Wells Fargo Robocall Lawsuit Says Bank Intended to Harass

A Minnesota woman’s Wells Fargo robocall lawsuit alleges the bank violated federal law by repeatedly calling her after she asked it to stop calling.

Plaintiff Kyra D. claims defendant Wells Fargo Bank persisted in harassing her with repeated and unwelcome calls on her mobile phone.

Kyra says behavior like this violates the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act, or TCPA.

According to her Wells Fargo robocall lawsuit, Wells Fargo started calling Kyra after she fell behind on her student loan payments.

She had taken out six such loans between 2005 and 2008. Though she intended to pay them off as soon as she could, the financial burden became greater than she could bear, she alleges.

Once Kyra fell behind on her payments, Wells Fargo started calling. Kyra says she received calls at an excessive rate, sometimes as often as five to seven times per day.

She says the bank also sent her unsolicited text messages demanding payment or offering her other banking services.

Kyra believes Wells Fargo used an automated telephone dialing system to place these calls. She says that sometimes when she picked up the phone, there was no human representative on the other end. On other occasions, she would hear a prerecorded message telling her the call was about her student loans.

Kyra says she never gave Wells Fargo her prior express consent to contact her in this way. In fact, she says she never gave the bank her mobile phone number – neither when she applied for her student loans nor at any other time, she claims.

In her Wells Fargo robocall lawsuit, Kyra says she repeatedly asked Wells Fargo to stop calling her. She says she told the bank she was already making the maximum payments she could afford and that she intended to keep doing so.

She asked the bank if it offered an income-based repayment but was told flatly that there is no such thing as income-based repayment for private loans.

Due to the frequency of the calls and the way Wells Fargo allegedly ignored her requests to stop, Kyra says the bank clearly placed these calls with a direct intention of harassing her.

Using the TCPA in a Wells Fargo Robocall Lawsuit

Kyra is raising a claim under the TCPA, a federal law passed to punish certain types of insistent phone calls. The law was originally passed in 1991 to curb unwanted telemarketing calls on land lines.

Since then, new amendments to the law and interpretations by the FCC have expanded the law’s prohibitions to cover calls and SMS text messaging sent to mobile phone lines.

Damages under the TCPA can amount to $500 per violation. Those damages can increase to three times that amount if the plaintiff can show the violations were made knowingly or willfully.

In addition to her TCPA claim, Kyra also includes a common law claim for invasion of privacy by intrusion upon seclusion. She is seeking a damage award including applicable statutory damages, injunctive relief, and court costs.

The Wells Fargo Robocall Lawsuit is Case No.0:16-cv-04051 filed in Scott County District Court for the State of Minnesota.

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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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