In-House Counsel, White-Collar Crime

5300 Fired For Creating Millions Of Phony Accounts. Um, Where Was Compliance?

How... in the world... did a bank let this happen?

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wells-fargoApparently Wells Fargo, after paying a $185 million fine over unauthorized accounts, has fired a whopping 5,300 employees tied to the practice.

So perhaps the compliance department is due for some kind of overhaul?

Per CNN:

On Thursday, federal regulators said Wells Fargo employees secretly created millions of unauthorized bank and credit card accounts — without their customers knowing it — since 2011.

The phony accounts earned the bank unwarranted fees and allowed Wells Fargo employees to boost their sales figures and make more money.

The numbers are frigging staggering unless you lived through the last recession and remember this is pretty much child’s play for banking in the modern era — over $1.5 million deposit accounts created by moving money without authorization and 565,443 credit card applications filed without any customer knowledge or consent.

Running a tight ship there, guys!

“At Wells Fargo, when we make mistakes, we are open about it, we take responsibility, and we take action,” the bank said in a memo to employees on Thursday.

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You know… five years after the fact.

Pretty sure the Donner Party ran a better stagecoach…

5,300 Wells Fargo employees fired for creating over 2 million phony accounts [CNN]
Wells Fargo fined $185M over unauthorized accounts [USA Today]

Joe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.

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