Federal investigators say US Bank workers opened fake accounts for sales goals
Source: CBS Minnesota
For more than a decade, US Bank pressured its employees to open fake accounts in their customers' names in order to meet unrealistic sales goals, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said Thursday, in a case that is deeply similar to the sales practices scandal uncovered at Wells Fargo last decade.
The CFPB alleged that US Bank accessed consumers credit reports to open checking and savings accounts, credit cards and lines of credit without their permission. Employees were encouraged to do so, in order to meet the bank's goals of selling multiple products to each customer with the bank.
The scale of US Banks's fake accounts scandal was not disclosed immediately by the CFPB, but the bank was forced to pay $37.5 million in fines and penalties and will have to refund customers any fees they paid for the fake accounts.
...
A spokesman for US Bank said the bad sales practices were a legacy issue at the bank dating back to 2016, and that the bank has made significant improvements to its sales practices since then. The consent order reached with the CFPB acknowledges that US Bank did make improvements to its sales practices in recent years, which included no longer tying pay to opened accounts and requiring customers' consent to open new services.
Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/federal-investigators-say-us-bank-workers-opened-fake-accounts-for-sales-goals/
It was a huge story about 6 years ago when Wells Fargo was caught at this. I had not heard of any other bank doing this particular kind of thing, although there have been plenty of bank scandals, Bank Of America comes to mind. And of course all the corruption leading to the liars loans and 2008-9 housing bubble collapse.
Anyway, very disappointing hearing about workplace cultures like this. And they wonder why so many are not in the labor force. I mean, who wants to play corporate games 80 hours a week?
U.S. Bank / U.S. Bancorp is the 5th largest bank in the U.S.
Bow down, peasants!
https://www.bankrate.com/banking/biggest-banks-in-america/
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Lie, cheat, and steal to make money. And sociopaths--or people close to that end of the scale--call the shots to facilitate this type of culture.
In a just society, those who abuse their fellow humans for greed would be ostracized, not lionized.
Thom Hartmann has said on his show that the reason CEOs are paid exorbitant amounts is because there is only a small subset of the population that has the requisite skill set = sociopaths with the appropriate business knowledge and social veneer.
Also, there is a professor who studies power and those attracted to it, e.g. politicians. He found that they tend to score high on the sociopathy scale. Sorry, can't remember the guy's name; maybe it's the same researcher you reference. Not surprising--I attended some local government meetings in my area and saw a shocking display of what I could only call sociopathy--callous, sneering indifference towards those opposed to developments the officials wanted to approve (including projects they would directly make money from, i.e. open blatant corruption) and lying and cheating to force through what they wanted. This area is notorious for being particularly corrupt but I'm sure this is par for the course in much of the country. I came away convinced that people who are attracted to those positions benefit from having sociopathic tendencies. We just don't call it out in America.
That's what happens when we don't have heavy jail time for white collar crimes: it's bound to repeat.
White collar crime needs to have heavy prison and fines.
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