Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf testifying before Congress
*interesting sympathy ploy*
*interesting sympathy ploy*
So Wells Fargo Bank, considered to be the most trustworthy of the mega-banks (a rather low bar), was caught opening millions of extra-services customer accounts that had not been requested, for which the bank received fees. The Federales fined WF $185M for investor fraud as the upshot of their sleaze was to drive the stock price up, benefiting the bank management team.
But thanks to public pressure, 'da bank will not allow CEO Stumpf to keep his stock bonus for those years, nor any bonus he would otherwise be due this year. They will be "clawing back" from him $41,000,000. THAT'S how you hurt a crooked banker! A $185M hickey to a bank netting $5.7 BILLION a year (a 25.08% profit margin) is chump change. $41M to a banker personally is an attention grabber.
Also, retiring WF executive Carrie Tolstedt, the banker who oversaw the community banking division where the fraud took place, is having $53M of her "happy retirement" money clawed back, too. (Don't feel too sorry for her, though. She'll still walk away with $77M for her previous 27 years of "servicing" *snicker* WF customers.)
And now for the piece de resistance, several terminated former managers have filed a class-action lawsuit in the amount of $2.6 BILLION on behalf of themselves and roughly 5,000 other line workers who couldn't meet their quota of pushing customers into opening new extra-service accounts and were shown the door.
We're half way there. Personally hitting their pocket books is a pleasant start. Seeing a few of them behind bars would be Karma done right! :)
S
My wife worked at a large bank over 20 years ago. Well before this Wells Fargo thing she told me the main reason she left was people from clerks behind the windows to the branch managers were being pressured to make quotas of new accounts signed up. She told me this was common practice at every large bank (she knows people). She was a slightly above minimum wage worker and she was being pressured with quotas! Fuck the fine or lost bonus, these pricks should be in jail. Not just for ripping off customers but for forcing their workers (at every level) to be crooked or be shown the door.
ReplyDeleteBeyond that, I have no opinion.
And it is a Wells Fargo bank that demanded my thumb print on a check before they would use it to open an account...WTF!!!
DeleteGood anecdote of just how systemic it was and is.
DeleteThe problem is even with these "penalties" these people still have problems with their credit that will probably take years to straighten out. It's ironic that so many banks sell identity theft protection and this bank was stealing people's identities.
ReplyDeleteBTW, did that CEO just take a carpal tunnel glove and wrap gauze around it?
DeleteSome of these people deserve jail time.
ReplyDeleteWithout apologies for the West Fargo people, I must refer to some financial guru I heard interviewed yesterday who said "cross selling" is standard practice as in when you buy a suit at Macy's the salesman has to tell you about the shirt and tie that would go good with it; or the "Do you want to supersize that?" or "Do you want fries with that?" But in those instances at least you're being given a choice, unlike the badly treated Wells Fargo customers.
ReplyDeleteOf course there's nothing wrong with a polite "up-sell", but the Macy's salesman can't just slip a new belt into your bag and quietly charge an extra $50, and up his commission in the process. That's essentially what the WF crew did.
DeleteAgree, a great start. Now let's go get Karma.
ReplyDelete