WELLS FARGO—OVER 1.5 MILLION UNAUTHORIZED ACCOUNTS. Here is a report by Matt Egan at the CNN Money website about a settlement (amounting to over $180 million in fines) with Wells Fargo by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: “Wells Fargo employees moved funds from customers’ existing accounts into newly-created ones without their knowledge or consent, regulators say.” There were over 1.5 million of these manufactured accounts. Wells Fargo employees also submitted applications for 565,443 credit card accounts without their customers’ knowledge or consent. Over 5300 employees were fired over the last several years because of all this.
To repeat those numbers: over 1.5 million manufactured deposit accounts and over 500,000 manufactured credit card accounts.
I find it hard to imagine this happening.
Meanwhile, it appears that all the employees terminated here were at as low a level as possible.
Hard to imagine high level people aren’t responsible for something like this when it looks like such a pervasive practice.