Founded in 1998 as the result of a merger between the initial Wells Fargo and a Northwest-based financial company, Wells Fargo is currently the largest financial company by global market capitalization and the fourth largest bank in the United States (Rau, 2001). It is a public company listed on the NYSE as WFC S&P 500 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California. The company is currently engaged in offering the following services: direct consumer banking where it collects deposits from the public, corporate banking, finance and insurance where it offers investment consultancy and works closely with small, medium and large companies (Fradkin , 2002). It also launched a mortgage and real estate credit and lending system in 2007. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The company reported revenues and operating profits of $86.08 billion and $28.47 billion, respectively, in 2015. Globally, it has a total of 269,200 employees and annual net profit of $18.89 billion dollars (www.yahoofinance.com, 2016). Creating Solutions for Stronger Communities at Wells Fargo is the corporate social responsibility slogan for the organization globally. Business ethics are values ​​that govern the actions, behaviors and policies of individuals in an organization and the organization in general. Ethical platforms are channels used to ensure that organizations can be held accountable to ethical issues and actions (Fradkin, 2002). Different ethical issues can be addressed using different ethical platforms depending on the sensitivity of the issue. Wells Fargo deals with one of society's most sensitive topics: money. It is necessary to ensure that there is an ethical culture that keeps tabs on the business ethics practiced by the organization globally. Wells Fargo has intranet and Internet websites with interactive options to enable proper communication with the necessary authority. The website is primarily intended for the public, both members and non-members, where they can access the products offered by the organization. The characteristics of the products are clearly indicated and the terms and conditions are also attached. In case of complaints and compliments there is a contact number and an email address where you can send your message and the problem can be resolved. There is an online access agreement that every website visitor must agree to before accessing the website. In an effort to keep the public informed about the actions taken by the organization, the website indicates the vision, mission and objectives of the bank and is accordingly required to implement them for each individual. The website outlines some of the corporate social responsibilities undertaken by the organisation. The platform communicates the social responsibility of the organization starting from priorities such as social inclusion and diversity which allows equal treatment, access to resources, services and opportunities offered by Wells Fargo (La Marca, 2008). The organization does not promote discrimination based on gender, race and age and tries to ensure that society also has the same view of the above-mentioned factors. The organization is heavily involved in the economic empowerment of women and youth. This is a global activity open to all to participate and contribute in terms of monetary and professional assistance. It aims to ensure the self-sufficiency and empowerment of disadvantaged and marginalized communities (Fradkin, 2002). This is especially true in developing countries in Asia. Due to the growingnature of the effects of global warming, the organization has the right and ethical obligation to ensure environmental sustainability by using low carbon management and production methods and this information can be viewed on their website. The bank also supports environmental sustainability by having a volunteer program that helps create awareness about the effects of human activities on the environment. The program allows the bank's staff and customers to gather and interact in a less corporate and official environment. For the internal employee and shareholder website, there are ethical platforms where unethical treatment and actions can be reported to HR for disciplinary action. to take. HR policies are clearly indicated on the intranet and any updates adequately communicated to employees to ensure they are kept informed of changes in the organization (La Marca, 2008). Disciplinary actions to be taken due to unethical internal actions are clearly stated in employment-related laws and regulations. The ethics platform is clear, concise and detailed to meet the needs of both customers and employees of the organization. Instead, more needs to be done to ensure that business ethics are respected and improved in accordance with changes in labor laws and regulations. Wells Fargo is currently facing strong competition from its competitors JPMorgan Chase & Co, Bank of America, and Citigroup (Hume & Thacker, 2010). The three have large and well-structured financial networks around the world. They have the competitive advantage because they control a considerable size of the financial market globally. With current litigation, employment issues and decreasing market influence, the organization is believed to be in a downward spiral. The company's returns began to decline during the 2012 U.S. economic recession that led to a drop in the price of mortgages as families sold them off because they could no longer afford them. This led to a significant decline in the profits earned and consequently reduced the competitive advantage that the organization had gained from the industry. The organization is currently involved in one of the largest credit card fraud cases in the history of America. Wells Fargo employees have been creating pretentious credit card accounts since 2011 using their customers' information to increase customer volume and meet goals. These credit cards, as expected, would attract credit card application and processing fees to the customer's account which the customer would have to pay or deductions would be made automatically from his savings account or paycheck. The employees went further and opened 1.5 million pretentious deposit accounts by making up fake PIN numbers and email addresses but using other prevalent customer details. After opening these accounts, staff will transfer cash from the customer's bank account balances to the newly opened account and then back to the customers' accounts. This was done to ensure that the new accounts have been activated and are considered active as they expect an inflow and outflow of cash. Transfers would be made multiple times. Since transfer fees are automated by the system, customers would lose money in transfer processes they had not approved. In an effort to demonstrate that they were marketing the bank's credit cards correctly, employees submitted more than half a million credit card application forms that went through a rigorous approval process that in itstime resulted in administrative costs for the bank resulting in losses. Simply put, unethical practices by employees since 2011 have led to losses of $400,000 per year in interest charged on advance credit via phony credit cards, application and processing fees, and annual maintenance fees paper. Additionally, $150,000 was lost each year from customers' savings accounts in the form of transfer fees to and from the phony accounts opened. This led to the dismissal of 5,300 employees who were also accused of several cases of negligence and jurisprudence relating to the misappropriation of system rights and inconvenience of customers. The bank agreed to reimburse customers $5 million for their losses and was fined $185 million in damages. Although the fired employees have been held accountable and some of their personal accounts have been frozen and the cash is to be used to pay the fines. The bank suffered huge losses. The value of their shares has fallen significantly on the NYSE and shareholders are threatening to sell before further losses occur. The situation was also aggravated by Brexit which negatively affected their offshore subsidiaries in the UK. Since the case began, the bank has lost 32% of its customers due to a lack of trust in its system and fears that the bank will go into administration after fines and refunds have been paid to customer accounts. Former Wells Fargo employees blame the environment bank's operation for their poor practices. Managers put them under high, toxic pressure to meet highly targeted quarterly and annual goals. The sales team usually has eight products to sell per day and when the season is peak they are expected to sell 20 products per day in what is called a “jump in the January rush”. When the pressure becomes too much, employees become overwhelmed and start crying, and some even vomit into waste containers. This pressure was what drove the employees to come up with a document falsification plan because the goals are simply too high and they feared getting fired. With the increase in new product launches, on-the-job trainings were always conducted and employees were expected to completely understand the products instantly and sell them to customers. Some employees admit that they memorize product features and benefits without understanding them in case their manager suddenly asks them. The bank focused exclusively on the daily results of the employees and did not bother to verify the validity of the information offered about the customer. Information was entered into the database, and managers quickly approved and congratulated employees. Credit card approval staff, even though they were tasked with verifying information provided by the credit card sales team, were always overwhelmed with more work than they could handle. They were also pressured to approve forms quickly, which would lead to less validation and simple approval. This is why the fraudulent activities went on for so long without the management team realizing it, and by the time they realized it, it was too late to fix it. The bank, by overemphasizing profits, goals and financial returns, violated its ethics code to the public and employees. Employees did not get a safe and healthy working environment as they were constantly threatened with losing their jobs. The well-being of customers was not.