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Wells Fargo Case Study

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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.
Zoltners, Sinah, and Lorimer (2016), suggests that “much of the blame gets …show more content…

Wells Fargo’s behavior caused harm to many of their clients. To attempt to provide perspective to the amount of harm from their acts, they had to pay back over $5M in improper fees to clients. Wells Fargo also completely ignored the second point stated in the Marketer’s Ethical Norms section of the code where a marketer agrees to foster trust by exercising good faith, fair dealing, and avoiding deception. Some clients may never be won back over by Wells Fargo, yet others may discount the entire episode as a transgression attributed to being human. Unfortunately, my opinion is that, as a society, we are too unforgiving of unethical behavior and we actually license such poor behavior throughout society. I would also suggest, by selling unnecessary bank products, or selling product that aren’t appropriate for a given client, Wells Fargo also violated the the AMA’s ethical value of “Transparency”. If Wells Fargo was acting with transparency when cross selling to grow client engagement, they would have explained risks, component substitutions or other foreseeable eventualities that could affect customers or their perception of the purchase decision. That all appears to have been ignored when bank representatives willingly sold products that were not right for some

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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.

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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…”

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In May of 2015, Wells Fargo faces a class action lawsuit, led by Mike Feuer, lawyer of the city of Los Angeles, for the dishonest and complete disregard to the treatment of its workers and clients. As far as the case goes, Wells Fargo has been blamed for setting unrealistic goals for its workers, actuating them to use deceitful means for meeting the set standards. Wells Fargo has basically set itself up for a classic case of “Ill-Conceived Goals, where such high pressures are set onto the workforce, to the point where they are willing to break their own integrity and furthermore the law in order to meet such ridiculous standards as stated above. Los Angeles attorney Feuer started exploring the bank in the wake of a report, in which a few previous

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Wells Fargo has been in business for over 160 years and was founded on March 18, 1852, by Henry Wells and William Fargo. The company opened its first office, in San Francisco, on July 1852. Wells Fargo served the West with banking needs, which included gold and paper bank drafts, and offered quick delivery of gold or other valuables. In1855, the first of many financial dilemmas took place when a drought made it impossible to mine for gold, and this caused almost 200 businesses in San Francisco to fail, but Wells Fargo didn’t fail, they prospered. In the early1860s, Wells Fargo acquired almost all the stage lines from the Missouri River to California, giving them a monopoly on transcontinental delivery services.

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Wells Fargo has been in the news lately. Thanks to the scandal surrounding reports that bank employees have opened accounts without client’s approval. As a result, Wells Fargo’s share price has taken a beating, losing 14% of its market value for the year. Berkshire Hathaway is the bank’s biggest shareholder with almost 10% stake. Its famous CEO, Mr. Warren Buffett is known as a long-time WFC fan, even praising the bank’s untarnished ethical culture.

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Wells Fargo Unethical News Wells Fargo was founded in 1852 and are widely known and is one of the banks with the most branches nationwide I think it would be safe to assume that they should be one of the most trusted as well, but unfortunately that is not the case after the huge scandal they have recently faced. In recent news Wells Fargo is facing a huge scandal after confirmation of unethical practices since 2011Wells Fargo employees have secretly opened millions of unauthorized bank and credit card accounts without customers knowing it these unauthorized accounts were made in order to hit sales targets and receive bonuses says Richard Cordray, director of the CFPB. (Egan).

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The employees also opened credit cards for customers and those actions lead customers to have financial difficulty as they have gone to debt collectors and have had issued with their credit reports showing inaccurate information. The consequences of the employee’s actions caused many to lose their jobs as well as resulting in hefty fines for Wells Fargo Co. Customers were outraged and understandably felt that their assets were not safe with the firm. The Wall Street Journal explains, “The top executive of Wells Fargo & Co. is expected to tell a

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“The most polite and gentlemanly treatment of all customers, however insignificant in their business, is insisted upon. Proper respect must be shown to all- let them be men, women, or children, rich or poor, white or black- it must not be forgotten that the company is dependant on these same people for its business.” When Henry Wells was alive, there were 8,000 workers at Wells Fargo. Today, there are 150,000 or more employees at Wells Fargo. There are 6,000 branches and from 1990-1998, their stock went up 1,197% (Smith).

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By consistently making progress in these particular areas, and ensuring that we have a high customer satisfaction with our customers our success will lead to product sales. Prospective customers are often times persuaded to purchase or not purchase products and services from reviews (pass and/or present), family, friends, or social media in which sometimes the information may be inaccurate. We want our customers to feel as though we understand every financial need that may be encountered before and after any financial review. Wells Fargo is an evolving company of which we believe great customer service always leads to sales, but sales hardly ever lead to great customer service. At all times, we look for efficient and effective ways to minimize our expenses, as the impact of this not only business our company, but our customers.

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early stages of the scandal, the San Francisco based financial institution was investigated by the local Los Angeles City’s Attorney and California state officials. Preliminary investigations revealed the extent of the fraud and malpractice predated as far back as 2011. As a result, on September 8, 2016, federal investigators followed suit and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Agency opened an investigation against Wells Fargo and handed a $185 million penalty to settle the dispute. This settlement would become the largest fine levied in the agency’s history. Of the $185 million, $100 million comprised of fines from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), $50 million originated from the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office, and

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When it comes to the Ethical Decision Model, it does not just pertain to the employees who opened these accounts but also leadership who either failed to realize what was going on or decided to sweep it under the rug by just covertly firing some employees. Wells Fargo did take the first step in recognizing the problem but failed to define it, which explains why these unethical behaviors continued for so many years. When the corporation was initially aware of what was going on, they should have acted immediately and strategized a solution that would dilute the possibility of it occurring again. Instead of defining the problem, which would have foster, a proper solution but company decided to just terminate

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As employees faced pressure to reach quotas, they found ways to cheat the system. If a customer came in to open an account, the employee would simply make it two or three. The intense pressure placed on employees created an environment that not only rewarded dishonesty and malpractice, but made it necessary to maintain employment. Many employees attempted to report these illegal practices to the Wells Fargo ethics line, but action was never taken and the problem escalated.

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