Santa Clara, CA: Employees from Wells Fargo Bank have filed an employment class action lawsuit alleging they were pressured into unethical sales conduct under threat of retaliation if they failed to cooperate.
Specifically, the Wells Fargo employees claim they were forced to inflate sales figures by opening new customer accounts that customers had not agreed to and to open accounts for non-existent customers. Further, the suit claims that employees who did not engage in this alleged behaviour were threatened with discipline or termination. Employees who did participate were rewarded, the suit claims.
The alleged misconduct involved Wells Fargo employees having to set up a target of eight accounts, or “solutions,” per customer, which is far greater than the industry standard of three accounts per customer. The employees allege that these sales goals were impossible to meet without engaging in underhanded behavior.
The complaint asserts that Wells Fargo’s motive was to increase its stock price by setting unrealistically high sales goals for its employees.
Wells Fargo allegedly aggressively and unlawfully encouraged sales misconduct among its employees by threatening retaliation against workers who refused to engage in the sales misconduct. Those employees were allegedly “routinely counseled, warned, written up, demoted, placed on performance improvement plans, forced to quit, denied promotions, or fired as a result of not meeting sales goals, even though they could have easily met such goals by engaging in Sales Misconduct,” according to the complaint.
The plaintiffs seek to represent a Class encompassing all current and former U.S. employees of Wells Fargo who were subject to the sales goals described in the lawsuit and who were not terminated for engaging in sales misconduct.
Several subclasses have also been proposed in this action, which would represent employees who suffered adverse employment actions for failing to reach sales goals, who reported their concerns about the alleged unlawful sales conduct, or who had their employment terminated or who were let go for reporting or refusing to engage in the alleged misconduct.
The plaintiffs are seeking an award of damages, including two times the amount of back pay for alleged violations of the Dodd-Frank Act and treble damages as applicable under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO. They also seek reinstatement for eligible Class Members under the Dodd-Frank Act.
The plaintiffs are represented by attorneys from the Law Offices of Jonathan J. Delshad PC, Schonbrun Seplow Harris & Hoffman LLP, McCracken Stemerman & Holsberry LLP, and Pessah Law Group PC.
