Wells Fargo / Wachovia blog responds to “junket” press

Posted by on Wed, February 4, 2009

Wells Fargo and Wachovia posted a press release today on their blog which responds to the accusation that they used tax payer money to plan a “junket” in Las Vegas.

What interests me is not the press release itself. It’s the customer and employee comments.

Read here: http://blog.wellsfargo.com/

I plan to keep an eye on the comments as they flow in.  This is invaluable information that Wells / Wachovia are receiving from these comments.  Both positive and the negative.

Some examples:

“Your company is afloat on taxpayers money. You need to cut out frills as many taxpayers have. Your culture needs to change from a rewards culture to a survival culture. Don’t you get it?”

This person signed their name as “an appalled and angry shareholder”

“as a Wells Fargo employee all this trip mess is ridiculous. We all worked so hard to earn our trips. My husband and myself would have been going to Hawaii… because WE EARNED IT and now because the press is so stupid, we don’t get to go. people really need to realize that a lot of people worked VERY hard to earn these trips. and taxpayers didn’t pay for them. the trips were booked last year before ANY bailout money was given.”

Wells should be careful that their employees are not arguing with the customers who are responding.  As a policy, all blog owners should respect the opinions and comments of those who visit their site.  You can disagree but it should be done in a tasteful way.

Finally, the way in which Wells/Wachovia reacted to the bad press helped retain at least one customer:

“It was very smart to cancel the LV. event,Very bad times.did not look good your re-consideration saved me from bailing out of Wachovia as I did with citicorp. It is the only way customers have to fight back thank you, G Mallon”

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February 4, 2009 | Filed Under blog, News, wachovia

Comments

  • http://thefinancialbrand.com Jeffry Pilcher

    We are ALL shareholders now…

    • Luke

      Good point Jeffry.

  • John Dawson

    Glad they retained G Mallon as a customer of Wach or WF by not rewarding their employees. However, as an employee, I find it generally apalling that G Mallon has an opinion, or would have anything to say about my comp.

    Do I have the same ability to opt out of paying my taxes since Obama in the same “,Very bad times.did not look good” circumstances took his entourage of 500+ tax cheats and professional goof-offs to Europe to meet with the other global nut jobs. BTW, how did they earn that trip? And, when do we as “owners” get a breakdown of who went and why? Some accountability?

    At some point the debate has to return to something meaningful, not hysterical reactions to the day-to-day catastrophe ‘news’ we are being fed by a government that is upset over bonuses of private citizens but doesn’t seem concerned about which rat hole they shove the same citizen’s money down by Senators and Reps that don’t seem to be accountable for their actions. It’s backwards…