In 2016 and 2017, the Wells Fargo fake accounts scandal made headlines across the country. The fake accounts scandal centered around employees of the bank that were opening unauthorized additional credit card and bank accounts for current customers of the financial institution.

Additionally, these same employees also signed patrons up for unrequested and sometimes costly services without their knowledge. The motivation for this activity was allegedly to meet high sales quotas and improve employee performance metrics.

The Wells Fargo fake accounts scandal centered on over 3.5 million reportedly phony credit card and bank accounts. National regulators of the financial industry alluded that the leadership of the bank encouraged the outlandish employee behavior by setting the bar unrealistically high for sales.

Civil litigation over the fake accounts scandal was settled by the bank for $142 million. The settlement came with a promise of change in how Wells Fargo determines its institutional growth and employee performance goals.

Fake Accounts Scandal Investigation

According to a Reuters article, a U.S. bank regulator said last month that the Wells Fargo fake accounts scandal sparked a review of the industry practices. The review was undertaken by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and took a hard look at over three dozen large to moderate size financial institutions.

The OCC reportedly didn’t uncover any widespread problems among the other banks that mirrored the Wells Fargo fake accounts scandal and brought the review to timely conclusion at the end of 2017. However, according to the report, the OCC did uncover internal sales practices in some institutions that were questionable and demonstrated certain weaknesses.

According to Reuters, the OCC review has not been made public and those banks whose problems drew their attention have since responded promptly to inquiry and corrected issues they were notified to be of concern to the regulatory agency.

Some of the actions taken by the banks have been to close unrequested accounts and refund improper fees generated from them. Because corrective action has been taken by the financial institutions covertly identified by the OCC, no infractions have been brought to public light.

Despite this closed mouth approach, there have been allegations levied against several banks of opening accounts in customers’ names that are unauthorized. Attorneys are investigating accusations against other major banks, including TD Bank, Bank of America, Capital One, HSBC, Royal Bank of Canada, and BOK Financial.

If you are a patron of any of these financial institutions or others unnamed and have experienced suspicious and unauthorized bank fees on your account, you may have a legal claim. When additional accounts are opened without your permission, bank employees have to transfer funds to make these viable.

When this transfer occurs, the patron will not only have the unusual bank fee debited from his checking account, but he or she might also have an overdraft fee levied if the funds removed meant the difference between maintaining a positive or negative balance. Additionally, unauthorized credit card accounts may change consumers’ credit reports.