Wells Fargo Class Action Says Telemarketers Illegally Recorded Calls

Five plaintiffs are suing a network of corporate defendants including Wells Fargo and Fifth Third Bank, alleging they participated in an illegal scheme to record telemarketing phone calls made to California businesses.

The plaintiffs say they are all California residents who were parties to the phone calls in question.

They claim defendants ElitePay Global and its successor Ironwood Financial Inc. recorded these calls in violation of the California Invasion of Privacy Act.

According to the plaintiffs, telemarketing and sales firm EPG conducted marketing campaigns to sell credit and debit card processing services on behalf of defendants Wells Fargo Bank and Fifth Third Bank.

In the same calls, plaintiffs say EPG also marketed credit and debit card processing hardware from defendants First Data Corp., Vantiv Inc., and National Processing Company.

The plaintiffs say EPG illegally recorded the cold calls it made to California businesses, without those businesses knowledge or consent.

During these calls, the plaintiffs say EPG representatives discussed sensitive business matters with the call recipients. EPG telemarketers prompted businesses over the phone to divulge their monthly credit and debit card sales volume – ostensibly to get an idea of how valuable their business would be, the plaintiffs claim.

Due to the sensitive nature of that information, plaintiffs say they had a reasonable expectation of privacy during EPG’s telemarketing phone calls. Nevertheless, they claim EPG recorded this sensitive business information without disclosing the fact that they were recording.

“EPG never made any disclosure of any kind to any recipients of its calls that the calls were recorded,” the class action lawsuit states. “None of Plaintiffs were at all aware that their communications were being recorded.”

Plaintiffs say EPG purposely concealed the fact that it was recording their calls because, according to marketing research, sales targets are less likely to reveal their credit and debit card sales volume if they know the call is being recorded.

The class action lawsuit claims EPG stored its recordings of these calls using an internet-accessible cloud-based storage system provided by defendant Veracity Networks LLC.

The recordings allegedly continued even after EPG’s marketing targets became customers. EPG supposedly used these recordings internally to confirm that their telemarketers had successfully scheduled an in-person sales appointment during the call, the plaintiffs say.

In 2015, EPG sold its business operations to defendant Ironwood Financial. Plaintiffs say Ironwood allowed these recordings to continue without interruption.

The plaintiffs propose to represent a Class consisting of “[a]ll individuals or entities present in California whose confidential telephonic communications were recorded by Defendants” and a second Class consisting of Class Members whose “cellular telephone or cordless telephone communications” were recorded.

They are asking the court to enjoin the defendants from continuing to record phone calls in alleged violation of the California Invasion of Privacy Act. They are also asking for statutory damages in the amount of $5,000 per violation, plus court costs, attorneys’ fees, and other expenses.

The plaintiffs are represented by attorneys Myron M. Cherry, Jacie C. Zolna and Benjamin R. Swetland of Myron M. Cherry & Associates LLC.

The Wells Fargo Telemarketing Class Action Lawsuit is James Wang, et al. v. Wells Fargo Bank, et al., Case No. 1:16-cv-11223, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.