LOS ANGELES–A second lawsuit has been filed against Wells Fargo by some of the more than 5,000 Wells Fargo employees who were fired by the bank as the result of the more than two-million sham customer accounts that were created.
The plaintiffs are alleging that they were fired or demoted for attempting to be honest and alerting the bank to the fake accounts or for attempting to meet the goals and for falling short.
The first suit was filed in Los Angeles in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. It seeks to create a class of current and former Wells Fargo employees across the country who had similar experiences, according to The New York Times.
“These are the people who have been left holding the bag,” Jonathan Delshad, the lawyer representing workers in both suits, told the New York Times. “It was a revolving door. If you weren’t willing to engage in these types of illegal practices, they just booted you out the door and replaced you.”
The Times said that in a statement Wells Fargo responded, “We disagree with the allegations in the complaint and will vigorously defend against the misrepresentations it contains about Wells Fargo and all of the Wells Fargo team members whose careers have been built on doing the right thing by our customers every day.”
This isn’t the first time Wells Fargo has been sued for the practices. The Times reported that Yesenia Guitron, a former banker, sued Wells Fargo in 2010 — three years earlier than the bank has admitted it knew about the sham accounts. The Times said Guitron became alarmed when, two months into her job at Wells Fargo, she noticed that a fellow banker at the company’s St. Helena, Calif., branch was opening and closing customers’ accounts without their permission. She further said she did everything the company had taught employees to do to report such misconduct internally, and told the Times she told her manager about her concerns. Guitron also called Wells Fargo’s ethics hotline, an HR rep and then a representative and the bank’s regional manager.
Guitron alleged she was then fired for insubordination.