The Hidden Costs of Banking
As a Wells Fargo personal banker, it’s my job to build relationships with our customers and find the best answers to their financial questions. But the pressure to meet aggressive sales quotas has made it impossible for me to do that job.
At the San Diego branch where I work, we have to meet sales quotas every day — or risk discipline or even losing our jobs. On a daily basis, I’m expected to sell about 10 to 15 personal accounts, two to three new accounts, two to three credit cards and/or loans, and a daily referral to an insurance or mortgage. This kind of pressure means bank employees must prioritize selling products, rather than just focusing on what best matches people’s needs.
This is hurting our customers. I constantly have customers coming into my branch saying that they cannot afford the monthly maintenance fees for their checking accounts because they are on fixed incomes. Wells Fargo’s solution is always focused on selling a new product, so my coworkers and I are directed to tell these customers to open savings accounts, so that they do not have to pay the maintenance fee for their checking accounts. However, if you do not maintain a $300 daily balance for your savings account, you will also be charged a maintenance fee. So customers end up transferring money from their checking accounts to their savings accounts. But having less money in their checking accounts means they are more likely to be hit with $35 overdraft fees. So, instead of helping lower-income customers avoid paying fees, Wells Fargo’s insistence on selling new products ends up taking more money out of our customers’ pockets.
Unreasonable sales quotas are also taking a huge toll on Wells Fargo employees like myself. Not long ago, I was training and working hard to earn a promotion, and my supervisor encouraged me to take on two roles — personal banker and business banker — in order to get that raise. As a result, I had two sets of sales goals that I had to meet, not only to show my manager I was qualified for the promotion, but to earn my commission and continue earn a living wage. I worked 12-hour shifts without any breaks. Because of a strict policy that said employees could not eat at their desks, I sometimes wouldn’t eat for hours. When I started to lose weight and began noticing that my hair was falling out, I thought to myself that that this was just temporary. But the stress from work would keep me awake at night, and I began suffering from exhaustion.
After months of hard work, my manager ended up hiring a friend, who worked at another Wells Fargo branch, for the position. Meanwhile, I ended up in the emergency room. The hospital staff asked me if I was trying to commit suicide by starving myself to death. Since then, I’ve continued to suffer from high blood pressure, insomnia, and anxiety. I am only 28 years old.
When I came to the United States as a refugee, I had high hopes. After years of being torn by war, first in Iraq and then in Syria, my family and I moved to San Diego. I was just months away from graduating from a law school when we made our new home in California. Nonetheless, I was looking forward to a new start. I expected to find a good job with good working conditions. But the reality I encountered was different.
That’s why last year I decided to join the Committee for Better Banks, an organization of workers who like me are fighting to improve our jobs and the banking industry.
Last week, I traveled to the nation’s capital, along with a number of frontline employees who have worked for the country’s largest banks, to testify at a congressional briefing about the aggressive sales goals that are forcing bank workers to push unnecessary products on their customers.
Without increased oversight, transparency and regulatory reform, these practices will continue to hurt workers and customers alike. We’re up against the most powerful industry in the United States, but I think with the support of the community, congress and our customers we can create a better banking system.
