Atlanta, GAIt's not just small debt collection companies that run afoul of consumers for alleged violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). Large financial institutions such as Wells Fargo Bank also find themselves on the receiving end of lawsuits alleging they contacted customers without consent, in violation of TCPA and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). Recently, Wells Fargo settled a class action lawsuit alleging it was illegally contacting consumers, although this is not the first time the company has faced such allegations.
In 2014, plaintiff Lillian Franklin filed a lawsuit against Wells Fargo Bank (case number 3:14-cv-02349) alleging the company violated the TCPA by calling her on her cellphone. According to court documents, Wells Fargo repeatedly used an automatic telephone dialing system and an artificial or pre-recorded voice to contact Franklin for purposes that did not constitute an emergency and for which Franklin had not given consent. In fact, Franklin did not have a credit card account with Wells Fargo; the calls were allegedly intended to collect debt from a deceased individual.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of all people who received a phone call from Wells Fargo to a cellphone made through an automatic telephone dialing system or prerecorded voice within four years of the filing of the complaint.
Franklin's lawsuit was settled in 2014. Although the bank denied the material allegations and disputed that it made any phone calls without prior consent, the company agreed to settle the lawsuit for just over $14 million.
Now, less than two years later comes word that Wells Fargo will pay more than $16 million to settle a lawsuit again alleging the company called consumers on their cellphones without first obtaining consent to do so. That lawsuit was filed in June 2016 by Steven Markos, Tiffany Davis, and Gregory Page (lawsuit 1:15-cv-01156) and alleged Wells Fargo violated the TCPA, "by initiating non-emergency telephone calls using an automatic telephone dialing system to cellular telephone numbers without the prior express consent of the subscribers of those cellular telephone numbers."
This time, the allegations involve Wells Fargo making phone calls for the purpose of collecting on Residential Mortgage Loans and Home Equity Loans. Similar to the earlier lawsuit, plaintiffs allege Wells Fargo made autodialed and/or prerecorded voice calls to consumers' cellphones. Further, plaintiffs allege the illegal calls continued after plaintiffs sent requests that the company cease such telephone calls.
That lawsuit has now reportedly been settled for around $16 million.
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