title:  Wells Fargo To Give Strikingly Fat Reward To Top Exec For Ripping Off Customers
text: Wells Fargo, one of the biggest banks in the U.S., was recently caught running a scam known as  sandbagging,  to inflate bankers  numbers and get them more money. Basically, they were opening fake accounts and transferring customers  money into those accounts without their authorization. They ve been slapped with $185 million in fines, but the executive who is most closely and directly linked to this scam is walking away with a nice, fat reward for it at the end of the year, when she retires.Carrie Tolstedt, the head of Wells Fargo s Scamming Department, will receive almost $125 million at the end of this year despite being in charge of a department that ripped off its customers to inflate its own bottom lines. Of course, as is standard procedure whenever a big company is caught ripping people off, Wells Fargo isn t admitting any wrongdoing, even though this has been going on for the last five years.Tolstedt herself isn t saying anything about it, either, but Wells Fargo is praising her service, saying she s been  a standard bearer of our culture  and  a champion for customers. Yeah, right, charging your customers fees they don t owe because you put their money into accounts they didn t open to inflate your bottom line is being a champion for customers. At least the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau saw right through that drivel: It is quite clear that [the actions of Tolstedt s unit] are unfair and abusive practices under federal law,  said Cordray.  They are a violation of trust and an abuse of trust.' Wells Fargo has fired some 5,300 employees for these tactics, but their clawback provision, which they expanded after the 2008 financial crash, didn t seem to deter this department, and they kept up these secret and deceptive practices. It s bad enough that Elizabeth Warren, who s been after the big banks since she was elected in 2012, wants hearings into Wells Fargo s sandbagging. She doesn t believe Wells Fargo didn t know about the fake accounts any more than anyone with any sense does: Come on this went on for years and they didn t smell anything in the air about fake accounts? And if they did, she believes, then Wells Fargo is too big to manage. Either way, they defrauded their customers and should pay. As should the head of their department.Instead, Wells Fargo has decided to send a message to other banking executives that this kind of behavior is okay. It s the same problem we ve had with the big banks since before 2008. Tolstedt should be fired, and walk away with nothing.Featured image by Joe Raedle/Getty Images