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Matt Levine just shows that Wells Fargo wanted a paper trail showing that they told employees not to do this. The interesting question is, what happened when wh
by makomk 10y ago
Matt Levine just shows that Wells Fargo wanted a paper trail showing that they told employees not to do this. The interesting question is, what happened when whistleblowers told them it was happening anyway? Apparently, the answer is that they fired the whistleblowers. That says everything about what Wells Fargo really wanted, as opposed to what they said to cover their asses. Remember, he's an industry insider with a bias.
- gooserock 10y agoI'm shocked - shocked! - to find that gambling is going on here!
- louprado 10y agoFor those that don't get the above reference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM_A4Skusro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM_A4Skusro
- throwaway2016a 10y agoExplain what exactly Wells Fargo upper management had to gain from the fake cards? They wouldn't generate real money for the company. The people who stand to benefit most are the individual employees. I don't know the banking industry well so maybe there is some way for the company to make money off fake cards but I can't think of one. And because of that, I tend to believe that upper management really did not intend it to happen.
- jontas 10y agoIf you own stock in the company and this causes the stock to go up (even if the rise is artificially inflated) you can still make plenty of money.
- throwaway2016a 10y agoYeah but what about fake accounts would make the stock go up? Wouldn't it actually make the revenue per account go down which would seem to me to be negative indicator. But again, I don't know the banking industry.
- conductr 10y agoGrowth metrics
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- tylersmith 10y agoTheir stock price was heavily based on their high cross-selling metrics.
- triplesec 10y agoIt's a short term bonus ploy, and the idea is it doesn't get found out while they're at the company Also a lot of head-in-the-sand doublethink too. Michael Lewis' book, and other in-depth reports about bankers' behaviour in the market / housing crash explains it nicely. Short term incentives for executives and moving jobs means that they aren't there when the chips are down.
- pavel_lishin 10y ago> The people who stand to benefit most are the individual employees. And their managers, and their managers' managers, whose income depends on showing good numbers to the nth-managers.
- jgalt212 10y ago> Apparently, the answer is that they fired the whistleblowers. That's the major sin here.
- dragonwriter 10y ago> The interesting question is, what happened when whistleblowers told them it was happening anyway? Apparently, the answer is that they fired the whistleblowers. That says everything about what Wells Fargo really wanted It says everything about what the people in the loop of those decisions wanted, perhaps, but those people (at least, those for whom there is a known paper trail of them being in the loop) are probably several steps removed from the CEO. They also probably also maintained enough of a paper trail of the notional reasons that they were firing the people involved that, while its a reasonable inference from the association between whistleblowing and firing that there was an ulterior motive, it would be far from certain that that could be established to the degree necessary for that to the basis of criminal culpability.