Bank of America Corp employees have alleged that the bank deliberately denied eligible home owners
loan modifications and lied to them about the status of their mortgage payments and documents. The
bank cleaned out its HAMP backlog in an operation called “blitz,” where it declined thousands of loan
modification requests just because the documents were more than 60 months old, according to
documents. Bank of America and four other banks reached a $25 billion landmark settlement with
regulators in 2012, following a scandal in late 2010 when it was revealed employees “robo signed”
documents without verifying them as is required by law. This is unethical because the case is not
actually viewed. The foreclosure documents are signed without
The Enron and WorldCom scandals were arguably the incidents that permanently changed the procedures for accounting controls. In response to these incidents, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) of 2002 was passed. Once the knowledge of these scandals was made public, a number of subsequent accounting scandals were discovered in public companies such as Tyco International, HealthSouth, and American Insurance Group. In addition, a then-employee-owned company, Post, Buckley, Schuh & Jernigan, Inc. (dba PBS&J, now known as “Atkins North America, Inc.”), was also hit by a similar accounting scandal. Henceforth, a case study of PBS&J is presented where we will examine the fraudulent transactions that
The Wells Fargo scandal involved a variety of stakeholders who have stake in the issue; however, the main stakeholders include the consumers, the employees and their families, and stockholders of the organization. The affect these stakeholders suffer varies, but the ultimate affect the scandal has had is violation of trust by Wells Fargo and its leadership. When examining this situation, the main stakeholders who suffered the greatest harm from the scandal were the customers who fell victim to the fraud and had their privacy violated by an organization they trusted. In the course text, Trevino and Nelson spoke of the importance of trust and its importance in a service economy. Wells Fargo violation of the consumers’ trust has ultimately added
Organizational misconduct is the chief cause behind corporate accounting scandals. The trusted executives of the corporation participation in actions during a scandal are corrupt and illegal. In the United States, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is typically the government agency that investigates such scandals. One of the most notorious corporate accounting scandals in the United States is the HealthSouth Corporation scandal of 2003. HealthSouth Corporation is one of the United States largest health care providers with locations nationwide. A deeper inspection of the HealthSouth scandal is needed to understand how it transpired by assessing how it was executed, the accounting issues and root of the issue, how it was exposed, the results to the company and its officers, and warranted ramifications as an outcome of the scandal.
Coastal Community Bank that Dubose, Baker, and Woody West was supposed to run and manage was already failing from bad loans and high level of insider abuse. According to HTcreative website Insider loans were so high it been recorded up to “$16,090,000” in the month of September of 2007 a month prior to Coastal Community Bank
Instead of receiving reasonable interest rates or regular loans, they were redirected to apply for subprime loans. Why would the brokers do this? Ironically, there are no laws against a mortgage broker asking a borrower’s race, or a borrower refusing to select race identity on a loan application. As a matter of fact, if a borrower refuses to select their ethnicity on an application; brokers are inclined to guess the borrower’s race to be in compliance with the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. This is a requirement to ensure mortgage lenders are not discriminating based on race. Hence, mortgage lenders have the right to guess a borrower’s race based on the physical color of skin.
With their judge, jury, and executioner setup, It is not surprising that the CFPB made headlines with huge penalties and a prosecution rate near perfect. In this compromised system, most companies agree to a CFPB settlement payment instead of fighting. More importantly, in these settlements, companies agree to pay without admitting or denying any findings or facts. The CFPB then uses this settlement to paint a picture of admission of guilt in self-congratulatory press
Burning Down the House: Mortgage Fraud and the Destruction of Residential Neighborhoods Ann Fulmer March 2010
Bank of America thrives off of the premise that they are aiming to enhance the financial lives of their customers. Per the Code of Conduct, Bank of America believes in treating all of their customers equally; they claim to expand beyond expectations to deliver satisfactory customer service; they implement discipline to eliminate financial risks to customers; they pride themselves on acting responsibly; and they strive to help individuals to reach their full financial potential. This company enforces the belief that they honor their ethics fully. This includes making
On September 8 2016, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFBP) announced that it was taking an enforcement action against Wells Fargo Bank . Wells Fargo is a Fortune 100 company and one of the "Big Four Banks" of the United States. Investigations conducted by the Bureau revealed that employees of the bank created unauthorized deposit and credit card accounts across the country to meet sales goals. Over the years, the bank’s employees opened over 1.5 million fraudulent bank accounts and 0.5 million fake credit card accounts for customers, to meet sales targets and obtain bonuses. The affected consumers, were being harmed by the associated charges and fees for these accounts. The fees include insufficient funds or overdraft fees for the deposit accounts and annual fees for credit card accounts.
In September of 2016, it was revealed that there was alleged misconduct at one of the largest and safest banking institutions in the United States. Wells Fargo Bank was ranked among the nation’s safest financial institutions according to an analysis done by Global Financial, (Inside Tucson Business, 2009). Alleging that between May 2011 and July 2015, there were more than 2 million bank accounts or credit cards opened for customers without their knowledge or permission (Blake, 2016). Clients started complaining the they were receiving debit/credit cards from the bank that they had not ordered. Wells Fargo employees also started complaining that about the unethical behaviors they witnessed or were asked to participate in to the Human Resource Departments, the bank’s internal ethics hotline, branch’s individual managers and supervisors. All which led to the discovery of the fraud scandal.
Wells Fargo founded in 1852 is known for being a financial services company. Wells Fargo provides banking, insurance, investment, mortgage, and consumer and commercial financial services through more than 8,600 locations, 13,000 ATM’s, online, and mobile devices. Wells Fargo is headquartered in San Francisco, California but has a vision of being decentralized from that location. Being decentralized allows each location to act as a headquarters to provide their customers with specific financial services. Wells Fargo employs approximately 268,000 employees to serve 70 million customers.
Bay Street Bankcrop (BSB) is a highly successful and innovative minority-lending bank. The bank has just got an approval for the funding of $5 million from Fannie Mae for starting a new branch office in the inner city to extend its minority lending services to African American community. BSB has developed an aggressive $30 million lending plan offering long term, fixed rate mortgage financing to black owned business ventures. The plan would be financed through equity capital of $5 million for which approval has been received from Fannie Mae and an innovative savings deposit program which would raise $25 million. BSB offers mortgage to its customers at fixed rate for long term. Offering long-term
The reason how Well Fargo Bank is an ethical quandary would be how they had also have to pay the expensive for the people account that were victims and the 185 million dollar including for the fines.
In light of the recent scandals that rose around big multinationals such as Enron and WorldCom, it has become evident that reform in the traditional corporate operations and objectives was to be encompassed in the organisations corporate strategies. Indeed throughout the years, companies main objectives were defined primarily as being economic objectives, Multinationals developed with sight of profit maximisations regardless to the other incentives, Friedman considered that to be the foundation for a well-managed company, it was further considered that the financing of any other sort of social corporate activities rather unnecessary. The expenses were regarded as expenditures for the owners and investors; this was a time where shareholders rights were regarded as conflicting with other constituents namely the employees, creditors, customers or the community in general. However this interpretation is seen as rather inadequate due to the nature of the amalgamated relation between both constituents. Stakeholders in modern corporate doctrine are considered as a core apparatus for the well functioning of a business. It is however often argued that the only way for a corporation to achieve better results and maximise its profits is to include other people in the process, individuals or organisations with direct or indirect interest in the well performance of the company, that is the reason why modern regulations and codes include a number of stakeholders other than the
As settlement, investors will receive $245 million to settle the charges with the Global Crossing executives’ fraud. In addition, according to the Ohio general office, former employees will receive $79 million for the loss of the purchase of company stock for their pension and retirement plans. $195 million will