[1]https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160908/17582535469/holy-crap-wel
   ls-fargo-has-to-fire-5300-employees-scam-billing.shtml

   My comments:

   I was wondering why you wouldn't simply liquidate a bank for something
   this heinous, but then I realized what was probably already obvious to
   many on this list: aside from the power of the execs and major
   shareholders, the regulators know damn well this practice is rampant.
   If Wells Fargo got anywhere near what it deserved for this massive
   scandal, the regulators would be risking having to wipe out the entire
   banking system of the United States when it becomes clear that they all
   do it.

   Badly formatted paste follows:

   [2]Holy Crap: Wells Fargo Has To Fire 5,300 Employees For [3]Scam[4]
   Billing

   by Mike Masnick / Sep 9, 2016

   This story is crazy. Late yesterday it was revealed that banking giant
   Wells Fargo had to [5]fire 5,300 employees over a massive [6]scam in
   which those employees created over 2 million fake accounts to stuff
   with fees in order to meet their quarterly numbers. The Consumer
   Financial Protection Bureau also [7]fined the company $185
   million ($100 million to the CFPB, $35 million to the Office of the
   Comptroller of the Currency and another $50 million to Los Angeles). Oh
   and it needs to pay back around $5 million to the customers it screwed
   over. The CFPB provides some crazy details:

   Opening deposit accounts and transferring funds without
   authorization: According to the bank’s own analysis, employees opened
   roughly 1.5 million deposit accounts that may not have been authorized
   by consumers. Employees then transferred funds from consumers’
   authorized accounts to temporarily fund the new, unauthorized accounts.
   This widespread practice gave the employees credit for opening the new
   accounts, allowing them to earn additional compensation and to meet the
   bank’s sales goals. Consumers, in turn, were sometimes harmed because
   the bank charged them for insufficient funds or overdraft fees because
   the money was not in their original accounts.

   Applying for credit card accounts without authorization: According to
   the bank’s own analysis, Wells Fargo employees applied for roughly
   565,000 credit card accounts that may not have been authorized by
   consumers. On those unauthorized credit cards, many consumers incurred
   annual fees, as well as associated finance or interest charges and
   other fees.

   Issuing and activating debit cards without authorization: Wells Fargo
   employees requested and issued debit cards without consumers’ knowledge
   or consent, going so far as to create PINs without telling consumers.

   Creating phony email addresses to enroll consumers in online-banking
   services: Wells Fargo employees created phony email addresses not
   belonging to consumers to enroll them in online-banking services
   without their knowledge or consent.

   The thing is, if 5,300 employees were a part of this, this was not some
   random scam. This was a bank-approved plan to goose their numbers. It
   seems like among the 5,300 employees, management should be in serious
   trouble as well. What's really astounding about all of this is that it
   took this long for the practice to come to light. As the CFPB notes,
   end users were impacted by this, and you'd think that complaints would
   have made it clear that this was a problem much sooner. Or is that
   people are just so used to getting screwed by their bank that they let
   it slide? The CNN report notes that Los Angeles had sued Wells Fargo
   over this practice last year (hence LA being a part of the settlement
   fines), but having such a widespread scam going on is somewhat
   astounding.

   And, of course, it raises questions about what other banks are doing
   similar things as well. We've seen this kind of activity in the telco
   space at times with[8]cramming, but that was generally third party
   scammers, where the telcos just looked the other way. This was
   full-time Wells Fargo employees doing the scam itself, and the bank
   apparently either encouraging it or just looking the other way from
   upper management.

References

   1. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160908/17582535469/holy-crap-wells-fargo-has-to-fire-5300-employees-scam-billing.shtml
   2. http://www.google.com/gwt/x?u=http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techdirt/feed/~3/eKU65VbL0xw/holy-crap-wells-fargo-has-to-fire-5300-employees-scam-billing.shtml
   3. http://www.google.com/gwt/x?u=http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techdirt/feed/~3/eKU65VbL0xw/holy-crap-wells-fargo-has-to-fire-5300-employees-scam-billing.shtml
   4. http://www.google.com/gwt/x?u=http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techdirt/feed/~3/eKU65VbL0xw/holy-crap-wells-fargo-has-to-fire-5300-employees-scam-billing.shtml
   5. http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/08/investing/wells-fargo-created-phony-accounts-bank-fees/index.html
   6. http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/08/investing/wells-fargo-created-phony-accounts-bank-fees/index.html
   7. http://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/blog/hundreds-thousands-accounts-secretly-created-wells-fargo-bank-employees-leads-historic-100-million-fine-cfpb/
   8. https://www.techdirt.com/blog/netneutrality/articles/20141019/18370828884/fcc-used-title-ii-to-fine-att-sms-cramming-world-didnt-end-why-would-it-broadband.shtml