A former U.S. Bank call center worker alleges that he was fired last year after reporting a scheme to boost employee compensation by artificially inflating sales figures on credit cards.
Matthew Weber of Portland, Ore., is seeking $1.3 million in a lawsuit against the Minneapolis-based bank and two of its employees. The case was filed Sunday in Multnomah County circuit court.
A U.S. Bank spokesman said that the lawsuit's allegations have been investigated and proven to be unsubstantiated. "We intend to defend ourselves vigorously," spokesman Dana Ripley said in an email.
The lawsuit suggests that the effort to inflate sales numbers occurred on only a small scale and was quickly shut down. But it also states that Weber was fired approximately two weeks after blowing the whistle. Although he was later deemed eligible to be rehired, he was subsequently passed over for 20 to 30 jobs at U.S. Bank, according to the lawsuit.
“Mr. Weber was not considered for these positions because of illegal retaliation for his good faith reports of unlawful behavior,” the lawsuit alleges.
Weber worked for U.S. Bank at a call center in Gresham, Ore., according to the complaint. He states that he learned in July 2018 of an instruction by a supervisor to boost the sales numbers on her team.
At the time, U.S. Bank was marketing a Visa Platinum credit card that offered a zero-percent annual percentage rate for 20 months. The alleged scheme involved encouraging bank employees to start taking applications for the card to consumers who were not eligible to be approved.
Weber’s lawyer, Michael Fuller, said in an interview that residents of certain states were ineligible for the credit card unless they were already U.S. Bank customers. But if those individuals applied for the card, the percentage of phone calls that were classified internally as sales calls rose, which impacted employee pay, according to the lawsuit.
“U.S. Bank’s pay-based metrics incentivized its employees to take credit applications, regardless of whether the customer was qualified for the product,” the lawsuit states.
After Weber reported the supervisor’s conduct, the bank sent out an internal email clarifying that there were geographic restrictions on a Platinum Visa credit card, according to the lawsuit.
Weber allegedly believed that the supervisor’s instruction to knowingly sell a product to customers who were not eligible constituted fraud. The lawsuit also charges that the supervisor’s instruction constituted an unfair, deceptive or abusive act or practice, which is barred under the Dodd-Frank Act.
Weber was fired on July 25, 2018, even though he was consistently a top performer for U.S. Bank, the lawsuit states. His attorney suggested that consumers also suffered as a result of the sales scheme, since their credit scores could decline as a result of applying and being turned down.
“It’s sad, because it harms the consumer, and it doesn’t benefit the bank either,” Fuller said.
Retail sales practices at large banks have faced closer scrutiny in the wake of the fraudulent account scandal at Wells Fargo.
American Banker
The results of the review, which was conducted by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, have not been made public.
