Wells Fargo fined $185 million for illegal banking practices

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Wells Fargo was fined $185 million Thursday for illegal banking practices, including issuing credit cards without customer consent and piling late fees onto accounts customers didn't know they had. Additionally, Wells Fargo fired 5,300 employees for creating over 2 million fake accounts.

The scope of the scandal is shocking. An analysis conducted by a consulting firm hired by Wells Fargo concluded that bank employees opened up over 1.5 million deposit accounts that may not have been authorized, according to the CFPB.The way it worked was that employees moved funds from customers' existing accounts into newly-created accounts without their knowledge or consent, regulators say.Additionally, Wells Fargo employees also submitted applications for 565,443 credit-card accounts without their knowledge or consent, the CFPB said the analysis found. [CNN]

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.