ML-Implode News - At Wells Fargo, workers say, sales focus was all-consuming

Employees at the bank known for its stagecoach logo say the immense pressure to sell, coming directly from top executives, spurred them to push products customers did not need nor want. Many are angry that Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf, castigated Tuesday by the Senate Banking Committee, has put the blame on retail bank employees and that more than 5,300 employees have been fired since the bank started investigating.
"We had to meet sales goals every day or I could get written up," said Khalid Taha, who worked at a Wells Fargo branch in San Diego from 2013 until July 2016... While it varied by branch size and day of the week, a typical employee had to sell between 13 and 15 banking products a day -- a new account, a mortgage, a retirement account, or even online banking.

The targets were high even in small towns. Bankers in St. Helena, California, were ordered to open 3,000 checking accounts and sell 12,000 other bank products a year, according to a lawsuit filed against the bank in 2011. St. Helena and the surrounding towns in the picturesque Napa Valley wine country had a total population of roughly 11,500 people.
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Faced with the unrealistic sales expectations and close tracking of their sales by managers, employees looked for ways to manipulate Wells' sales system. Bankers in Minnesota, Pennsylvania and elsewhere described a sales culture where cheating the system was par the course.

Sounds familiar... surprised we haven't heard of any anecdotes about baseball-bats on desks....

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At Wells Fargo, workers say, sales focus was all-consuming