SF-based Wells Fargo fires employees for allegedly using keyboards to fake work
San Francisco Chronicle / SFGate.com | June 13, 2024 | Stephen Council

Wells Fargo, the San Francisco-based banking giant, has fired a small group of employees who allegedly tampered with their computers to fake the appearance of working.

The company’s St. Louis-based subsidiary, Wells Fargo Clearing Services, filed five disclosures with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority saying that it had fired workers in early May. Each disclosure said the worker was “discharged after review of allegations involving simulation of keyboard activity creating impression of active work.”

Bloomberg, which first reported the firings on Thursday, wrote that “more than a dozen” employees were fired from Wells Fargo’s wealth and investment management arm. SFGATE only found the five disclosures, along with another saying that a worker had voluntarily resigned in April, after the allegations.

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It’s unclear from the disclosures exactly how the workers may have simulated “keyboard activity,” but it would likely be an effort to dupe their bosses while working remotely. During the early pandemic, mouse “jigglers” and automatic button-pressers became newly valuable to work-from-home employees who wanted to keep their accounts “online” even when away from their desks, according to Bloomberg.