16 Jan 2023

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Wells Fargo: Various scandals attributed to the company

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Academic level: College

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Recently, Well Fargo & Co. has instituted various advertisements aimed at rebuilding the trust that consumers have with the company. However, the advertisement aimed at recreating positive image of the company have not been effective, mostly because of the various scandals attributed to the company. Investors are advocating for proposals aimed at imposing restrains on the company, while activists are arranging protests accusing the bank due to the numerous abuses it has directed toward its customers. The customers have raised numerous complaints owing to the numerous abuses that the company has directed toward them. During the last one and a half years, Well Fargo has acknowledged to engaging in a number of misleading activities, including developing fake accounts, imposing unfair mortgage charges, in line with charging persons for car insurance, which they did not require among other issues (Gandel, 2018) . These cases have worsened to an extent that they have prompted the organization to consider imposing changes in leadership, while it has also faced huge fines. 

During September 8, 2016, Wells Fargo disclosed that it had generated millions of accounts in its clients’ names without their consent. For a bank that managed to escape the financial disaster that occurred in 2008, while gaining tremendous standing as a Main Street company, the breach by the organization, particularly on basic banking elements, particularly trust, led the reputation of the firm to deteriorate. After a period of 23 months, the reputation of the bank remained poor (McCoy, 2018) . In fact, the bank ended up sinking deeper, while news continued spreading regarding the bad behaviour by the bank, which was coupled with announcement of settlements and fines. 

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Even with the CFO (Chief Financial Officer) of the bank arguing that the bank embarked in diverse efforts to rid anything pertaining to the scandal, it has faced numerous challenges in terms of clearing its name from the headlines. The company has even argued that it has faced a software glitch, which has denied approximately 400 clients the capacity of amending their mortgages, thereby leading the bank to foreclose on their homes. It is not possible to track the different issues that Wells Fargo has been involved in, although some key issues remain prevalent, which have led the reputation of the organization to continue deteriorating (Gandel, 2018) . Among the major issues surrounding the company are as follows. 

One of the key outrages that Wells Fargo prevailed in September 2016 with the fake accounts scandal. The woes that the public raised against Wells Fargo commenced with the fines amounting to $185 million from CFPB, Los Angeles County and City, and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for producing 1.5 million accounts of making fake deposits and more than 500,000 bogus credit cards in the names of their customers without their consent (Wolff-Mann, 2018) . For the bank, it fired approximately 5,300 employees in the low levels for the development of the accounts in response to intense sales pressure. This form of sales pressure led to similar issues in other big banks. The scandal led to the firing of then CEO while leading to the clawing back of $41 million in form of compensation. By the end of the month, Wells Fargo claimed at it would end goals aimed at attaining unreasonable sales (McCoy b, 2017) . In an action suit levelled against the company, Wells Fargo acknowledged to pay $142 m illion to the impacted clients, which comprised of millions of them. 

Additionally, during September 2016, Wells Fargo repossessed the cars of service members improperly. In the event of the Department of Justice, it targeted the company for repossessing the military members’ cars improperly (Wolff-Mann, 2018) . For the bank, it failed to impose restrictions on interest to the 6 percent rate as the law required. It also failed to inform the courts that the borrowers served as active duty upon requesting for evictions and avoided acquiring court papers before repossessing the vehicles (McCoy, 2018) . As a result, the bank paid the fines to the OCC amounting to around $20 million in line with making restitution of more than $10 million to the service members affected by the scandal. 

On December 2016, Wells Fargo failed to pass its “living will” assessment. The regulators in the U.S. restricted the size of Wells Fargo when it failed to meet the test requirements, which served as a requirement that required huge banks to reveal the manner in which they would end their operations in the event that they became bankrupt. During March 2017, Wells Fargo faced the issue of additional fake accounts. During this time, a fake account scandal amounting to approximately 3.5 million emerged (Wattles, Geier, Egan, & Weinner-Bronner, 2018) . The company argued that the number of hypothetical and unverified , although the issue impacted its reputation severely. 

Wells Fargo also failed the community-lending test during March 2017. The company performed significantly poor on the OCC assessment for regarding community testing, while it was required to improve its operations. According to the regulator, the business was involved in numerous business violations, which led the customers to experience tremendous harm. The regulation targeted encouraging lending to communities in the low-income bracket. During April 2017, a whistle blower won $5.4 million together with his job. OSHA commanded that Wells Fargo needed to pay is wealth manager, who the organization fired in 2010, after reporting probable fraud within the company (Wolff-Mann, 2018) . Even while the bank disregarded the fine, additional issues related to the story emerged in 2018. 

During August 2017, Wells Fargo faced lawsuits for overcharging retailers in the small business sector. The company faced lawsuits for overcharging credit card services, and deceiving them with early termination fees. Even prior employees within the company have come out to reveal numerous scandals prevalent in the company (Gandel, 2018) . However, the bank has ended up denying most of the claims despite the evidence prevalent. In this perspective, therefore, it is evident that the numerous scandals surround Wells Fargo, which need addressing to allow the organization regain the trust of its customers and the public. 

References 

Gandel, S. (2018). Wells Fargo still hasn’t gotten ahead of its problems. Retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-05-17/wells-fargo-still-hasn-t-gotten-ahead-of-its-problems

McCoy b, K. (2017). Wells Fargo's legal challenges pile up as the bank tries to rebuild customer trust. Retrieved from https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/08/08/wells-fargo-legal-challenges-pile-up/548186001/

McCoy, K. (2018). Wells Fargo faces $1B fine from federal regulators over mortgage, auto loan abuses. Retrieved from https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/04/13/feds-seek-1-b-settlement-wells-fargo-mortgage-auto-loan-abuses/510207002/

Wattles, J., Geier, B., Egan, M., & Weinner-Bronner, D. (2018). Wells Fargo's 20-month nightmare. Retrieved from https://money.cnn.com/2018/04/24/news/companies/wells-fargo-timeline-shareholders/index.html

Wolff-Mann, E. (2018). Every Wells Fargo consumer scandal since 2015: a timeline. Retrieved from https://finance.yahoo.com/news/every-wells-fargo-consumer-scandal-since-2015-timeline-194946222.html

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StudyBounty. (2023, September 15). Wells Fargo: Various scandals attributed to the company.
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