"Blame is being placed on the bank's marketing incentive plan, which set extremely high sales goals for employees to cross-sell additional banking products to existing customers whether or not the customers needed or wanted them." Verschoor explains the findings of the Wells Fargo investigation shows employees also opened online banking services and ordered debit cards without customer consent. demonstrates, at best, a reckless lack of institutional control and, at worst, a culture which actively promotes wanton greed." California Treasurer John Chiang stated: "Wells Fargo's fleecing of its customers . In an article from the American Bankruptcy Institute Journal, Wells Fargo employees reportedly "opened as many as 1.5 million checking and savings accounts, and more than 500,000 credit cards, without customers' authorization." The employees received bonuses for opening new credit cards and checking accounts and enrolling customers in products such as online banking. Under pressure from their supervisors, employees would often open accounts without customer consent. Sloan would later replace John Stumpf as CEO. In the Los Angeles Times article, CFO Timothy Sloan was quoted stating he was unaware of any ".overbearing sales culture". In 2013, a Los Angeles Times investigation revealed intense pressure on bank managers and individual bankers to produce sales against extremely aggressive and even mathematically impossible quotas. Wells Fargo's sales culture and cross-selling strategy, and their impact on customers, were documented by the Wall Street Journal as early as 2011. Under Kovacevich, Norwest encouraged branch employees to sell at least eight products, in an initiative known as "Going for Gr-Eight". In a 1998 interview, Kovacevich likened mortgages, checking and savings accounts, and credit cards offered by the company to more typical consumer products, and revealed that he considered branch employees to be "salespeople", and consumers to be "customers" rather than "clients". Richard Kovacevich, the former CEO of Norwest Corporation and, later, Wells Fargo, allegedly invented the strategy while at Norwest. Success by retail banks was measured in part by the average number of products held by a customer, and Wells Fargo was long considered the most successful cross-seller. For instance, a customer with a checking account might be encouraged to take out a mortgage, or set up credit card or online banking account.
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