5,300 fired at Wells Fargo -- now that was one huge scheme

The news that an employee of a big bank cooked up a plan to swindle money from bank customers wouldn't be that shocking. Maybe there was even a co-conspirator or two. But the revelation that there may have been 5,300 employees in on it is shocking.

The scheme itself looked pretty simple -- as outlined in Wells Fargo fined $185M for fake accounts; 5,300 were fired. Excerpt:

An analysis by the San Francisco-headquartered bank found that its employees opened more than two million deposit and credit card accounts that may not have been authorized by consumers, the officials said. Many of the transfers ran up fees or other charges for the customers, even as they helped employees make incentive goals.

Here's the sad part. Government entities will rake in $185 million in fines which will probably be spent wisely, you think? As for the customers, this:

Accounts refunded represented a fraction of one percent of the accounts reviewed, and refunds averaged $25, Wells Fargo said.

Oh yeah, take that straight to the bank!