Lawsuit Cracks Down on Citibank Robocalls

A lawsuit alleges that Citibank robocalls violate the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

Plaintiff Eliezer C. alleges that Citibank repeatedly badgered him with robocalls without his consent, in an attempt to collect a debt that the bank claimed Eliezer owed. He claims that this practice violates the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which was enacted to protect consumers’ privacy and prevent abusive “robocalls” and telemarketing.

This is one of many complaints that Citibank has received, claiming that Citibank robocalls are illegal and extremely bothersome to consumers.

Eliezer claims that he has received Citibank robocalls numerous times over the last four years, the majority of which were aimed at having Eliezer repay an alleged debt owed to the bank. On several occasions, Eliezer says he instructed Citibank employees to stop calling his cell phone. According to Eliezer, none of the calls constituted any sort of emergency.

In October 2017, Eliezer answered a call on his cell phone from Citibank. He says he told Citibank representatives to stop calling his cell phone, and to put the number on a “do not call” list.

Allegedly, the representative told Eliezer that Citibank would no longer call that number, but the phone calls did not stop. Citibank called him repeatedly on his cell phone, even though he had not given the company express permission to call him on that phone, a practice which the TCPA prohibits.

The Citibank robocalls lawsuit claims that even if Citibank had at some point had Eliezer’s consent to call his phone, he withdrew the consent numerous times by explicitly instructing Citibank to stop calling his phone. The banking robocalls lawsuit claims that Citibank cannot argue that Eliezer at one point gave his consent to receive calls, nor can they claim that they had mistaken information that led them to believe Eliezer had given his consent.

The last time in which Eliezer made his wishes clear to the company was in October 2017, when Eliezer reports he once again told a representative of the company to not call him again. The prohibited robocall lawsuit argues that the company should have stopped calling him at least after that point to comply with TCPA guidelines.

The Citibank robocalls class action lawsuit goes on to claim that the same principle would be true even if the company had mistaken information saying that Eliezer gave his consent to receive calls. After October 2017, he argues, they certainly should have corrected their records and stopped calling Eliezer. 

Furthermore, Eliezer claims that some of the calls made to his cell phone were made using an “automatic phone dialing system,” a system that can store numbers to call later on, or can generate random numbers to call. The Citibank prohibited robocalls lawsuit claims that the practice of businesses using automatic dialing systems is prohibited by the TCPA.

Eliezer argues that he knew he was being called by an automatic system “because of the vast number of calls he received and because he heard a pause when he answered his telephone before a voice came on the line and/he received prerecorded messages from [Citibank].”

The Citibank Prohibited Robocalls Lawsuit is Case 6:18-cv-00259-ACC-GJK, in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, Orlando Division.

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If you were contacted on your cell phone by a company via an unsolicited text message (text spam) or prerecorded voice message (robocall), you may be eligible for compensation under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

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