According to Fortune Magazine, Wells Fargo’s fake accounts became one of the biggest corporate scandals of 2016. What happened? Wells Fargo employees made fake accounts without consent of the bank’s customers. The reason that the employees created these fake accounts was to meet sales quotas set by executives of the bank. The employees thought they could open and close these accounts before a customer would notice, but these workers thought wrong. This misconduct was thought to have started in 2011 until 2015. We discover later down the timeline that the timeframe claim wasn’t completely accurate.
On September 8, 2016, allegations were made towards Wells Fargo in reference to over 2 million accounts opened in customers’ names without their knowledge. Wells Fargo paid 185 million dollars between three lawsuits to the government. Furthermore, the bank admitted that there is a possibility the fraudulent behavior occurred sooner than their original claim of 2011.
The FBI and prosecutors from New York and California began to examine the bank for the likelihood of criminal charges on September 14, 2016. Shortly after, the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee opened
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We also need to know the relevance of the audit evidence gathered. Does the audit evidence support the assertion made by KPMG? KPMG wrote a letter in response to the senators’ concerns. The external auditor responded stating: “Most importantly, KPMG is confident that its audits and reviews of Wells Fargo's consolidated financial statements were appropriately planned and performed in accordance with applicable professional standards.” KPMG claims to have followed all possible procedures, but in the opinion of these senators, the firm neglected to disclose the fraud that had a significant impact on the bank’s financial
One year ago, on September 8, 2016 the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau(CFPB), the Los Angeles City Attorney and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) fined Wells Fargo Bank $185 million, alleging that more than 2 million bank accounts or credit cards were opened or applied for without customers' knowledge or permission between May 2011 and July 2015. This essay will discuss the Wells Fargo scandal by explaining how the event happened and describing how the organization approached handling a response to the crisis. This will be seen, firstly by describing the how the scandal happened, and what were the causes, secondly by discussing the reaction of the company in front of the situation, how they dealt with the crisis and then
So just how did Scott Welch fit the profile of the average perpetrator? Based off the information reported by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners’ (ACFE) 2010 Report to the Nation, Welch fit directly into the median for a perpetrator – he was male, between the ages of 46 – 50, had a tenure of at least 6 – 10 years, an executive position as a Vice President. According to the ACFE’s report a perpetrator’s position within the company, age, tenure, gender and education level all have a have consideration in a fraud. In the 2010 report, it is noted that 66.7% of all frauds are perpetrated by men, more than likely due to the fact that more men hold a position of authority. Of the cases studied, 74% of all managers and 88% of all owners/executives were men (Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), 2010). The combination of Welch’s tenure and authoritative position may have exacerbated the losses suffered by Wachovia and may also have helped him hide the fraud from detection for an extended period of time of eight years (“Former Wachovia,” 2011). This period is well above and beyond the 24 months reported by the ACFE as the median time frame in which frauds perpetrated by executives/owners were detected (ACFE, 2010). Taking into consideration all the kn...
Key stakeholders are owners, directors, employees, and the community that the organization draws it resources businessdictionary.com,2016). Out of the 1000 Wells Fargo customers that were surveyed 3% stated that they were personally affected by the scandal and 14% of them stated that they have changed banks while 30% of them were currently looking to switch. Studies predict that Wells Fargo could lose about $99 billion in deposits and $4 billion in revenue because of customers rejecting to do business. Individual customers weren’t the only ones that were affect by the scandal but similarly 10,000 small businesses (Razin, 2016). I believe that the owners will be affected as well because of profit losses that will eventually affect Wells Fargo shares and the employees were affected after 5,300 of were fired (Razin,
Corporate crime has become increasingly common over the past couple of decades. It seems that every big corporation today has some type of dark side. With the constant trials against corporate officials it seems that many high profile companies can no longer be trusted. We can no longer look at our banks the same either; JPMorgan Chase in the recent two years can be added to corporate crime list. They have committed crimes against its costumers and the government by rigging their bids for investments for years, improper home insurance rates, and overcharging military veterns. From this they stole millions of dollars to put in their pockets. What makes this case interesting is that Chase is one of the top banks in this country. Millions of Americans trust this bank with their life savings it turns out they trusted their money with criminals.
In 1871, the banking house of Drexel, Morgan & Co. was established by John Pierpont Morgan. "Twenty four years later it was renamed J.P. Morgan & Co., which it was to remain until the firm's purchase by Chase Manhattan in 2000. (Hughes 23) At this point, Chase Manhattan was the largest banking company in the United States. This was a far cry from the 1980's when Morgan "boasted the largest market capitalization of any American bank and was more expensive to buy than Citicorp. (Hughes 11)" While J.P. Morgan could not imagine the path banking would take in the U.S. with his passing in 1913; his banking house would have a strong hold on American banking for much of the 20th century. The introduction of bank holding companies and certain laws placing restrictions on American banking such as the Glass Steagall Act of 1934 brought about many changes in American banking and allowed for the emergence of international banks to supplant the "House of Morgan" in the new era. It is no question though, that "John Pierpont Morgan was one of the most influential figures in the rise of U.S.
Jake Clawson Ethical Communication Assignment 2/13/2014. JPMorgan Chase, Bailouts, and Ethics “Too big to fail” is a theory that suggests some financial institutions are so large and so powerful that their failure would be disastrous to the local and global economy, and therefore must be assisted by the government when struggles arise. Supporters of this idea argue that there are some institutions that are so important that they should be the recipients of beneficial financial and economic policies from government. On the other hand, opponents express that one of the main problems that may arise is moral hazard, where a firm that receives gains from these advantageous policies will seek to profit by it, purposely taking positions that are high-risk, high-return, because they are able to leverage these risks based on their given policy. Critics see the theory as counter-productive, and that banks and financial institutions should be left to fail if their risk management is not effective.
In March of 1852, Henry Wells and William Fargo established the well-known bank, Wells Fargo. Originating in the West, Wells Fargo offered banking services, such as buying and selling paper banks drafts, which served as a representation of gold during a prime time in the economy. They would also extend a delivery service of customer’s valuables, branding their corporate symbol of a six-horse stagecoach. “From the Gold Rush to the early 20th Century, through prosperity, depression and war, Wells Fargo earned a reputation of trust due to its attention and loyalty to customers.” (“History of Wells Fargo”) With the help of the transcontinental railroad, Wells Fargo exploded across the nation throughout the years and still is considered one of the
This short report aims to give a brief overview of Deutsche Bank’s alarming situation and describe the sharp decrease of its profitability. It will briefly introduce the context of this crisis and aim to explain it through an analysis of one of the most used indicators of performance for banks, the return on equity (ROE).
It is proper to present a business definition of merger as it found on legal reference with the ultimate goal in the pursuing of an explanation on which this paper intents to present. A merger in accordance with the textbook is legally defined as a contractual and statuary process in which the (surviving corporation) acquires all the assets and liabilities of another corporation (the merged corporation). The definition go even farther to involve and clarify about what happen to shares by explaining the following; “the shareholders of the merged corporation either are paid for their share or receive the shares of the surviving corporation”. But in simple terms is my attempt to define as the product or birth of a corporation on which typically extends its operation by combining with another corporation. So from two on existence corporations in the process it gets absorbed into becomes one entity. The legal definition also implied more than meet the eye. The terms contractual and statuary, it implied a process on which contracts and statuary measures emerge as measures to regulate, standardized, governing or simply at times may complicate whole process. These terms provide an explicit umbrella and it becomes as part of the agreement formulating or promoting a case for contracts to be precedent, enforced or regulated in a now or in the future under a court of law under the Contract Business Law Statue of Practice. As for what happens to the shares of the involved corporations no more explanation is needed as the already actions mentioned clearly stated of the expectations of a merge’s share involvement.
They said to the people who support Wells Fargo, “if you feel like you received an account that you didn’t want, come in and see us and we will make it right” (Peter Conti-Brown, “Why Wells Fargo Might Not Survive its Fake Accounts Scandal”). I believe that Wells should do more than just talk to their customers if they experienced one of the fake numbers. It seems like they were and still are taking about this scandal like it wasn’t a big deal, when the case is still relevant today. Like I briefly mentioned above, the most unethical behavior about this is the fact that not just a couple members were involved. There were a couple thousand employees involved who created new bank and credit card accounts for customers without their
Wells Fargo account fraud scandal One of the most recent white-collar crimes involved Wells Fargo, a banking and financial services provider. In 2016, San Francisco-based bank Wells Fargo (WFC) employees secretly created millions of unauthorized bank and credit card accounts without permission of their customers. Opening about 1.5 million fraudulent deposit accounts and submitting 565,443 credit card applications allowed Wells Fargo employees to boost their sales targets and receive bonuses. Consequently, customers were wrongly charged fees for accounts they did not know existed. In this business crime scenario, Wells Fargo is involved in paying $185 million in fines and refunding $5 million to affected customers.
As Wells Fargo convicted all the requirements of fraud they are involved to the business crime called fraud, they are liable to their fraud crime. There was a false statement which respectively conducted to the injury to the alleged victim as a result. Wells Fargo has been ordered to pay $185 million in fines, but that's a pittance compared with the $5.6 billion the bank earned in just the second quarter of this year. Meanwhile, the bank's victims weren't just nickel-and-dimed with overdraft and maintenance fees. Many of them took "significant hits" to their credit scores for not staying current on accounts they did not even know about. They will likely have difficulty securing home and car loans at reasonable rates for years to come, simply because their bank decided to defraud
A Review of Management Techniques and Practices at Wells Fargo Bank. Over the past 150 years, Wells Fargo Bank has become one of the largest financial institutions in the North America. Wells Fargo Bank is much more than a bank. It’s a premium financial service provider.
In this paper I will identify and analyze the Wells Fargo scandal as it pertains to the breakdown of leadership and ethics. I will first identify and analyze the event and discuss the challenges and conflicts the scandal presented. Then I will evaluate the issue by explaining why the issue has interest and concern to stakeholders followed by discussing the challenges presented to individuals and/or organizations around this case. Lastly, I will recommend action steps that should be taken to those involved as well as discuss what I have learned from exploring this topic.
During the past year Wells Fargo, a well-recognized bank of the United States, has been trying to clean its name and the mess it got itself into, when it was brought to the public that the bank was involved in generating fraudulent checking and savings accounts for its clients without their knowledge or their authorization. “The way it worked was that employees moved funds from customers' existing accounts into newly-created ones without their knowledge or consent”