SAN FRANCISCO–As if the opening of more than two-million sham accounts weren’t sufficiently wrong, a number of former employees said they were forced to work overtime for free to open those accounts.
According to CNNMoney.com, which interviewed the former employees, the mandatory overtime took place during "call nights," where workers would call customers to sell them additional products like credit cards in an effort to meet the unrealistic sales goals.
"If we didn't hit our numbers, branch managers would make us stay after work for an hour, with no pay, to cold call customers and try to sell accounts," Graham Gourley, who worked as a Wells Fargo banker in Charlotte until 2012, told CNNMoney.
CNNMoney said it interviewed nearly a half-dozen additional former Wells Fargo workers who said they too were frequently forced to work overtime without extra compensation as they chased their sales targets.
Some of the accusations aren’t new. CNNMoney.com noted allegations that Wells Fargo violated federal law requiring overtime pay for hourly workers go back as far as 1999, when the company allegedly "aggressively skirted overtime laws."
The Labor Department has now launched what it called a “top to bottom” investigation.
In response to the claims made by ex-workers, Wells Fargo issued a statement to CNNMoney.com that "employees are compensated for all hours worked, including all overtime hours." The company said it "complies" with FLSA and "all applicable state and local laws."
Efforts to push back about unpaid wages were met with stiff resistance, Gourley said, echoing what other employees have also told CNNMoney.
"They said, 'Deal with it – or leave,'" Gourley recalled. "I have a wife and two young children. I didn't have a choice. I had to keep working to make ends meet," he said.
Gourley gave in to his branch manager's instructions to open unauthorized accounts – the problem that has landed Wells Fargo in hot water with regulators and Congress. Gourley said he tried to push back against the orders to open fake accounts, but was unsuccessful.
"We were forced to do that – under the threat of termination. The entire branch was doing it," said Gourley.
Another former employee, Clark Brinker, also alleged he was among those forced to work unpaid overtime.
"A lot of people would make up accounts so they could leave," he told CNNMoney.com.