Bank dismisses employees for phony keyboard activity.

Wells Fargo has fired a slew of employees in recent weeks following allegations that some of them were faking keyboard activity to trick the company into believing they were working. 

America's third largest bank acknowledged the judgments in broker filings with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (Finra). 

The company did not respond to inquiries about how the purported issue was detected or whether it was related to remote employment. 

New laws went into effect in the United States this month, requiring offices where brokers operate from home to be inspected every three years.

"Wells Fargo holds employees to the highest standards and does not tolerate unethical behavior," spokesperson Laurie Kight said in a statement. 

Since remote labor became more common during the Covid epidemic, some large corporations have used increasingly sophisticated monitoring techniques. 

These services can monitor keystrokes and eye movements, take screenshots, and record which websites are visited. 

However, technology has emerged to elude surveillance, including so-called "mouse jigglers" that make computers appear to be in active use and are commonly available.

According to Amazon, where they are available for less than $10, thousands have been sold in the previous month. 

According to the documents, Wells Fargo stated that employees had resigned or been fired "after a review of allegations involving simulation of keyboard activity creating the impression of active work". 

Bloomberg, which originally reported on the firings, said more than a dozen workers were affected. 

The BBC has confirmed six cases in which employees were fired following a review, as well as one situation in which someone resigned voluntarily after being presented with the allegations. 

Many of them had been with the firm for less than five years.

It comes as many businesses, particularly in the financial sector, are pressuring employees to return to the workplace.

 Remote work has remained popular since the outbreak, but numbers have been declining. 

According to study by researchers at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) Business School, Stanford, and the University of Chicago, work-from-home days accounted for little under 27% of paid days in the United States last month, down from more than 60% at its peak in 2020. 

According to the researchers, as of this spring, approximately 13% of full-time employees in the United States were entirely remote, with another 26% enjoying a hybrid arrangement. 

In 2022, Wells Fargo said that it has implemented a hybrid flexible approach for the majority of its employees.