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I wrote a few weeks ago about the recent scandal at Wells Fargo bank, where 5300 Wells Fargo employees were fired for allegedly creating over 2 million unauthorized accounts.  Reading some of the discussion about how insane the corporate culture was, either at some or all Wells Fargo branches is quite crazy and a bit insightful to how this could happen.wells-fargo-logo

I’m sure that many of those reading Points With a Crew have some familiarity with Wells Fargo, especially the credit card that gives 5% on all purchases for the first 6 months.  There’s a reason Richard Kerr’s favorite number is (was) 2525.  Now I guess we know where all the revenue came from to fund all those 5% cashback purchases! 🙂

Wells Fargo former employees speaking out

In any case, more information on the Wells Fargo story continues to come out, including some insights into the corporate culture that let it happen.  Here’s an article in the New York Times that tells the stories of some of the people that work or used to work for Wells Fargo.  I thought I would share a couple of the comments from Wells Fargo (current and/or former) employees

From that point, I began drinking the hand sanitizer

Angie Payden, a former banker shares 4 things that she was forced to do things including “opening travel checking accounts for customers by convincing them that it was unsafe to travel without a separate checking account and debit card”

I thought I was having a heart attack

Scott T shares that he “was once scolded for not selling an elderly lady a credit card by telling her that she could use it as a form of ID if she went to a teller who didn’t know her. Even if a customer didn’t want access to online banking, we were taught to force them into it. If they didn’t have an email to use for online banking, make one up. Once they logged into online banking for the first time, you made a sale.”

I moved to a new branch, and the goals in that branch were so insane that there was no way to reach them without lying or committing fraud

The entire article over at the New York Times is worth a read if you’re interested in the banking / credit card industry


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