Wells Fargo Ex-Employee: ���Sales Pressure from Management was Unbearable���
You may have heard by now of the astonishing allegations made against Wells Fargo by federal regulators, allegations that center on the creation of millions���that���s millions���of unauthorized bank and credit card accounts by employees for the purpose of generating bank fees and reaching sales goals.
Now, an article over at CNNMoney is shedding light on the work culture at Wells Fargo that appears to have served as the foundation of the madness.
One former employee, Sabrina Bertrand, told CNNMoney, ���I had managers in my face yelling at me. They wanted you to open up dual checking accounts for people that couldn't even manage their original checking account.���
Now entirely out of the business, Bertrand added, ���The sales pressure from management was unbearable.���
The article details a Wells Fargo internal sales goal of ���at least eight financial products per customer,��� and says that employees ���engaged in all kinds of sordid practices��� to hit those numbers, to include doing something called ���pinning,��� where ATM cards and PIN numbers were issued to customers without their authorization.
Another former Wells Fargo personal banker and sales representative, Anthony Try, says that ���management was fully aware of��� the practice, but that they ���turned a blind eye��� to it. Try, also now out of the business, says that the illegal activity at Wells ���was ingrained in the culture for a long time.���
According to the CNNMoney article, while Try says he never opened unauthorized accounts himself, he did open accounts for personal friends and family members in an effort to keep sales managers happy.
���There would be days where we would open five checking accounts for friends and family just to go home early.���
A spokeswoman for Wells Fargo, responding to CNNMoney���s reporting, said that the ���majority of our team members do work hard to do what's in customers' best interest.���
If that���s true, then, from what the rest of us can see, they must be doing so in violation of what appears to be long-standing company policy.
By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large
