Wells Fargo fired more than 5 thousands of employees in a fake account case

Photo: depositphotos

For several years, Wells Fargo Bank employees opened more than a half million unauthorized accounts in order to attract customers to online banking services, the US Consumer Protection Agency, which is an independent federal government agency, said.

Wells Fargo confirmed to CNNMoney that in this case 5300 bank employees involved in fraud were fired, and since 2011, they opened fake bank accounts and credit cards at non-existent email addresses.

Bank employees collected a fee for servicing these accounts and cards in order to fulfill the sales plan and receive bonuses, says head of the CFPB bureau Richard Cordrey.

Analysts at a consulting firm hired by Wells Fargo to conduct an internal investigation found that bank employees transferred customers' funds from existing accounts to fictitious ones and charged them fees for "insufficient funds" or for exceeding the credit limit.

In addition, employees opened more than 500 thousands of credit cards, approximately 14 thousands of which allowed them to earn more than $ 400 thousands in the form of commissions, including for annual maintenance and interest costs.

Wells Fargo will reimburse more than $5 million in losses to all victims of the scam, the CFPB said. In addition, Wells Fargo will pay the largest fine since the creation of the US Consumer Protection Bureau in 2011 in the amount of $185 million.

“We regret and accept responsibility for any transactions in which our customers received services without their knowledge,” Wells Fargo said in a statement.

Wells Fargo is the largest bank in the United States by market capitalization - about $250 billion. The bank's largest shareholder is Warren Buffett's investment company Berkshire Hathaway.

According to David Wladek, a professor at Georgetown University, the $ 185 million fine seems large at first glance, but not so significant on the scale of Wells Fargo.

According to the bank, the number of laid-off employees was approximately 1% of the total number of Wells Fargo employees.

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