Wells Fargo's Cross-Selling Quotas

Wells Fargo's "Eight is Great" cross-selling quota created the worst retail banking scandal in a decade by demanding every banker sell eight financial products per customer. This impossible target directly led employees to open 3.5 million fake accounts to avoid termination. The quota's toxicity far exceeds #10's age discrimination tactics because it deliberately incentivized fraud on a massive scale, resulting in $3 billion in penalties and a permanent ban from asset management—a harsher regulatory outcome than any other workplace policy on this list.