Wells Fargo surfaced in 2013, and it was confirmed Wells Fargo employees were under the gun to make impossible sales quotas to cross sell other bank products to existing bank customers. Wells Fargo violated bank policy, corporate and personal ethics and the law by opening accounts in existing customer’s names including funding these accounts with yet other customer’s money.
Wells Fargo is not just a case of unethical behavior, but a dishonorable culture from the senior management all the way down to the lowermost employee. The scandal of Wells Fargo culture has so far concentrated on the high-pressure sales environment that drove employees to generate as many as two million false accounts. Wells Fargo incorporated fraudulent strategies to attain the high sales goals, not to mention the opening of unapproved and needless customer accounts, issuing illegal credit cards and lines of credit as well as falsifying client signatures and charging fees on uninvited accounts of uninformed customers.
Previous employees have confirmed ethos of anxiety and day-to-day stress by managers, where they were worried to reach extreme sales goals, some by breaking the law. The bank has since terminated thousands of employees
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In the face of hard to reach ideas like Wells Fargo’s Great campaign, people are more probable to become morally detached, and to deliberate being deceitful to make the grade. Wells Fargo employees may have seen their conducts as vindicated by simple cost-benefit studies, where each new account opened profited them, with seemingly negligible damage to clients. But whatever the bases of the licentious Wells Fargo behavior, the news raises the issue of “moral muteness,” or people’s unwillingness to communicate their moral anxieties and speak up about unscrupulous behaviors in the place of
Employees were using the cross-selling which is a concept of attempting to sell multiple products to consumers. This concept led to fraudulent actions, in fact employees were encouraged to order credit cards for pre-approved customers without their consent, and to use their own contact information when filling out requests to prevent customers from discovering the fraud. " The Wells Fargo scandal was far different. Instead of a select few doing bad things, the unethical behavior was widespread at the bank, with thousands of employees engaged in secretly creating new bank and credit-card accounts for customers without their knowledge, resulting in overdraft and other fees." (Kouchaki, 2016). According to the Los Angeles City Attorney, employees were opening and funding accounts without customers' permission or knowledge in order to "satisfy sales goals and earn financial rewards under the bank's incentive-compensation program." This means that the board members of the bank were aware of that it wasn't by the employees' own wills. In fact, they were pressured by aggressive goals and performance which led them to immoral behaviors. Facing this problem, Wells Fargo bank had to take some measures to avoid bankruptcy, losing customers, or loosing brand
In recent years, it seems as if there is a new financial fraud being reported any given day. One could even say that fraud has become almost a much a surety as taxes. Given the opportunities and pressures, many will businesses will fall victim to human natures and suffer losses through fraudulent activities. This case study will follow one such fraud, following the crimes of Terry Scott Welch in his pursuit for happiness by indulging his passion of landscaping.
on September 8, 2016 Wells Fargo’s unethical behavior was reveal when the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency fined Wells Fargo $185 million because over 2 million credit card and bank accounts were fraudulently open or applied for in customer names without their knowledge (Blake, 2016).
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.
“Most people in the U.S. want to do the right thing, and they want others to do the right thing. Thus, reputation and trust are important to pretty much everyone individuals and organizations. However, individuals do have different values, attributes, and priorities that guide their decisions and behavior. Taken to an extreme, almost any personal value, attribute, or priority can “cause” an ethical breach (e.g. risk taking, love of money or sta...
The focus was to sell multiple products to customers daily. The goals they are intending to reach will take some time. Gaining trust from the customers and the organizations would take some time. Wells Fargo practiced poor business ethics, to have themselves recognized as the #1 bank and gain a huge profit. The aftermath, their concentration will be any open accounts will require a signature on the applications, elimination of the sales goals, every customer will receive an email of any opened accounts, and employees may call the bank ethic’s hotline to report any
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.
One of the most recent white-collar crime 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 involved to pay $185 million in fines and refund $5 million to affected customers. Also, around 5,300
Ethical behavior is behavior that a person considers to be appropriate. A person’s moral principals are shaped from birth, and developed overtime throughout the person’s life. There are many factors that can influence what a person believes whats is right, or what is wrong. Some factors are a person’s family, religious beliefs, culture, and experiences. In business it is of great importance for an employee to understand how to act ethically to prevent a company from being sued, and receiving criticism from the public while bringing in profits for the company. (Mallor, Barnes, Bowers, & Langvardt, 2010) Business ethics is when ethical behavior is applied in an business environment, or by a business. There are many situations that can arise in which a person is experiencing an ethical dilemma. They have to choose between standing by their own personal ethical standards or to comply with their companies ethical standards. In some instances some have to choose whether to serve their own personal interests, or the interest of the company. In this essay I will be examining the financial events surrounding Bernie Madoff, and the events surrounding Enron.
The selected issue for the paper is where an employee has not given their current or potential customers accurate information when opening accounts or requesting new services from Washington Mutual. When a person is in the workplace proper business ethics is used on a daily basis. An employee can make ethical decisions by applying their critical thinking skills to the situation they can ensure that the decision that they make is the right decision. The decision process can be very tiresome process but with the proper procedures one can become a better decisions maker.
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.
I discovered how sticking to one’s morals should be the topmost priority for everyone involved in business, whether personal or professional. Regardless of what the consequences may be, the intensity of the problem, and the complexities it may bring, sacrificing one’s integrity should never be an option, as integrity goes hand-in-hand with the morals of an individual (Duggan & Woodhouse, 2011). They further go on to say that having individuals take part in building a code of ethics that supports employee integrity, they will act ethically. Also, I believe that companies should place more emphasis on the moral behavior of their employees, and clear-cut policies should be set regarding such ethical situations. Furthermore, I realized how serving justice while making decisions really helps in the long run, and that opting to go for the ideal rather than they deserved is not always the best option, and could hurt a company in more than one
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”
Recall the tale of an impoverished man who steals a loaf of bread to feed his starving family. In the instance when two moral obligations collide, the only way to comply with one is to violate the other. No matter which course is chosen, the other must be ignored.”(Freeman, Engels & Altekruse 2004) Stealing and breaking the law challenges the philosophy of breaking the responsibility of caring for one’s family. Accountants need to think clearly, challenge the possibilities, understand the options, and acknowledge the consequences. The choice to steal bread will vary from one person to another, but as Christians, dying of hunger is more of a reward than a consequence. Accountants can learn from examples of people and companies who have been faced with pressing ethical dilemmas. Accountants can learn from Bernard Madoff and his $61 billion ponzi scheme that ruined thousands of people’s life savings (Freshman 2012), or Enron “circumventing the rules, temporarily changing or suspending the rules, and outright thievery to achieve his objectives” (Gini 2004). Knowledge about the past will lead people to make wise ethical decisions. The world can clearly see the consequences that these people and firms have undergone and do not want to follow in that path. There are responsible businesses, like Frito-Lays who have a major go green campaign. They have a better business by reducing their natural
Shaw, W. H., & Barry, V. (2011). Moral Issues in Business (Eleventh ed., pp. 230-244).