THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

And if you say that management is lying in this case, you should win a prize if the answer weren't so easy.

Wells Fargo & Co. is the nation’s leader in selling add-on services to its customers. The San Francisco bank, which has its East Coast headquarters in Charlotte, brags in earnings reports of its prowess in “cross-selling” financial products such as checking and savings accounts, credit cards, mortgages and wealth management. In addition to generating fees and profits, those services keep customers tied to the bank and less likely to jump to competitors.

But that success has come at a cost. The relentless pressure to sell has battered employee morale and led to ethical breaches, customer complaints and labor lawsuits, a Los Angeles Times investigation has found.

To meet quotas, employees have opened unneeded accounts for customers, ordered credit cards without customers’ permission and forged client signatures on paperwork. Some employees begged family members to open ghost accounts.

These conclusions emerge from a review of internal bank documents and court records, and from interviews with 28 former and seven current Wells Fargo employees who worked at bank branches in nine states.

Erick Estrada, a former Wells Fargo personal banker and business specialist at a Los Angeles branch, said managers there coached workers on how to inflate sales numbers.

Employees opened duplicate accounts, sometimes without customers’ knowledge, he said. Workers also used a bank database to identify customers who had been pre-approved for credit cards – then ordered the plastic without asking them, Estrada said.

“They’d just tell the customers: ‘You’re getting a credit card,’ ” Estrada said. He admitted to opening unneeded accounts, though never without a customer’s knowledge, he said.

When customers complained about the unwanted credit cards, the branch manager would blame a computer glitch or say the card had been requested by someone with a similar name, Estrada said.

One former branch manager who worked in the Pacific Northwest described her dismay at discovering that employees had talked a homeless woman into opening six checking and savings accounts with fees totaling $39 a month.

“It’s all manipulation. We are taught exactly how to sell multiple accounts,” the former manager said. “It sounds good, but in reality it doesn’t benefit most customers.”

Like many other workers interviewed by the Times, she requested anonymity, citing a fear of retribution from Wells Fargo or difficulty finding employment at other financial institutions.

The former manager said she helped the homeless woman close all but one account, which was needed for direct deposit of her Social Security disability benefits. She said she reported the situation to her boss, but never heard of any action taken by the bank.

Wells Fargo officials said they make ethical conduct a priority and punish or fire employees who don’t serve customers properly. They acknowledged the bank’s strong focus on selling, but said it is intended to benefit customers by identifying their needs.

“I’m not aware of any overbearing sales culture,” Chief Financial Officer Timothy Sloan said in an interview.

Wells Fargo may be the worst, but all large banks have something similar going on in their branches. And the pressure all begins at the top, even if the CFO or someone like him presents it in kind and gentle words. By the time it reaches the underpaid and overworked troops in the branches the pressure is high and the safety valves have been taped shut. If you haven't already moved to a hometown bank or credit union, this would be a good time to start looking around.