How The Wells Fargo Phony Account Scandal Sunk

Wells Fargo In September of 2016 news broke out about the Wells Fargo scandal. Wells Fargo employees secretly opened millions of illegal fake credit cards and bank accounts for unknowing customers. According to How The Wells Fargo Phony Account Scandal Sunk John Stump, “Wells employees created more than 1.5 million unauthorized deposit accounts and issued more than 500,000 unauthorized credit card applications. These accounts racked up $2.6 million in fees for the bank.” These employees started making these fake accounts due to the companies aggressive sales goals. Wells Fargo wanted their employees to open eight accounts for each customer, which put a lot of pressure on the employees. People put in demanding business situations often have an “ it’s just business

In the article Wells Fargo’s Reaction to Scandal Fails to Satisfy Angry Lawmakers it mentions how lower-level employees were mainly affected by this unethical behavior and that more than 5,300 employees had been fired due to the unethical practice. Some employees were fired that did not participate in the unethical practice during the scandal were affected as well as a result of not being able to attain the sale goals. Stated in the article, How The Wells Fargo Phony Account Scandal Sunk John Stumpf, “Two former employees filed a $2.6 billion class action suit, alleging branch workers were unfairly fired when they could not meet Wells' aggressive sales quotas.” Customers also suffered because they trusted this bank and its employees to do their job right and they were taken advantage of. Many customers closed their bank accounts and switched banks. I think that the upper-level employees got off pretty easy considering they were most likely the ones enforcing the company standard. Upper-level employee often put pressure on low-level employee, which to me is unethical. They should not have got off without