Wells Fargo & Company is a multinational financial services company that was first founded in 1852 by Henry Wells and William G. Fargo with the initial purpose of providing banking services to the fast-growing economy of California due to the Gold Rush. Since its founding, the company has expanded to having operations in 35 different countries and serving over 70 million customers all across the world. Wells Fargo & Company is considered one of the “Big Four Banks” in the United States with JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, and Citigroup. 

Due to this, Wells Fargo & Company's Community Banking unit had enjoyed an overwhelmingly strong and positive reputation up until 2016 (Witman 2018). Up until the cross-selling scandal, the company was known for great management as their purchase of Wachovia during the Great Recession, helped transform the company into the third-largest bank in the country based on assets alone, and they were able to emerge from the economic collapse of 2008 mostly without consequence (Tayan 2019). Despite miraculously surviving the economy collapse of 2008, Wells Fargo & Co. managed to become ensnared in a crisis of their very own making when accusations came out in 2016.