Today, Wells Fargo is widely recognized for its commitment to the Hispanic and Latino community. This commitment however, is not a recent phenomenon and dates back to before the turn of the century. Since its founding in 1852, Wells Fargo had encouraged team members to treat all customers with courtesy and respect. The once informal policy became company standard in 1888 when agents and managers were required to show “proper respect to all. Let them be men, women, children, rich or poor, white or black…”
Not only am I drawn to Wells Fargo’s rich history and comprehensive reach in the financial services industry, its highly collaborative and caring culture offers me the opportunity to make a real impact. When I first became interested into wealth and investment management, I reached out to many professionals but Wells Fargo advisors were one of the few to response. Not only were they willing to offer valuable, they also connected me with their colleagues and invited me to tour their offices. Through the phone calls and tours, I got to experience the Wells Fargo difference: a team-oriented culture of caring and helping others. Being a part of Wells Fargo and the WIM program gives me the unparalleled opportunity to gain hands-on experience and
Wells Fargo has put a lot of work on damage control in order to rebuild trust with its clients. Although employees were the one committing misconduct, the company as an entity is legally answerable to the
Due to the pressure placed on staff and their need to meet the company target to earn more, the team engaged in opening unauthorized accounts since 2011, resulting in millions of clients paying more fees without knowledge of what was happening. With its strict policy, the then CEO John Stumpf was required to resign as everything occurred under his reign (Caywood, 2012). In the case of Goldman Sachs, the company staff has been working cohesively in achieving their goals even after the 2008 economic crisis. Due to the level of prestige, it acquired over the years; the senior management has risen to take over executive positions in government and other financial institutions, precisely showing recognition of the skill set present in the company.
Due to the scandal, Wells Fargo faced customer confidence issues. Trevino and Nelson suggest customer confidence issues include confidentiality, product safety and effectiveness, truth in advertising, and special fiduciary responsibilities (126). Based on the unethical behavior noted in the scandals, the organization violated the customer’s privacy and failed to perform their fiduciary responsibilities on multiple occasions. Wells Fargo and its employees broken several laws to meet quotas and make profit for the organization. In this scandal, there are legal implications to be faces noted in court documents include but not limited to fraudulently opening accounts without the consent of a customer, falsifying credit documents, identity theft
Wells Fargo's leadership failed in its approach to excellence. Stumpf’s mantra of “Eight is great” inadvertently encouraged employees to prioritize sales over ethical considerations, leading to a culture where “the ends justify the means”. The “Eight is great” mantra had a profound negative impact on the company’s culture given
Consequently, the fake account scandal had been exposed to the public in 2016. Wells Fargo committed the fraud and was agreed to pay 185 million USD, settling the penalties made by government regulators which contained 35 million USD by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, 100 million by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and 50 million by the Los Angeles City Attorney. The company also announced that 5300 low-level employees who created the new accounts without approved by customers, were fired due to the unethical behaviour. Wells Fargo changed the performance measurement on its compensation program to avoid unethical behaviour of employees. Wells Fargo rebuilded the operational structures to regain the trust from customers
1. Background The recent scandal of two million fraud accounts opened by employees in Wells Fargo not only had cost the bank a large amount of fine, it had also led to layoffs of over 5000 employees and customer outrage (Kate, 2016). The scandal has revealed the company’s inappropriate corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices on its customers and employees. 2.
Wells Fargo & Co. is a popular banking company that provides various banking services to individuals and businesses alike inside the United States. As of recently, a massive scandal within this company has come to light. On September 8, 2016, evidence was reported to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Los Angeles City Attorney and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) suggesting that Wells Fargo & Co. had opened more than 2 million bank accounts and issued unauthorized credit cards without their customers’ knowledge/consent between the months of May 2011 and July 2015 (Masunaga and Koren, 1). To make matters worse, there were managers that tried to silence the employees that spoke out against the opening of these
While there are many other banks that offer online banking to their customers, Wells Fargo created theirs with efficiency and convenience in mind, which
Case 1: Wells Fargo (a) Explain how the issues raised in this media report are ethical issues “Cheating” or in Wells Fargo’s case, creating fake accounts was aimed to drive their employees financial gain for the organisation or individual benefits. This unethical behaviour was said to be a widespread culture at the bank. A legitimate beneficial business strategy turned into an illegal activity. These could be considered as unethical for various reasons: i. This is not fair for Wells Fargo’s customers as they are fleecing their customer and their customers will be paying for something that they did not signed up for and this might then slowly accumulate and become a liability for them.
Organizational Strategy and Objectives The foundation of Wells Fargo’s strategy is its focus on customers. The company’s strategy tends to drive the choices they make and also enable them to prioritize its efforts, differential from peers, and build a lasting value for customers, employees, communities, and shareholders. The diversified business model tends to provide the company with the stability and the strength as it assures communities and customers that it exists to serve them and also the future generations. The objectives of the company are to be the leader in financial services in areas of team member engagement, customer services and advice, shareholder value, innovation, corporate citizenship, and risk management (Wells Fargo n.d).
In September 2016, Wells Fargo agreed to pay $185M in fines and return $5 million in fees wrongly charged to customers because of unethical sales practices. (Zoltners, Sinha, & Lorimer, 2016). Wells Fargo, over several years, opened over 2 million bank and credit card accounts without customers’ permission, or knowledge. The deception took several years to uncover because these unauthorized accounts generated only small, unnoticeable monthly fees that most people did not recognize or become alarmed over when they were recognized on statements. Over time, however, these fees became more visible as the total value of the fees became large and the scheme was uncovered.
But in late 2016, according to news reports and testimony before the U.S. Congress, company representatives publicly conceded that the incentive resulted in disaster. Over a period of at least five years, Wells Fargo employees created more than 1.5 million unauthorized deposit accounts, and at least 500,000 unauthorized credit card
This can be seen when John Stumphf - former chairman and CEO of Wells Fargo was interviewed by Wall Street Journal, he was asked who was responsible for the negative culture which resulted to the 2 million fraud account in which he refused to answer and denied that the organization has encouraged such culture and proceeds to blame low paid employees of Wells Fargo for being the bad apples of the company (Bellware, 2016; Raymond, 2016).