Meet The New Boss, Same As The Old Boss

Oho, the Wells Fargo Wagon is a-comin’ down the street
Oh, please let it be for me
Oho, the Wells Fargo Wagon is a-comin’ down the street
I wish, I wish I knew what it could be

I got a box of maple sugar on my birthday
In March I got a gray mackinaw
And once I got some grapefruit from Tampa
Montgomery Ward sent me a bathtub and a crosscut saw

Oh, the Wells Fargo Wagon is a-comin’ now
Is it a prepaid surprise or C.O.D.?
It could be curtains or dishes
Or a double boiler or it could be

Yes, it could be, yes, you’re right, it surely could be
Somethin’ special
Somethin’ very, very special now
Just for me

Oho, the Wells Fargo Wagon is a-comin’ down the street
Oh, don’t let him pass my door
Oho, the Wells Fargo Wagon is a-comin’
I wish I knew what he was comin’ for

I got some salmon from Seattle last September
And I expect a new rockin’ chair
I hope I get my raisins from Fresno
The D.A.R. have sent a cannon for the courthouse square

Oho, the Wellth Fargo Wagon ith a-comin’ now
I don’t know how I can ever wait to thee
It could be thumthin’ for thomone who ith no relathion
But it could be somethin’ special just for me

Oho, you Wells Fargo Wagon, keep a comin’
Oho, you Wells Fargo Wagon, keep a comin’
Oho, you Wells Fargo Wagon
Don’t you dare to make a stop until you stop for me

Of course it’s probably 7 bank accounts you didn’t want or even knew you had, but details-

Just Four Months Ago, New Wells Fargo Chief Said No Changes in Sales Strategy
by David Dayen, The Intercept
October 12 2016, 7:15 p.m.

Wells Fargo’s new CEO, Tim Sloan, told a leading industry trade publication in June 2016 that the bank’s aggressive sales culture and “cross-selling” targets was perfectly appropriate and “is not going to change.” This was years after top executives at the bank knew that thousands of their employees were responding to those sales targets by generating fake accounts.

Sloan is replacing John Stumpf, who stepped down on Wednesday amid the ongoing scandal, for which the company has been fined $185 million by federal regulators and faces investigations from the departments of Justice and Labor.

Before the fines were announced, Sloan, who was groomed to replace Stumpf for years, sat down with American Banker to talk about the company on June 16. By that point, the Los Angeles Times had already uncovered evidence of fake accounts, and the city attorney of Los Angeles had filed suit over the allegations (the suit would eventually be folded into the larger settlement). The L.A. Times also had disclosed that the bank was under federal investigation.

American Banker asked Sloan, “Wells has come under scrutiny for its strong sales culture. Is there any sense that the bank has pushed that strategy to the limit?”

“No,” Sloan replied.

He said that the company’s vision is to satisfy their customers’ needs and help them succeed. “We know a lot about our customers, and so doesn’t it make sense that we would use our data and match it with our product set to try to broaden our relationship with our customer?”

While Sloan spoke of appropriately selling to customers and “making sure we follow regulations,” he concluded, “the fundamental strategy that we have is not going to change.”

That strategy has changed, after Wells Fargo revealed it fired 5,300 employees over the past five years for illegally opening unwanted accounts in customers’ names, often forging signatures or using phony e-mail addresses to do it. Senior management set a “cross-selling” target of eight accounts per household, urging line-level employees to get checking account customers to open a savings account, or a credit card, or a wealth management account.

When Sloan made these statements in June, thousands of Wells Fargo employees had already been fired for creating fraudulent accounts. Wells Fargo eliminated all product sales goals for their retail bank branches on Oct. 1 of this year.

According to the company’s annual proxy statement, in 2015 Sloan made $2 million in annual salary, along with $6.5 million in stock awards and another $1.5 million in restricted shares that vest at a later date. Between unvested and owned common stock, Sloan holds 1.56 million shares of Wells Fargo.

That means that, like Stumpf, Sloan profited from the touting of company sales goals in annual reports and investor calls, which boosted Wells Fargo’s share price between 2010 and 2015.

Sloan’s interview in June suggests he wasn’t interested in shutting down the fake accounts either.