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Old 03-10-2017, 09:20 AM   #1
Cecil Terwilliger
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I, for one, am totally shocked.

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A CBC report earlier this week about TD employees pressured to meet high sales revenue goals has touched off a firestorm of reaction from TD employees across the country — some of whom admit they have broken the law at their customers' expense in a desperate bid to meet sales targets and keep their jobs.

Hundreds of current and former TD Bank Group employees wrote to Go Public describing a pressure cooker environment they say is "poisoned," "stress inducing," "insane" and has "zero focus on ethics."

Some employees admitted they broke the law, claiming they were desperate to earn points towards sales goals they have to reach every three months or risk being fired. CBC has agreed to conceal their identities because their confessions could have legal ramifications.


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Another teller with over 20 years' experience at an Ontario TD branch said she has increased customers' overdraft protection amounts without their knowledge, and increased their TD Visa card limits on the sly — all to earn units towards her sales revenue target.

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"They just really stress you out and say, 'You're not doing good. I need you to do double the amount you've been doing.' I couldn't sleep. I'd be thinking … 'What can I do tomorrow to try and get sales?'"

She admits to upgrading customers to a higher-fee account without telling them.

"Because that gives us sales revenue. And the customers don't have to sign for it."


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A former TD financial adviser in Calgary says he would downplay the risk of products that gave him a big boost towards his quarterly goal.

"I was forced to lie to customers, just to meet the sales revenue targets," he said.

"I was always asked by my managers to attach unnecessary products or services to the original sale just to increase the sales points — and not care if the customer can afford it or not."

A financial adviser who worked for six years in Nanaimo, B.C., before quitting says "people eventually snap, or lose all sense of themselves and do anything to close sales."


http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/td-bank-employees-admit-to-breaking-law-1.4016569
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Old 03-10-2017, 09:21 AM   #2
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Old 03-10-2017, 09:30 AM   #3
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If this was a branch or two, I would say it's not a big deal. But it appears to be cross-country, which is a huge problem. TD became the biggest Canadian bank recently (or so I read) so this is concerning.

I wonder if the managers pressuring them to sell are also under pressure from executives to sell more? Is it commission based?

####ing banks.
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Old 03-10-2017, 09:40 AM   #4
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Wells Fargo Canadian edition.
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Old 03-10-2017, 09:42 AM   #5
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Not a tear will be shed in the future when banks become obsolete.

Digital currency, be better, faster please.
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Old 03-10-2017, 09:43 AM   #6
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All the banks do this. I flat out had a rep from a different big bank tell me the underwriters would only approve my mortgage if I took one of their credit cards.
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Old 03-10-2017, 09:43 AM   #7
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I dont think I've ever met a TD employee that I would deem competent enough to knowingly break the law.
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Old 03-10-2017, 09:44 AM   #8
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Many people struggle to understand ATM cards, Pepsi. Good luck with widespread adoption of Bitcoin or the like.

As to the story, it is doubtful that Wells Fargo and TD are the only two to have done this. The other banks are likely facing a great deal of scrutiny as a result.
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Old 03-10-2017, 09:45 AM   #9
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Originally Posted by Resolute 14 View Post
Many people struggle to understand ATM cards, Pepsi. Good luck with widespread adoption of Bitcoin or the like.

As to the story, it is doubtful that Wells Fargo and TD are the only two to have done this. The other banks are likely facing a great deal of scrutiny as a result.
Based on how often the tellers try to sell me something I don't want at RBC, I'd imagine this is every bank in Canada.
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Old 03-10-2017, 09:46 AM   #10
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A former TD financial adviser in Calgary says he would downplay the risk of products that gave him a big boost towards his quarterly goal.

"I was forced to lie to customers, just to meet the sales revenue targets," he said.

"I was always asked by my managers to attach unnecessary products or services to the original sale just to increase the sales points — and not care if the customer can afford it or not."

A financial adviser who worked for six years in Nanaimo, B.C., before quitting says "people eventually snap, or lose all sense of themselves and do anything to close sales."
Sorry, no you were not. You could work somewhere else.

I worked in Automotive finance for years, you want to talk about being pressured to sell products? And the potential ramifications of losing your job were way more dire, as the automotive community is small and the stakes are much higher as far as income went. I took a 7 month break and tried the RV business. The money was better, but it seemed too sketchy, so I went back to my old employer. It's pretty simple. If you don't like what you are being asked to do, find another employer or career path. It's not like there is a shortage of banks to work at.

And in all, if I felt morally compromised in anything anyone asked me to do, I simply said no. Want to fire me, go ahead. I still have to sleep at night. My conscious trumps any career. Thankfully I work for a dealer that was always above board, but there have been certain products we have been asked to offer that could have easily boosted my numbers, that I refused to sell, as I felt they were of little or no value to my customers. I never had industry best numbers, but I always had happy customers, top level CSI, and people that came back for second, third and fourth purchases.

So no. None of these people were forced to do anything. They chose to do these things to get a bigger pay cheque first and foremost. TD may have/had a boiler room mentality, but the door is right over there if you don't like the culture or ethics.
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Old 03-10-2017, 09:55 AM   #11
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Worked at TD part time back in my university days. Maybe I got a good branch or something, but I had pretty much zero sales target pressure. I'm sure my part-time status had a lot to do with that, but if my few years there I don't think I ever had one conversation with someone who were stressed out about targets, or thought they were doing immoral things to meet sales goals.

Personally, this is just a sensationalist story. All jobs have pressures to meet targets, whether it be sales goals or otherwise. I'm sure there are lots of people in a wide variety of professions where people engage in unethical behaviour in order to meet those targets. It's really up to the employees to have a strong voice and say that things are wrong (not to the media, but directly to their employers).
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Old 03-10-2017, 09:59 AM   #12
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Originally Posted by PepsiFree View Post
Not a tear will be shed in the future when banks become obsolete.

Digital currency, be better, faster please.
The majority of what banks do is already digital. Your mortgage and loan money doesn't really exist. If banks become obsolete we all have much bigger problems than crooked TD tellers.
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Old 03-10-2017, 10:01 AM   #13
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Originally Posted by OMG!WTF! View Post
The majority of what banks do is already digital. Your mortgage and loan money doesn't really exist. If banks become obsolete we all have much bigger problems than crooked TD tellers.
Are you saying my mortgage isn't a yellowing piece of paper sitting in a vault, OMG!

WTF am I going to do with the plans for my mortgage burning party now.


Damn you, Damn you all to hell.
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Old 03-10-2017, 10:07 AM   #14
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Originally Posted by undercoverbrother View Post
Are you saying my mortgage isn't a yellowing piece of paper sitting in a vault, OMG!

WTF am I going to do with the plans for my mortgage burning party now.


Damn you, Damn you all to hell.
You could get with the program and declare your property an embassy. You could have burned that piece of paper years ago.
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Old 03-10-2017, 10:07 AM   #15
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Originally Posted by Resolute 14 View Post
Many people struggle to understand ATM cards, Pepsi. Good luck with widespread adoption of Bitcoin or the like.

As to the story, it is doubtful that Wells Fargo and TD are the only two to have done this. The other banks are likely facing a great deal of scrutiny as a result.
I figure it should should be prevalent in... 40 years... optimistically.

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Originally Posted by OMG!WTF! View Post
The majority of what banks do is already digital. Your mortgage and loan money doesn't really exist. If banks become obsolete we all have much bigger problems than crooked TD tellers.
Not quite digital in that sense. De-centralized currency is actually less problematic. The problem with it right now is habit people have of "centralizing" it into certain spaces, which makes it possible for hackers to devalue the currency (but not to actually steal it).

It's a long way off from being something even 50% of the population uses, but it's the future, for sure. It's main benefit is the fact that fees for banking no-longer exist and, when done right (keep in mind, it's still in an infancy stage) it's about 1000x safer than having any of your money (mortgage, loan, paychecks, etc) be handled by a middle man.

It would also have a game-changing impact on the way taxes are collected and government spending occurs, allowing for complete and total transparency.

Anyways, it's the future, TD sucks, blah blah.
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Old 03-10-2017, 10:09 AM   #16
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This is no different from any business that sells add on products to their main offering.

Go work in retail electronics. Its not selling a computer or stereo or dishwasher that gets you paid and promoted, its the extended warranty.

I mean, I'm old and its been a long time, but when I worked at FS, I was a top performer and moved up the chain not because I sold a ton of computers a year, but because I had a 5% closing rate for their CSP.

We were taught sales techniques and at times you had to make some pretty nebulous statements, and a manager had to approve a sale where the CSP was declined and the manager had to do a second approach.

Looking back on it, sure I learned some interesting sales techniques, but I didn't enjoy sellling it.

Frankly the only areas where the CSP broke even or lost dollars was on big screen projection style TV's and appliances, because frankly all of the other electronics were pretty bullet proof and usually didn't break or fail in three years.

But I could show you value charts etc etc and literally scare you into buying it.

If you look at how commissions worked. If I sold a $2000.00 computer with 10% margin, I would take a third of the profit margin or about 60 bucks.

But if I sold a $500.00 CSP plan on that computer, CSP was pure profit and I'd scoop a third or $150.00. So I would sell it. It would make the difference between making $100.00 a day and $200.00 back in the early 90's which was great money.

And of course the stores competed with each other on CSP. A store with <5% average CSP was an underperformer no matter how much product they sold and managers would dread going to the managers meeting.

I remember that I was good at selling the warranty and they started loaning me from store to store that were struggling, not even to necessarily teach them about it, and I didn't give a crap about helping someone else to learn how to sell it because I wanted a clearer path to promotion. I would go into their store for a month and try to crush everyone and help boost the stores percentage. Then I'd walk out at the end of the month with a smirk and a jerk like and that's how its done grasshopper with a bunch of bucks in my pocket and a hangover from nightly drinking.

Businesses have always been about selling the profitable add ons.

Want to make money on a computer, sell warranty (grease) make them buy some video games for their kids and get an upgrade on a graphics card. Make them buy a crappy printer and a bunch of replacement cartridges and a box of paper. A expensive mouse pad? Sure sure it protects your mouse and looks its the enterprise. Why don't we go take a look at those super expensive speakers.
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Old 03-10-2017, 10:10 AM   #17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by undercoverbrother View Post
Are you saying my mortgage isn't a yellowing piece of paper sitting in a vault, OMG!

WTF am I going to do with the plans for my mortgage burning party now.


Damn you, Damn you all to hell.
Screen print out from your online banking. Then burn that.
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Old 03-10-2017, 10:13 AM   #18
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Sorry, no you were not. You could work somewhere else.

I worked in Automotive finance for years, you want to talk about being pressured to sell products? And the potential ramifications of losing your job were way more dire, as the automotive community is small and the stakes are much higher as far as income went. I took a 7 month break and tried the RV business. The money was better, but it seemed too sketchy, so I went back to my old employer. It's pretty simple. If you don't like what you are being asked to do, find another employer or career path. It's not like there is a shortage of banks to work at.

And in all, if I felt morally compromised in anything anyone asked me to do, I simply said no. Want to fire me, go ahead. I still have to sleep at night. My conscious trumps any career. Thankfully I work for a dealer that was always above board, but there have been certain products we have been asked to offer that could have easily boosted my numbers, that I refused to sell, as I felt they were of little or no value to my customers. I never had industry best numbers, but I always had happy customers, top level CSI, and people that came back for second, third and fourth purchases.

So no. None of these people were forced to do anything. They chose to do these things to get a bigger pay cheque first and foremost. TD may have/had a boiler room mentality, but the door is right over there if you don't like the culture or ethics.
Those people aren't complaining that they have the right to a crappy job. They are complaining that the only way to keep the job is to cheat. The article isn't meant to be a heartfelt piece on these poor saps who hate their jobs. It is meant to showcase that the major canadian financial institutions are encouraging their employees to lie to customers and scam them.

The point is that it is institutionalized and well beyond the individuals.

The individual who is breaking the law is largely irrelevant here. They will just replace you with someone else who will break the rules because their targets are so unrealistic that the only way to meet them is to cheat.
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Old 03-10-2017, 10:13 AM   #19
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Not usually a fan of the comments sections of any news site, but at least some people can read between the lines.

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This says more about unethical employees, than unethical employers.
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So their excuse boils down to the fact that they are doing illegal activity because they need money? Wow isn't that the excuse of every thief who ever lived? TD isn't telling you to do something illegal you are doing it yourself. If the job is too stressful then quit. You would rather do illegal activity rather than quit and get another job that's on you and you should be jailed. You are no different that a common street thug. If a manager is telling you to do something illegal just tape then and they'll get fired. It's as easy as that.
And there's plenty more comments along the same line of thinking. And they are right. This is more an indictment of the employees, than the employer.
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Old 03-10-2017, 10:16 AM   #20
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How fast before the class action suit gets filed?
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