Up to forty banks, which could have included the Bank of OK (Oklahoma,) may have been subtly or overtly encouraging their employees to open fake bank accounts reportedly based on the information given to them by current patrons.

According to American Banker in an article published in June 2018, the Office of the Comptroller of Currency (OCC) started to do an in-depth audit of forty midsize to larger banks after the Wells Fargo scandal erupted onto news headlines in 2016-2017.

What was the Wells Fargo Scandal?

According to The Guardian, the Wells Fargo Scandal revealed that employees of the bank had received inordinate pressure from management to reach internal sales goals.

This pressure caused employees to open millions of fake bank accounts without the express approval of the customer involved. Additionally, employees reportedly signed patrons up for monthly services which came with a price tag–such as bill pay—without their consent.

According to The Guardian, employees say the sales environment hasn’t changed much since the banking scandal. Despite the bank coughing up a whopping $1.7 billion in related penalties–$575 million of which was just paid in December 2018—workers at the financial institution say the heat is still being applied.

Workers who deal directly with customers on a daily basis hear a significant number of complaints. They are expected to push deals through as quickly as possible, but now without the financial incentives which were formerly in place.

Employees reportedly believe they became patsies in the banking scandal—blamed for the millions of fake accounts—rather than the scheme acknowledged as part of a wider institutional problem.

The OCC’s Review

The OCC expressly declined to name any of the banks involved in its investigation. So it’s unknown whether the review covered the Bank of OK or any other specific institution.

Upon completion of the review, the OCC did, however, reveal that it found evidence suggestive of banks opening fake accounts. American Banker said the commission found five industry-wide issues to be addressed and 250 individual items that different banks were required to rectify immediately.

To date, according to the OCC and American Banker, the response from the reviewed banks has been punctual.

Weak areas in the way an account’s consent is documented at opening and at closing, less-than-stellar risk controls in place during sales promotion periods, and policies and procedures that allow for prematurely rewarding employees prior to identifying whether a new account is being used were identified by the OCC.

Nevertheless, as The Guardian stated, employees at Wells Fargo do not think the overall environment has changed all that much. This impression may also apply to employees of the Bank of OK and other banks who may have been investigated during the OCC review.

If you are an employee of Bank of OK, Bank of America, Capital One, Royal Bank of Canada, Hong-Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC), and Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD), and have felt pressured into opening accounts without adequate customer authorization, you might have a legal claim.