

The company continued to fire employees over fraudulent accounts. But in the following years these efforts were not enough. Wells Fargo also modified its compensation structure to place less emphasis on sales goals. In mid-2014, Well Fargo attempted to curb fraudulent activity with an ethics workshop that warned employees not to create fake accounts in customers’ names. If you’re bringing down the team then you will be fired and it will be on your permanent record.” One former employee described it as a “grind-house,” with co-workers “cracking under pressure.” Another former employee reported, “If you don’t meet your solutions you’re not a team player. Wells Fargo pressured employees to cross-sell, offering customers with one type of product, such as checking or savings accounts, to also buy other types of products, such as credit cards and loans. Many former employees reported that company sales goals were impossible to meet, and incentives for compensation and ongoing employment encouraged gaming the system. Between 20, company employees opened more than 1.5 million bank accounts and applied for over 565,000 credit cards in customers’ names that may not have been authorized. But behind this success was a company culture that drove employees to open fraudulent accounts in attempt to reach lofty sales goals. A few years later, its growing revenue and soaring stock brought the company’s value to nearly $300 billion. During the financial crisis in 2008, the bank acquired Wachovia to become the third-largest bank by assets in the United States. Case StudyĪmerican financial institution Wells Fargo was beating the odds in a bad economy.


Under pressure to meet steep sales goals and incentives, Wells Fargo employees created over a million fraudulent accounts in their customers’ names.
