Settlement in Wells Fargo Consumer Fraud Case
If you pay attention to news concerning big banks in America, you might already have heard about a big consumer fraud matter. Wells Fargo, the biggest bank in the United States, “scrambled . . . to contain the fallout from an investigation that found its employees set up 2 million fake accounts that customers didn’t ask for to get bonuses,” according to an article in the Chicago Tribune . Wells Fargo customers did not ask to open a new account, yet they had accounts fraudulently set up in their names by bank employees. Since the financial crisis began in 2008, most of the big banks in our nation have paid fines and settlements to remedy bad and sometimes fraudulent banking practices. Yet, as the article suggests, the recent issue “involved pervasive misconduct involving thousands of bank employees,” which begs the question of whether fines are sufficient to prevent “bad behavior” among banks and their employees. Moreover, what are banks doing to address the important issu...