Knowing that ethics can be easily swayed in the presence of money, what should have Met Life done different? Even after various complaints by several agencies, Met Life spoke briefly with Urso about the way he ran his office. Yet they would always say nice work and congratulate him on his performance at the end of their meeting. So this means they must have known something fishy was going on. So now who is accountable?.
These are all problems any company must look at carefully. Companies must clearly state what to do in any situation of ethical question. As it is important for a business to have a code of ethics, this is especially true in a place like sales. Ethics are constantly in question in the operation of a salesman, or even purchasers. Many of these people in trying to develop what they think of as a good relationship do more things for each other on a personal level. This is where the questions of ethics come into play. In the case of Met life, the ethical questions were all internalized, since the sales were on a producer to consumer basis. All the responsibilities of using ethical procedures shifted entirely to Met Life. The fact is that there was a deliberate use of fraudulent practices used and taught by Urso, which the company basically ignored. Time and several agencies eventually caught up with Urso and Met Life. This scandal had various bad effects on the companies. For one, it took a bit hit financially. By the end of 1994 the company had paid out almost 2 billion dollars in fines alone, and also gave out free 5 year policies to its deceived customers. Possibly worse, Met Life had a huge stain on its brand image. The Only way to leave the bad image behind was to totally restructure top management, whose policies allowed for this mishap to go on for some time. They fired and demoted 5 high-level executives, all of Urso's managers, and several of his reps. Urso himself was not only fired, but no other company would even agree to see him in his pursuits for other jobs.
