues, they blame their employees for the wrongdoings and keep top management safe. Like, in this case, Wells Fargo fired more than five thousand employees in response to the issue of cross-selling and no action was taken against the top officials of the company. It seems as if the top management is immune to such ethics-related issues.
In 2016, federal regulators caught Wells Fargo, creating millions of fake bank and credit card accounts; over 1.5 million bank accounts were created. Furthermore, federal regulators also said that 565,443 credit cards were created, and 1400 of those accounts had been charged over 400,000 dollars in fees. Wells Fargo employees broke many ethical and legal boundaries and engaged in counterproductive work behavior.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was put in place to prevent corporations from committing accounting fraud or corruption. When a corporation manages somehow to get passed all the laws they do anything to keep the corruption going by covering up everything. With this going on the company’s main focus is keep the lies going and firing whoever is in the way. Wells Fargo has stated that they have fire over a hundred thousand people throughout the nation for being a part of the illegal activity in the company. Unfortunately for Wells Fargo employees are coming out from hiding telling their side of the story.
According to the more than 5300 Wells Fargo’s former bank staff, direct cause of fraud is the bank directly linked employee compensation and sales performance. To face the difficulty of matching the sales aim, they had no other choices but to take a risk, and ultimately will inevitably damage to the interests of customers as the
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.
Although the Wells Fargo Bank fraud case, came to light in September 2008, the alleged fraudulent activity is traced back to January 1, 2011. It is alleged that the employees were opening various consumer accounts, without permission, to help meet company sales goals. The Wells Fargo employees did not stop there. Since newly opened accounts must be funded, money was then taken from actual accounts the consumer owned. Some of the money being transferred was at a cost to the consumer.
A proliferation of headlines abounds regarding leaders and questionable ethical behavior. Examples in both public and private sector are easy to find. In business, one can look at the Wells Fargo scandal where employees fraudulently opened customer accounts to achieve management sales quotas and the case of Mylan Pharmaceuticals price gouging of the EpiPen as examples of unethical behavior. A quick open of the New York Times and you can read editorials on the Trump Administration and his use of the White House for personal gain, disregard for the anti-nepotism law and questionable associations and political appointments of persons such as Scott Gottlieb, Carl Ichan, and Steve Bannon. Governor Robert Bently of Alabama is currently being investigated
Until the intent or motive is recognized, a problem cannot be described or solved. This should be a major question to ask in the Wells Fargo case. Most workers, especially in sales and marketing jobs are known to be compensated and promoted based on their performances (number of products and services sold, number of set targets met). So it is possible that Wells Fargo compensation and promotion structure motivated these employees to engage in such fraudulent acts in order to boost their incentives and bonuses which was measured based on their performance. Because it is surprising that such huge number of employees would engage in such acts to cheat customers for a period of five years. Both former and current Wells Fargo employees told regulators that their motivation to open unauthorized accounts was because of the compensation policies and felt extreme pressure to do that to benefit from such policies (Corkery
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.
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.
The Wells Fargo scandal involved a variety of stakeholders who have stake in the issue; however, the main stakeholders include the consumers, the employees and their families, and stockholders of the organization. The affect these stakeholders suffer varies, but the ultimate affect the scandal has had is violation of trust by Wells Fargo and its leadership. When examining this situation, the main stakeholders who suffered the greatest harm from the scandal were the customers who fell victim to the fraud and had their privacy violated by an organization they trusted. In the course text, Trevino and Nelson spoke of the importance of trust and its importance in a service economy. Wells Fargo violation of the consumers’ trust has ultimately added
The reason why Well Fargo Bank is an ethical quandary would be how they have gotten a fine for 185 Million dollars and have fired over 5,300 which were employee and manager.
Wells Fargo fired 5300 employees. The employees took millions in fees by regularly opening new
In the city of Seattle, the city council’s finance committee has decided to stop doing business with Wells Fargo because of ethical and environmental issues. During the city council meeting, hundreds of outside community members who opposed Wells Fargo lined the streets and marched to show their frustration. Eli Crawford, who is part of Environmental Group 350 Seattle, addressed the social responsibility of Wells Fargo, and said that they will not support banks or corporations that harm the climate or the environment. Wells Fargo also has financial ties with the Dakota Access Pipeline, which the Seattle city council opposed, and was part of a nationwide banking scandal. The city’s current contract with Wells Fargo expires in 2019, so at that