One year ago, on September 8, 2016 the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau(CFPB), the Los Angeles City Attorney and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) fined Wells Fargo Bank $185 million, alleging that more than 2 million bank accounts or credit cards were opened or applied for without customers' knowledge or permission between May 2011 and July 2015. This essay will discuss the Wells Fargo scandal by explaining how the event happened and describing how the organization approached handling a response to the crisis. This will be seen, firstly by describing the how the scandal happened, and what were the causes, secondly by discussing the reaction of the company in front of the situation, how they dealt with the crisis and then …show more content…
Employees were using the cross-selling which is a concept of attempting to sell multiple products to consumers. This concept led to fraudulent actions, in fact employees were encouraged to order credit cards for pre-approved customers without their consent, and to use their own contact information when filling out requests to prevent customers from discovering the fraud. " The Wells Fargo scandal was far different. Instead of a select few doing bad things, the unethical behavior was widespread at the bank, with thousands of employees engaged in secretly creating new bank and credit-card accounts for customers without their knowledge, resulting in overdraft and other fees." (Kouchaki, 2016). According to the Los Angeles City Attorney, employees were opening and funding accounts without customers' permission or knowledge in order to "satisfy sales goals and earn financial rewards under the bank's incentive-compensation program." This means that the board members of the bank were aware of that it wasn't by the employees' own wills. In fact, they were pressured by aggressive goals and performance which led them to immoral behaviors. Facing this problem, Wells Fargo bank had to take some measures to avoid bankruptcy, losing customers, or loosing brand …show more content…
Based on the contingency continuum theory the bank was on the pure accommodation side by doing full apology, by being honest and communicating it to the public. " Stumpf, who will testify at the Sept. 20 hearing, said he was sorry about the scandal. “We deeply regret any situation where a customer got a product they didn’t request,” Stumpf said during an appearance on CNBC’s “Mad Money” on Tuesday." (Puzzanghera, 2016). Then, always following the apology and restitution strategy Wells Fargo put his public first by doing paying full compensation to them. According to Egan, Wells Fargo has reached a $110 million preliminary settlement to compensate all customers who claim the scandal-ridden bank opened fake accounts and other products in their name. Furthermore, they also did some corrective actions by eliminations retail sales goals. “The elimination of product sales goals represents another step to reinforce our service culture, helps ensure that nothing gets in the way of our ability to achieve our mission and is consistent with our commitment to providing a great place to work,” he said. The sales goals will be eliminated starting Jan. 1, Wells Fargo said." According to Puzzanghera, 2016. Concerning, the corrective action the bank went beyond the elimination of retail sale goals they also fired some employees, paid their fined toward the regulatory bodies including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau(CFPB) and the
The Savings and Loans Crisis of the 1980’s and early 90’s created the greatest banking collapse since the Great Depression in 1929. Over half the S & L’s failed, along with the FSLIC fund that was created to insure their deposits.
In recent years, it seems as if there is a new financial fraud being reported any given day. One could even say that fraud has become almost a much a surety as taxes. Given the opportunities and pressures, many will businesses will fall victim to human natures and suffer losses through fraudulent activities. This case study will follow one such fraud, following the crimes of Terry Scott Welch in his pursuit for happiness by indulging his passion of landscaping.
Wells Fargo account fraud scandal One of the most recent white-collar crimes involved Wells Fargo, a banking and financial services provider. In 2016, San Francisco-based bank Wells Fargo (WFC) employees secretly created millions of unauthorized bank and credit card accounts without permission of their customers. Opening about 1.5 million fraudulent deposit accounts and submitting 565,443 credit card applications allowed Wells Fargo employees to boost their sales targets and receive bonuses. Consequently, customers were wrongly charged fees for accounts they did not know existed. In this business crime scenario, Wells Fargo is involved in paying $185 million in fines and refunding $5 million to affected customers.
As Wells Fargo convicted all the requirements of fraud they are involved to the business crime called fraud, they are liable to their fraud crime. There was a false statement which respectively conducted to the injury to the alleged victim as a result. Wells Fargo has been ordered to pay $185 million in fines, but that's a pittance compared with the $5.6 billion the bank earned in just the second quarter of this year. Meanwhile, the bank's victims weren't just nickel-and-dimed with overdraft and maintenance fees. Many of them took "significant hits" to their credit scores for not staying current on accounts they did not even know about. They will likely have difficulty securing home and car loans at reasonable rates for years to come, simply because their bank decided to defraud
The financial crisis of 2007–2008 is considered by many economists the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. This crisis resulted in the threat of total collapse of large financial institutions, the bailout of banks by national governments, and downturns in stock markets around the world. The crisis led to a series of events including: the 2008–2012 global recessions and the European sovereign-debt crisis. The reasons of this financial crisis are argued by economists. The performance of the Federal Reserve becomes a focal point in this argument.
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act’s policies haven’t really been implemented to the extent that regulators would have liked. Although the legislation takes many steps in addressing systematic risks in the United States financial system and improving coordination among regulators, some critics believe that alternative options might have been more effective. The coming years will give us a better understanding of how well the Dodd-Frank Act addressed these concerns.
Jake Clawson Ethical Communication Assignment 2/13/2014. JPMorgan Chase, Bailouts, and Ethics “Too big to fail” is a theory that suggests some financial institutions are so large and so powerful that their failure would be disastrous to the local and global economy, and therefore must be assisted by the government when struggles arise. Supporters of this idea argue that there are some institutions that are so important that they should be the recipients of beneficial financial and economic policies from government. On the other hand, opponents express that one of the main problems that may arise is moral hazard, where a firm that receives gains from these advantageous policies will seek to profit by it, purposely taking positions that are high-risk, high-return, because they are able to leverage these risks based on their given policy. Critics see the theory as counter-productive, and that banks and financial institutions should be left to fail if their risk management is not effective.
Jim Cramer was definitely not making it an easy interview for John Stumpf, the CEO of Wells Fargo. Right when Stumpf sat down, Cramer was ready with multiple questions to throw at him. I thought when John Stumpf apologized and came clear with the fake accounts being made and fraud that has happened at the Wells Fargo right in the beginning was a smart idea. Stumpf mentioned what his goals were directly after he apologized. He said, “My goal is to make it right with every customer 100% of the time and if we do not, I will feel accountable for the mistakes.”
The company promotes an aggressive strategy that they believe is the basis to accomplish their vision. Also incorporating a successful business model and a plan of execution to tie together the general strategy for Wells Fargo. The company values their customers above all else, wanting to gain their trust and deepen relationships with each and every one of them. Along with their extensive community involvement, Wells Fargo has other strengths that have helped them become so successful. The explosion of the bank began in San Francisco and soon expanded nationwide. Eventually, Wells Fargo developed into an international company. They provide multiple different networks that help attract potential customers to their company by having a service that can apply to everyone. Another strength that the company has executed would be the art of cross-selling. When it is finalized legally, it can be a great attribute to the company and the customer by letting them access the new services Wells Fargo provides. However, if there are strengths the weaknesses will follow in a major corporation. Wells Fargo has an international basis, it is very narrow in
It is proper to present a business definition of merger as it found on legal reference with the ultimate goal in the pursuing of an explanation on which this paper intents to present. A merger in accordance with the textbook is legally defined as a contractual and statuary process in which the (surviving corporation) acquires all the assets and liabilities of another corporation (the merged corporation). The definition go even farther to involve and clarify about what happen to shares by explaining the following; “the shareholders of the merged corporation either are paid for their share or receive the shares of the surviving corporation”. But in simple terms is my attempt to define as the product or birth of a corporation on which typically extends its operation by combining with another corporation. So from two on existence corporations in the process it gets absorbed into becomes one entity. The legal definition also implied more than meet the eye. The terms contractual and statuary, it implied a process on which contracts and statuary measures emerge as measures to regulate, standardized, governing or simply at times may complicate whole process. These terms provide an explicit umbrella and it becomes as part of the agreement formulating or promoting a case for contracts to be precedent, enforced or regulated in a now or in the future under a court of law under the Contract Business Law Statue of Practice. As for what happens to the shares of the involved corporations no more explanation is needed as the already actions mentioned clearly stated of the expectations of a merge’s share involvement.
The Bank of the United States is a symbol of the long held American fear of centralization and government control. The bank was an attempt to bring some stability and control and was successful at doing this. However, both times the bank was chartered, forces within the economy ultimately destroyed it. The fear of centralization and control was ultimately detrimental to the U.S. economy.
The Wells Fargo scandal started in 2016 when it came to light that starting back in 2011 employees created over 1.5 million fraudulent bank
A Review of Management Techniques and Practices at Wells Fargo Bank. Over the past 150 years, Wells Fargo Bank has become one of the largest financial institutions in the North America. Wells Fargo Bank is much more than a bank. It’s a premium financial service provider.
He did this knowingly and willfully to prop himself and the company up while “apparently with the knowledge that many of these retail accounts were created without customer authorization” (Target News Service). Leading to the assumption that the executives of the company did tell the lower level workers to meet a quota by whatever means necessary. The SEC has previously found securities fraud when an executive makes misleading statements on earnings calls. “During the Senate Banking Committee hearing, Mr. Stumpf claimed under oath that the firing of more than 5000 employees for creating more than two million possibly fake accounts was not "material" to investors” (Target News Service). Mr. Stumpf emphasized the company's increasing number of retail accounts and growing to cross-sell ratio on quarterly earnings calls with investors and analysts, and several analyst reports from that period recommend purchasing Wells Fargo stock in part because of those strong numbers. Mr. Stumpf and Wells Fargo investors clearly believed that the cross-sell ratio and the number of retail accounts were material to investment decisions and yet, Mr. Stumpf did not disclose that those numbers had been inflated by millions of fraudulent accounts, which must be pointed out is illegal and unethical. The fact of the matter is that this man decided to lie to his investors to show false profit margins to inflate the size of his pockets. At the expense of average American citizens, he lied to his investors who are trusting him with a company that they have a say/vote in. Wells-Fargo may have violated the regulations of whistleblowers which too is illegal. The firing of whistleblowers shows that the executives were guilty of what they claimed that
In my opinion, the arguments of this case would be: 1) Did Bank of America act in an ethical manner?; 2) Were the customers harmed by Bank of America’s choice to rank debit card transactions largest to smallest rather than in chronological order? 3) Did the customers act in an ethical manner by knowingly overdrawing their account? While the financial institution may be in the wrong, the missing detail is that the customers in the suit would have experienced at least a single overdraft fee at the least. Why is it acceptable for the customer to knowingly overdraw their account or spend money that they do not have and have the bank cover the transactions in the short-term?