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> This is a gross misrepresentation of what happened. Thousands of WF employees engaged in fraud that harmed Wells Fargo in order to make themselves appear more
by edraferi 10y ago
> This is a gross misrepresentation of what happened. Thousands of WF employees engaged in fraud that harmed Wells Fargo in order to make themselves appear more productive than they actually were and take money from WF. WF explicitly instructed employees not to do this.
I agree that Wells Fargo ULTIMATELY didn't benefit much from this mess. Your linked article explains this situation thusly:
> fraud is sometimes an emergent property of complex institutions, and that there can be widespread misbehavior at a bank without senior management approving it, or knowing about it, or wanting it.
Fair enough, good metrics are difficult to find and the managers of huge organizations are basically playing a billion dollar version of the blind men and the elephant.
However, I think this explanation ignores two critical things:
1) Wells Fargo DID benefit from the wide-scale fraud in the short run, because juicing the metrics boosted the stock price and generally made senior management look good.
2) Many employees claim that they reported the fraud to internal ethics watchdogs, who should have nothing to gain by perpetuating the scam, only to be ignored or retaliated against for doing so.
I think these facts totally discredit the "lazy employees cheating their employer" narrative and set up an "assholes or idiots" situation for senior management.
- yummyfajitas 10y agoI agree senior management were "assholes or idiots", and did not do a good enough job preventing employees from stealing. If I owned WF shares I'd be really angry and I'd probably vote against the current board of directors. But I'm replying to a post alleging that RICO should be used - essentially claiming that WF is the equivalent of a mafia front and that the CEO is basically Tony Soprano. That's what I'm arguing against.
- pjc50 10y agoIf the claim that "Employees who do not reach their quotas are often required to work hours beyond their typical work schedule without being compensated for that extra work time" is true, then it's not the employees stealing from the employer but the other way round.
- brazzledazzle 10y agoI won't comment on the applicability of RICO but we must hold executives personally accountable for the behavior of their organizations. In many cases that might reasonably mean severe financial penalties and being barred from working in an industry rather than jailtime. I'm not calling for their heads but they have to be held accountable when they don't create effective policies and permit or encourage company cultures that allow fraud and abuse to flourish. And effective policies don't just mean jotting them down in a rule book or creating an ethics hotline. You have to create the processes and structure to enforce them and detect violations.