Bank Fraud Against Customers

The City of Los Angeles recently filed a civil law suit against Wells Fargo Bank due to their practices of opening unwanted accounts that have created bank fees and subsequently hardships on customers. Although this story was mentioned in the news recently, such immoral practices are common not only at Wells Fargo Bank but other major banks for a number of years. The banks’ goals are no longer customer service oriented but rather to open as many revenue generating accounts. This dishonest practice have resulted in employees at banking centers and online competing in a high pressure environment to open as many accounts as possible. For online banking, prizes may be offered to the employee with the most account openings each month. But, employees online and at the banking centers are more eager to receive the bonus payments based on the number of new accounts that they open each month. Further, the more complex the account, such as loans or annuities or lines of credit, the more bonus an employee may receive on their paycheck. So, employees work in an environment that may cause some to engage in illegal practices of opening accounts without considering that this may be detrimental to a customer especially those who are elderly and living on fixed income.  Such practices indicates that customers must beware and take the time to review their monthly statement. But, even as important, customers must always count their money prior to leaving the bank. Although the bank has a machine that should count and identify fake bills, sometimes such bills are not weeded out of the pack. In those cases, the customer may end up getting fake bills from their own bank. But, once the customer realizes the problem, he/she is out of luck since the bank will refuse to take back the bill. Instead, the bank will place the blame on the customer for not realizing the problem while at the bank! Further, they will accuse the customer of obtaining the fake bill elsewhere. Beware of the banks!!