# CNN: 5,300 Wells Fargo employees fired for creating over 2 million phony accounts **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 8, 2016, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-5-300-wells-fargo-employees-fired-for-creating-over-2-million-phony-accounts/765361 "2016-09-08T20:12:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2016, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-5-300-wells-fargo-employees-fired-for-creating-over-2-million-phony-accounts/765361/81 "2016-09-12T14:48:07Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Yes, but the article says a lot of the money came from overdraft fees and the like. Overdraft fees that were caused by the bank. It seems strange that nobody ever reported that to the bank. The only time I have ever paid overdraft fees, it was caused by the bank. I complained and was told very politely to suck their collective dick. Specifically, I got paid and on the same day I had some payments. Processed within seconds of each other, payments first biggest to smallest, overdraft for the last two, then the salary. Even if they had done payments first but starting from smallest to biggest, then there would have been one single overdraft fee. The method was designed to maximize overdrafts. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2016, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-5-300-wells-fargo-employees-fired-for-creating-over-2-million-phony-accounts/765361/82 "2016-09-12T14:59:41Z")
They don’t want your darn money! Well, OK, if you just walk in and give it to them, sure, no prob, but you want services and security and boring crap like that! Your banker is much more interested in the fast-pace and exciting world of creative investment! ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2016, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-5-300-wells-fargo-employees-fired-for-creating-over-2-million-phony-accounts/765361/83 "2016-09-12T16:24:53Z")
If I’m reading [their 2015 annual report](https://www08.wellsfargomedia.com/assets/pdf/about/investor-relations/annual-reports/2015-annual-report.pdf) correctly, on page 43 it says WF made 5.1 billion dollars from “service charges on deposit accounts” and 3.7 billion on “card fees.” So that sounds like great motivation to keep signing up people for accounts and cards. I am a WF customer but wouldn’t be if I was paying account or card fees. They way I have my checking as long as I use my debit card X number of times per month my checking account is free. So they are making money from debit/credit card processing fees from merchants I frequent. Guess the money has to come from somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2016, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-5-300-wells-fargo-employees-fired-for-creating-over-2-million-phony-accounts/765361/84 "2016-09-12T16:59:51Z")
I have an account at BOA (among others) and I once went in there for some purpose or other (possibly to open a new account). The account person wasted an enormous amount of my time trying to convince me to open other accounts as well, despite my telling her repeatedly that I had a call with a client coming up and needed to get out of there. In the end, I had to start the client call from my car - very annoying. Another bank (currently Santander, though it may have been Sovereign at the time this happened) called my home number so frequently asking me to open other accounts there that I finally said if I got one more call from them I would close my account at that bank. One of my mortgages is with WF, and I’ve never had any problems with them at all. They send me mail asking for me to open credit cards etc., but I can just toss those. And I like their website, as compared to that of my other mortgage company. > [@obfusciatrist](#): > > On a related note, I work for another major bank. > > Banks like it when customers go paperless. Each statement printed and mailed costs something like 70 cents. The biggest banks will spend nearly a billion dollars a year just mailing statements and other regulatorily required communications that we can just as easily provide electronically if the customer says yes. > > So paperless was added to the measurements that branch bankers had tied to bonus compensation. And a year later we found a fair amount of internal fraud because bankers would set accounts to paperless without customer permission (and the smarter ones would then flip them back after it had been counted in their favor). > > Nobody in management wanted this. There was no chance it could pay off for the bank in the long term. We just weren’t incentivizing the right thing. And as a result we had to deal with regulators, angry customers, and fire bankers. Then we had to spend a year putting controls in place to make going paperless much more awkward for customers so that it was harder for bankers to game the system. Question I have is why the banks (and similar institutions) aren’t willing to give incentives to the _customers_ to go paperless. I keep getting bombarded with suggestions that I go paperless from everyone from my banks, credit cards, MF companies, utilities etc., but until there’s something in it for me personally I’m not inclined to do it. And I’m thinking with the cost of printing and mailing all this paperwork, the companies should be willing to offer me something. But this never happens. ---
**Author:** ![BigAppleBucky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigapplebucky/32/178_2.png) [@BigAppleBucky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigAppleBucky)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2016, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-5-300-wells-fargo-employees-fired-for-creating-over-2-million-phony-accounts/765361/85 "2016-09-12T18:04:35Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > The only time I have ever paid overdraft fees, it was caused by the bank. I complained and was told very politely to suck their collective dick. > > Specifically, I got paid and on the same day I had some payments. Processed within seconds of each other, payments first biggest to smallest, overdraft for the last two, then the salary. Even if they had done payments first but starting from smallest to biggest, then there would have been one single overdraft fee. The method was designed to maximize overdrafts. That’s the way it’s done for commercial customers, especially correspondent banks and brokerages. Otherwise they take advantage of the clearing bank for the float. I know that Chase in NY puts my deposit first and then the debits. Perhaps that is due to some NY State consumer law protection not available in other states. I don’t know. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2016, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-5-300-wells-fargo-employees-fired-for-creating-over-2-million-phony-accounts/765361/86 "2016-09-12T18:10:00Z")
My experience has been that if you never get these overdraft fees, and then get one in ambiguous circumstances, then you can call them up and ask to reverse it and they’ll do it. This is also true if you always pay your CC bill on time and then miss it one time. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2016, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-5-300-wells-fargo-employees-fired-for-creating-over-2-million-phony-accounts/765361/87 "2016-09-12T18:25:02Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > I also don’t get how the WF people could open accounts so easily. When I open a new account the paperwork makes it seem that I’m surely a drug smuggler trying to launder money, and I need all sorts of ID. So the crooked employee checks the box on the new account application that says “ID presented.” Easy-peasy. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2016, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-5-300-wells-fargo-employees-fired-for-creating-over-2-million-phony-accounts/765361/88 "2016-09-12T18:35:42Z")
I am reminded of something a friend once told me, an executive in a large insurance company – you know, the kind with their name in lights on top of a 20 story downtown building and lots of clerical employees inside. Although AFAIK he was never involved in any scandal, when one popped up years ago not unlike the WF one today, he said that there are so many employees doing so much paper shuffling that no one employee had a clear, overall picture of what was going on, and they weren’t encouraged to ask questions. If an employee was told, for example, to take this stack of forms, and check the second box on every third form, how were they to know they were creating new acccounts for nonexistent customers? ---
**Author:** ![Kimballkid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b5a626/32.png) [@Kimballkid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimballkid)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2016, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-5-300-wells-fargo-employees-fired-for-creating-over-2-million-phony-accounts/765361/89 "2016-09-12T18:53:33Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > My mortgage is with Wells Fargo through no choice of my own. I think I am going to move it now because that is an incredible amount of fraud and incompetence on the part of a major bank and I don’t trust them anymore. I hope that at least some people go to prison for it. > [@Emtar\_KronJonDerSohn](#): > > Good luck! My sister refinanced away from WF twice, spending thousands of dollars to do so. Both times they purchased the new note within 6 months. My mortgage was with WF and it was transferred to another bank. I did go through my state’s first-time home buyer program so WF was really just a servicer. I don’t know if the state severed ties with WF or if WF severed ties with the state. ---
**Author:** ![TimeWinder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2016, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-5-300-wells-fargo-employees-fired-for-creating-over-2-million-phony-accounts/765361/90 "2016-09-12T21:15:55Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > ICredit Unions aren’t banks but do most banking functions, and are generally much more helpful to their customers and lack the moustache-twirling schemes that banks love. You should look into any that you qualify for if you decide that you want to get out of BOA. I got my latest mortgage through a credit union. The guy who gave it to us checked all the boxes in the form saying that the CU intended to keep and service the loan itself, not sell it. Less than 24 hours after the loan was signed, it was sold…to Wells Fargo. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2016, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-5-300-wells-fargo-employees-fired-for-creating-over-2-million-phony-accounts/765361/91 "2016-09-13T02:29:10Z")
> [@Ike\_Witt](#): > > After reading this thread and many other posts about Wells Fargo I have to ask, why does anyone bank with them? Do they serve some community that would go without banking if WF didn’t exist? I bank with them and love them. I have a private banker though. Very little is done without her involvement. I get better rates than at a credit union, a free safe deposit box, 100 free trades a year on the investment accounts, no fees on 401ks, no markups on foreign currency transactions. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2016, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-5-300-wells-fargo-employees-fired-for-creating-over-2-million-phony-accounts/765361/92 "2016-09-13T02:32:05Z")
At my bank, they no longer frisk me. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Vorlon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@The\_Vorlon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Vorlon)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2016, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-5-300-wells-fargo-employees-fired-for-creating-over-2-million-phony-accounts/765361/93 "2016-09-13T02:53:17Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > At my bank, they no longer frisk me. They already have your wallet? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2016, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-5-300-wells-fargo-employees-fired-for-creating-over-2-million-phony-accounts/765361/94 "2016-09-13T03:29:24Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > Question I have is why the banks (and similar institutions) aren’t willing to give incentives to the _customers_ to go paperless. I keep getting bombarded with suggestions that I go paperless from everyone from my banks, credit cards, MF companies, utilities etc., but until there’s something in it for me personally I’m not inclined to do it. And I’m thinking with the cost of printing and mailing all this paperwork, the companies should be willing to offer me something. But this never happens. When I balance my checkbook (Quicken, actually, the physical checkbook is so far off it is hopeless) I like to mark off thing the checks I’ve marked, so going paperless means that I get to print the report at my expense instead of theirs. No thanks. Even stupider, because of a mixup where we tried to make some accounts paperless and others not, instead of one envelope of statements we get about three. Again, no problem for me, but it costs them more. ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2016, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-5-300-wells-fargo-employees-fired-for-creating-over-2-million-phony-accounts/765361/95 "2016-09-13T12:17:22Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > Question I have is why the banks (and similar institutions) aren’t willing to give incentives to the _customers_ to go paperless. I keep getting bombarded with suggestions that I go paperless from everyone from my banks, credit cards, MF companies, utilities etc., but until there’s something in it for me personally I’m not inclined to do it. And I’m thinking with the cost of printing and mailing all this paperwork, the companies should be willing to offer me something. But this never happens. Can’t speak for your specific banks, but banks play around with incentives for the customer to go paperless off an on. Often in the form of sweepstakes (here’s [one](https://www.merrickbank.com/Paperless/Sweepstakes/sweepstakes-winners.aspx) and [another](https://www.gobankingrates.com/credit-cards/discover-paperless-giveaway-contest/)). Sometimes as part of the bundle of things you can do to reduce/avoid account fees. Sometimes as a one time payment of some sort. Having been tangentially involved in a couple of these some of the drawbacks are: 1. They’re a pain in the ass to define and monitor. Most of the time you want to require the account to be paperless for some minimal period of time so customers can’t just flip and then immediately flip back. Accounts open and close, account statuses change, individual states have individual rules. Lots of lawyers and compliance people to involve. 2. Customers who switch just for one time incentives revert much more often than other customers. 3. If you regularly run sweepstakes it can actually encourage going back to paper sot hat you can qualify for future sweepstakes by going paperless again. 4. Jackpot contests are flashy and temporary but something more along the lines of “go paperless and we’ll split the benefit with you” doesn’t market well. Collectively 100,000 paperless accounts could mean an annual savings to the bank of $850,000. Split that with the customer and it is only $4.25 a year to each customer. “Hey, go paperless and we’ll buy you a stamp–from 1998–every month” isn’t much of an incentive. Personally, since I haven’t properly balanced a checkbook in 20+ years and regularly review transaction histories online and have ready access to statement histories for nearly a decade, what’s in for me in being paperless is not having to deal with properly throwing away an unopened paper statement. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2016, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-5-300-wells-fargo-employees-fired-for-creating-over-2-million-phony-accounts/765361/96 "2016-09-20T21:27:13Z")
Sen. Warren slaps (verbally) the Wells Fargo Chairman silly. Must see tv. > **[Here's Elizabeth Warren Yelling At A Wall Street Bankster, Because You Love...](https://www.wonkette.com/heres-elizabeth-warren-yelling-at-a-wall-street-bankster-because-you-love-that-crap)** > > She's doing what she does best, and OH, it is some quality viewing! ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2016, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-5-300-wells-fargo-employees-fired-for-creating-over-2-million-phony-accounts/765361/97 "2016-09-20T21:37:49Z")
> [@bobot](#): > > Sen. Warren slaps (verbally) the Wells Fargo Chairman silly. Must see tv. > [Here's Elizabeth Warren Yelling At A Wall Street Bankster, Because You Love That Crap](http://wonkette.com/606789/heres-elizabeth-warren-yelling-at-a-wall-street-bankster-because-you-love-that-crap) Meanwhile, he’s thinking “I make more in a day than you do in a year and if I get fired, I’ll get so much money even _I_ couldn’t spend it all.” Which is part of the problem. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-5-300-wells-fargo-employees-fired-for-creating-over-2-million-phony-accounts/765361/98 "2016-09-21T00:46:55Z")
> [@Ike\_Witt](#): > > After reading this thread and many other posts about Wells Fargo I have to ask, why does anyone bank with them? Do they serve some community that would go without banking if WF didn’t exist? We recently got a mortgage through WF. We were referred by a friend who does a significant amount of business with them. Which turned out to be helpful, since when we hit a snag, said friend exerted some pressure and made things happen. We also went with them because they gave us a lower rate than other lenders, contingent on having auto-pay from a new Wells Fargo checking account! But we just had to open the account when we got the mortgage. We didn’t actually have to use it. So I did so, then closed the account and switched autopay to my bank account. I wouldn’t say our processor was the sharpest tool in the box. We had one slightly uncommon thing, which was that we took a leave from our jobs, gave up our apartments, and traveled for four months the year before. But it caused no end of hangups, and I had to keep explaining it to him. These are actual conversations we had _after_ explaining this to him initially, and writing a letter to that effect: “So, it says here your annual income is $X, but your tax return only shows $0.7X” “Yeah, because we traveled without pay from May through August.” “Hey, I need your last 12 months of rent checks” “To be clear, do you need the last 12 months of rent checks, or the last 12 rent checks?” “Last 12 months” \ “There are no rent checks for May through August” “Yeah, we didn’t pay rent for those months because we were traveling and living in hotels” “Ok, I need the last 12 rent checks” “We need your addresses for the last two years” \ “There’s a gap between May and August” “\ Really?” ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-5-300-wells-fargo-employees-fired-for-creating-over-2-million-phony-accounts/765361/99 "2016-09-21T01:04:45Z")
> [@bobot](#): > > Sen. Warren slaps (verbally) the Wells Fargo Chairman silly. Must see tv. > [Here's Elizabeth Warren Yelling At A Wall Street Bankster, Because You Love That Crap](http://wonkette.com/606789/heres-elizabeth-warren-yelling-at-a-wall-street-bankster-because-you-love-that-crap) I am not normally the biggest fan of Senator Warren (my Senator) but I may have to change my opinion based on that exchange. She bitch-slapped him over and over and he deserved it. His attempts at evading basic questions were pathetic. I hope he gets fired over it and the rest of the board goes straight out of the door right after him. Believe it or not, some of us conservative types respect honesty, responsibility and integrity and that little weasel did none of that. He deserved everything he got. He can either admit to being complicit or incompetent but he has to pick one of those. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-5-300-wells-fargo-employees-fired-for-creating-over-2-million-phony-accounts/765361/100 "2016-09-21T05:20:53Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > …He deserved everything he got… Seems he’s most likely going to keep it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-5-300-wells-fargo-employees-fired-for-creating-over-2-million-phony-accounts/765361.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-5-300-wells-fargo-employees-fired-for-creating-over-2-million-phony-accounts/765361.md?page=6)