Bear Down Wildcats

Los Angeles sues Wells Fargo, alleging fraud by employees
By CHRISTOPHER WEBER
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Wells Fargo Bank employees driven by strict sales pressure issued unwanted credit cards and opened unauthorized accounts that charged customers fees and damaged their credit, according to a lawsuit filed by the city of Los Angeles.

The civil complaint filed Monday contends the largest California-based bank violated state and federal laws by misusing confidential information and failing to notify customers when personal information was breached, City Attorney Mike Feuer said at a Tuesday news conference.

"In its push for growth, Wells Fargo often elevated its profits over the legal rights of its customers," Feuer said.

The bank has blamed the problems on a few rogue employees who have been disciplined or fired and said it would defend itself.

"Wells Fargo's culture is focused on the best interests of its customers and creating a supportive, caring and ethical environment for our team members," the San Francisco-based bank said in a statement.

The city's investigation found only token efforts to prevent wrongdoing, according to court papers.

The complaint was filed under a law that allows attorneys representing large California cities to seek relief for unfair business practices for customers statewide.

The lawsuit seeks a court order ending the alleged practices along with penalties up to $2,500 for every violation and restitution for affected customers.

Feuer said the number of possible violations would be determined during a discovery process. If the suit prevails in Los Angeles County Superior Court, it would apply to county residents and possibly some customers farther away, he said.

Frank Ahn, who owns a convenience store and a coin-operated laundry in the San Fernando Valley, said he was repeatedly pressured over four years to open additional accounts at Wells Fargo. When he declined, the bank opened three savings accounts in his name anyway, Ahn said.

After he complained, the accounts were deleted, only to reappear again months later, he said.

"I just feel like every time I go to the branch, it's a battle with them," Ahn said at the news conference. "I've had more than 10 accounts at Wells Fargo. I only need one."

The bank had a culture of high-pressure sales that pushed employees toward fraudulent conduct," Feuer said. Employees misused customers' confidential information and often failed to close unauthorized accounts despite complaints, the suit said.

Some employees raided customer accounts for money to open more accounts, according to court papers.

"The result is that Wells Fargo has generated a virtual fee-generating machine, through which its customers are harmed, its employees take the blame, and Wells Fargo reaps the profit," the lawsuit claims.

The lawsuit focuses mostly on what's known in the industry as bundling, also called cross-selling, where bank employees try to sell multiple bank products to a customer who may have just come in to open an account or apply for a credit card.

Bundling and cross-selling has been a widely accepted practice in consumer banking for years, mostly without controversy.

Wells Fargo has had a long history of cross-selling and bundling, averaging more than six products per household, according to its latest annual report.

The lawsuit says Wells Fargo executives pushed employees to sell more than 10 products to customers based on whether they were a regular customer, had wealth-management accounts or were a business owner.

Branch employees had to sell a certain number of financial products each day, according to the complaint, even if there wasn't the foot traffic available to meet those quotas. Employees were also encouraged to sell multiple products to family members and friends to meet quotas.

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scumdevils86 wrote:I've known this for years. At my company we've hired dozens of former employees from BofA, Chase, and particularly Wells Fargo. They have all been great hires for us because they couldn't take it at the big banks anymore with their outright criminal acts towards customers and employees. They treat their employees like crap and do things like this. I've had several former Wells employees tell me that as long as they had about 75% of their new accounts/loans that they opened actually signed for and authorized by the customer then that was considered a passing grade. The bolded part is especially true. Wells Fargo's response to the lawsuit is the biggest load of b.s. i've heard in a while.

http://www.kvoa.com/story/28982287/los- ... -employees

Los Angeles sues Wells Fargo, alleging fraud by employees
By CHRISTOPHER WEBER
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Wells Fargo Bank employees driven by strict sales pressure issued unwanted credit cards and opened unauthorized accounts that charged customers fees and damaged their credit, according to a lawsuit filed by the city of Los Angeles.

The civil complaint filed Monday contends the largest California-based bank violated state and federal laws by misusing confidential information and failing to notify customers when personal information was breached, City Attorney Mike Feuer said at a Tuesday news conference.

"In its push for growth, Wells Fargo often elevated its profits over the legal rights of its customers," Feuer said.

The bank has blamed the problems on a few rogue employees who have been disciplined or fired and said it would defend itself.

"Wells Fargo's culture is focused on the best interests of its customers and creating a supportive, caring and ethical environment for our team members," the San Francisco-based bank said in a statement.

The city's investigation found only token efforts to prevent wrongdoing, according to court papers.

The complaint was filed under a law that allows attorneys representing large California cities to seek relief for unfair business practices for customers statewide.

The lawsuit seeks a court order ending the alleged practices along with penalties up to $2,500 for every violation and restitution for affected customers.

Feuer said the number of possible violations would be determined during a discovery process. If the suit prevails in Los Angeles County Superior Court, it would apply to county residents and possibly some customers farther away, he said.

Frank Ahn, who owns a convenience store and a coin-operated laundry in the San Fernando Valley, said he was repeatedly pressured over four years to open additional accounts at Wells Fargo. When he declined, the bank opened three savings accounts in his name anyway, Ahn said.

After he complained, the accounts were deleted, only to reappear again months later, he said.

"I just feel like every time I go to the branch, it's a battle with them," Ahn said at the news conference. "I've had more than 10 accounts at Wells Fargo. I only need one."

The bank had a culture of high-pressure sales that pushed employees toward fraudulent conduct," Feuer said. Employees misused customers' confidential information and often failed to close unauthorized accounts despite complaints, the suit said.

Some employees raided customer accounts for money to open more accounts, according to court papers.

"The result is that Wells Fargo has generated a virtual fee-generating machine, through which its customers are harmed, its employees take the blame, and Wells Fargo reaps the profit," the lawsuit claims.

The lawsuit focuses mostly on what's known in the industry as bundling, also called cross-selling, where bank employees try to sell multiple bank products to a customer who may have just come in to open an account or apply for a credit card.

Bundling and cross-selling has been a widely accepted practice in consumer banking for years, mostly without controversy.

Wells Fargo has had a long history of cross-selling and bundling, averaging more than six products per household, according to its latest annual report.

The lawsuit says Wells Fargo executives pushed employees to sell more than 10 products to customers based on whether they were a regular customer, had wealth-management accounts or were a business owner.

Branch employees had to sell a certain number of financial products each day, according to the complaint, even if there wasn't the foot traffic available to meet those quotas. Employees were also encouraged to sell multiple products to family members and friends to meet quotas.

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ghostwhitehorse wrote:LK in 3. . . 2. . .

Everyone hates paying bank fees. But imagine paying fees on a ghost account you didn't even sign up for.

That's exactly what happened to Wells Fargo customers nationwide.

On Thursday, federal regulators said Wells Fargo employees secretly created millions of unauthorized bank and credit card accounts -- without their customers knowing it -- since 2011.

The phony accounts earned the bank unwarranted fees and allowed Wells Fargo employees to boost their sales figures and make more money.

"Wells Fargo employees secretly opened unauthorized accounts to hit sales targets and receive bonuses," Richard Cordray, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said in a statement.

Wells Fargo confirmed to CNNMoney that it had fired 5,300 employees over the last few years related to the shady behavior. Employees went to far as to create phony PIN numbers and fake email addresses to enroll customers in online banking services, the CFPB said.

The scope of the scandal is shocking. An analysis conducted by a consulting firm hired by Wells Fargo concluded that bank employees opened up over 1.5 million deposit accounts that may not have been authorized, according to the CFPB.

The way it worked was that employees moved funds from customers' existing accounts into newly-created accounts without their knowledge or consent, regulators say. The CFPB described this practice as "widespread" and led to customers being charged for insufficient funds or overdraft fees -- because the money was not in their original accounts.

Additionally, Wells Fargo employees also submitted applications for 565,443 credit card accounts without their knowledge or consent, the CFPB said the analysis found. Roughly 14,000 of those accounts incurred over $400,000 in fees, including annual fees, interest charges and overdraft-protection fees.
The CFPB said Wells Fargo will pay "full restitutions to all victims."

Relentless pressure. Wildly unrealistic sales targets. Employees leaning on family members and friends to open unnecessary bank accounts.

That's how more than a dozen former Wells Fargo employees described the bank's culture to CNNMoney.

Wells Fargo (WFC)has been accused by federal regulators of illegal activity on a stunning level. Authorities say employees at the bank secretly created millions of unauthorized bank and credit card accounts between 2011 and July 2015, allowing the bank to make more money in fees and meet internal sales targets.

Wells Fargo agreed to pay penalties of $185 million and fired 5,300 employees over the last few years related to this illegal activity. The news is rocking the industry and rippling across Wells Fargo's millions of customers nationwide.

Former employees tell CNNMoney that they felt incredible demands from managers to meet sales quotas. The same managers turned a blind eye when ethical and even legal lines were crossed.

"I had managers in my face yelling at me," Sabrina Bertrand, who worked as a licensed personal banker for Wells Fargo in Houston in 2013, told CNNMoney. "They wanted you to open up dual checking accounts for people that couldn't even manage their original checking account."

Currently a middle school teacher, Bertrand said she believes the sales targets were set by managers who were higher up: "The sales pressure from management was unbearable."

The pressure cooker environment is also described in a lawsuit filed by Los Angeles against Wells Fargo in May 2015. The lawsuit says that Wells Fargo's district managers discussed daily sales for each branch and employee "four times a day, at 11 am, 1 pm, 3 pm and 5 pm."

It all stems from Wells Fargo's internal goal of selling at least eight financial products per customer. It's what Wells Fargo calls the "Gr-eight initiative." Currently, Wells Fargo boasts an average of about six financial products per customer.

In pursuit of this goal, Wells Fargo employees engaged in all kinds of sordid practices. One of them was internally called "pinning," where the bank issued ATM cards and assigned PIN numbers without customer authorization.

The bankers would impersonate their customers and "input false generic email addresses such as 1234@wellsfargo.com" target="_blank" target="_blank, noname@wellsfargo.com" target="_blank" target="_blank, or none@wellsfargo.com" target="_blank" target="_blank to ensure the transaction is completed," the lawsuit said. The customer, meanwhile, remained completely unaware of the unauthorized activity.

Anthony Try, who worked at Wells Fargo's branches in San Francisco and San Diego as a personal banker and sales representative, told CNNMoney that he believes "management was fully aware of this," but his bosses deliberately "turned a blind eye."

Try, who quit in 2013 because he no longer believed in what he was doing, thinks the illegal activity was systemic.

"It was ingrained in the culture for a long time," he said.

Try, currently a musician and manager, said he did not open unauthorized accounts. However, he did open accounts for friends and family -- with their permission -- in order to meet the incredible demands from managers.

"There would be days where we would open five checking accounts for friends and family just to go home early," he said.

The California lawsuit supports these claims. Wells Fargo paid $50 million to the City and County of Los Angeles to settle the suit as part of the broader $185 million in fines announced on Thursday.

Employees who failed to meet their daily goals were "reprimanded and told to do whatever it takes to meet individual sales quotas," the California lawsuit alleges.

Management even encouraged employees to "achieve 'solutions' through family members," the suit says.

Some Wells Fargo employees say they have "tapped out every family member and friend for accounts," while others say they "spend holiday dinners trying to convince" them to sign up, the lawsuit said.

Employees and the California lawsuit both allege that higher-ups at Wells Fargo also share in the blame for the fraud.

Wells Fargo has "known about and encouraged these practices for years," the California lawsuit said. "Wells Fargo has engineered a virtual fee-generating machine, through which its customers are harmed, its employees take the blame, and Wells Fargo reaps the profits."

"The culprit in this case in not just the individuals involved, but the corporate culture itself," said Julie Ragatz, director of the Center for Ethics in Financial Services at the American College of Financial Services.

In response to CNNMoney's reporting, a Wells Fargo spokeswoman said the "majority of our team members do work hard to do what's in customers' best interest."

Wells Fargo also said it made a number of "fundamental changes to help ensure our team members are not being pressured to sell products."

Those changes include enhanced training that values ethics and how to report concerns, increased risk management professionals at branches and additional mystery shoppers.

One former Wells Fargo employee, who requested his name not be used so he doesn't hurt his career in banking, said he experienced this firsthand. He said managers told him to open unauthorized accounts and, when customers called, to apologize and say it was a mistake.
"This was not done by employees trying to hit their sales numbers, it was more of threats from upper management," he said, adding that workers feared they would lose their job.

According to the California lawsuit, Wells Fargo employees for years engaged in practices known as "gaming." One of them was "sandbagging," which occurred when bankers refused to open accounts requested by customers until the next reporting period to boost their sales quotas, the lawsuit claimed.

A former longtime Wells Fargo consumer bank employee in the Minneapolis region, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity, described a "cutthroat" environment that caused employees to fear for their job and make "bad ethical choices."

"It was a real s**t show over there," he said.

Kiyama wrote:I have Wells Fargo, what bank should I be using?

Kiyama wrote:I have Wells Fargo, what bank should I be using?

gumby wrote:My mortgage is with WF -- 13 months left!

Otherwise, I'm with a credit union.

ASUHATER! wrote:

gumby wrote:My mortgage is with WF -- 13 months left!

Otherwise, I'm with a credit union.

same here...but 19 years left!

i absolutely despise WF home mortgage with a fiery passion.

catgrad97 wrote:

ASUHATER! wrote:

gumby wrote:My mortgage is with WF -- 13 months left!

Otherwise, I'm with a credit union.

same here...but 19 years left!

i absolutely despise WF home mortgage with a fiery passion.

I didn't have a choice. My mortgage broker, SunAmerican, sold the loan to WF within a week of my purchase of the house.

As long as my monthly payments stay fixed, we won't have a problem. I get any mails breathing the words "escrow analysis," it'll be time for a divorce.

ASUHATER! wrote:

gumby wrote:My mortgage is with WF -- 13 months left!

Otherwise, I'm with a credit union.

same here...but 19 years left!

i absolutely despise WF home mortgage with a fiery passion.

gumby wrote:

ASUHATER! wrote:

gumby wrote:My mortgage is with WF -- 13 months left!

Otherwise, I'm with a credit union.

same here...but 19 years left!

i absolutely despise WF home mortgage with a fiery passion.

Had no problem

Millions of phony accounts. Fake bank card PIN numbers. Fictitious email accounts.

Wells Fargo admitted to firing 5,300 employees for engaging in these shocking tactics. The bank earlier this month paid $185 million in penalties and has since apologized.

Now CNNMoney is hearing from former Wells Fargo (WFC) workers around the country who tried to put a stop to these illegal tactics. Almost half a dozen workers who spoke with us say they paid dearly for trying to do the right thing: they were fired.

"They ruined my life," Bill Bado, a former Wells Fargo banker in Pennsylvania, told CNNMoney.

Bado not only refused orders to open phony bank and credit accounts. The New Jersey man called an ethics hotline and sent an email to human resources in September 2013, flagging unethical sales activities he was being instructed to do.

Eight days after that email, a copy of which CNNMoney obtained, Bado was terminated. The stated reason? Tardiness.

HR official describes 'retaliation'
Retaliating against whistleblowers is a major breach of trust. Ethics hotlines are exactly the kind of safeguards put in place to prevent illegal activity from taking place and provide refuge to employees from dangerous work environments.

Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf made precisely that point on Tuesday when he testified before angry Senators.

"Each team member, no matter where you are in the organization, is encouraged to raise their hands," Stumpf told lawmakers. He mentioned the anonymous ethics line, adding, "We want to hear from them."

But that's not the experience of some former Wells Fargo workers.

One former Wells Fargo human resources official even said the bank had a method in place to retaliate against tipsters. He said that Wells Fargo would find ways to fire employees "in retaliation for shining light" on sales issues. It could be as simple as monitoring the employee to find a fault, like showing up a few minutes late on several occasions.

"If this person was supposed to be at the branch at 8:30 a.m. and they showed up at 8:32 a.m, they would fire them," the former human resources official told CNNMoney, on the condition he remain anonymous out of fear for his career.

CNNMoney spoke to a total of four ex-Wells Fargo workers, including Bado, who believe they were fired because they tipped off the bank about unethical sales practices.
Another six former Wells Fargo employees told CNNMoney they witnessed similar behavior at Wells Fargo -- even though the company has a policy in place that is supposed to prevent retaliation against whistleblowers. CNNMoney has taken steps to confirm that the workers who spoke anonymously did work at Wells Fargo and in some cases interviewed colleagues who corroborated their reports.

It's possible Wells Fargo could face legal consequences for any retaliation that occurred against employees who called the ethics line.
"It is clearly against the law for any company (or executives of such companies) to try to suppress whistleblowing," Harvey Pitt, former chairman of the SEC, told CNNMoney in an email.

A number of statutes -- including Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank -- "make this unambiguously clear," Pitt said.

"I endured harsh bullying ... defamation of character, and eventually being pinned for something I didn't do," said Heather Brock, who was fired earlier this month as a senior business banker at a Wells Fargo branch in Round Rock, Texas.

'That's retaliation'
One such former employee was fired after flagging issues directly to Stumpf, according to Senator Bob Menendez.

At the Senate hearing, Menendez read the New Jersey woman's 2011 email to Stumpf, where she described improper sales tactics she felt were "wrong."

"Did you read that email?" Menendez asked Stumpf.

"I don't remember that one," Stumpf replied.

"Okay, well she was fired. ... So much for the safe haven," Menendez said.

Several senators spoke about the plight of the mostly 5,300, low-level employees who were fired related to the scandal.

The firing certainly took a huge toll on Bado's life. It put a permanent stain on his securities license, scaring off other prospective bank employers. Today, the New Jersey man's house is on the verge of being foreclosed on and he's working part-time, at Shop-Rite.

"You wonder where the justice is," Bado said.

Ken Springer, a former FBI agent who runs a firm that offers a whistleblower hotline service, was alarmed by the allegations made by former Wells Fargo employees.

"That's retaliation. It's a big problem -- and a perfect example of what shouldn't happen," Springer said. "It looks like there's been a terrible breakdown of checks and balances at Wells Fargo."

In response to CNNMoney's report, a Wells Fargo spokeswoman said: "We do not tolerate retaliation against team members who report their concerns in good faith." She emphasized that employees are encouraged to immediately report unethical behavior to their manager, HR representative or 24-hour ethics line.

'Excessive tardiness' eight days after HR email

Wells Fargo confirmed to CNNMoney that Bado had worked there. However, the bank declined to comment on why Bado left and and on the ethics complaint with corresponding report number he cited in emails. "Everything submitted to the EthicsLine is investigated," a Wells Fargo spokeswoman said.

While ethics complaints are supposed to be confidential, documents show that Bado did speak out before he was fired. On September 19, 2013, Bado wrote an email to a Wells Fargo HR rep and copied his regional manager, where he detailed improper sales tactics.

Documents show Bado was fired -- for "excessive tardiness" -- just eight days later.

"I have been asked on several occasions to do things that I know are not ethical and would be grounds for discharge," Bado said in the email to HR.

He said a branch manager on "many occasions" asked him to send out a debit card, "pin it," and enroll customers in online banking -- "all without the customers (sic) request or knowledge." Those are precisely the same practices that regulators fined Wells Fargo for three years later and that senators grilled the bank over this week.

Lose, lose situation for Heather Brock

Brock, the business banker from Texas, told CNNMoney she experienced a similar situation. The 26-year-old single parent of two young boys was fired soon after she contacted the company's ethics line about illegal sales practices she witnessed.

Wells Fargo also confirmed Brock used to work at the company but declined to comment further.

Brock was fired earlier this month, with Wells Fargo accusing her of falsifying documents -- a charge Brock emphatically denies. Brock said the company bullied her into admitting she did something wrong.

A current Wells Fargo employee who works in Brock's branch vouched for her version of events.

"That's really scary when you're with a big corporation like this and HR doesn't have your back," said the current employee, who wished to remain anonymous so as not to get fired as well.

Brock is hoping her story forces meaningful change at Wells Fargo.

"You lose if you do complain and you lose if you don't. What does a powerless employee do?" Brock said.

scumdevils86 wrote:most credit unions participate in a shared branching network so you have access to thousands and thousands of branches (so you can actually do payments, transfers, withdrawals, deposits, cashiers checks, notaries etc), atms, and kiosks nation (and in some cases worldwide) for free. so that largely defeats the "well chase or bofa is on every corner" thought process.

PHXCATS wrote:Chase has been great for me. No issues and lots of access to ATMs and branches. Reason 1 to stay.

PHXCATS wrote:Don't pass any credit unions on my way to and from work but pass two chases, but you know more than me about my needs so when are you available for an appointment?