Judge gives initial approval to $29.5M Citibank robocall settlement

Update: 

• An Arizona federal judge gave initial approval to a $29.5 million settlement between Citibank and a group of people who are not customers of the bank but who accused the company of robocalling them without consent.
• Judge Roslyn O. Silver greenlit the deal Aug. 7, stating it was fair, reasonable and adequate.
• Several hundred thousand noncustomers who received an autodialed call from Citibank about a past-due credit card account since Aug. 15, 2014, are set to benefit from the settlement. 
• The lawsuit accusing Citibank of violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act was first filed in 2018. Each class member will get a cash payment estimated to be between $350 and $850, the order states. 

Citibank TCPA violations class action lawsuit overview:

• Who: A group of people who sued Citibank over robocalling them without consent have had their case certified.
• Why: U.S. District Judge Roslyn O. Silver rejected Citibank’s argument that there was no way to determine the class members’ individual consent through a class action lawsuit.
• Where: The case is pending in district court in Arizona.

(Feb. 02, 2022)

A group of people accusing Citibank of robocalling them without consent, and who are also not customers of the bank, have been granted certification in their class action lawsuit.

U.S. District Judge Roslyn O. Silver rejected Citibank’s argument that there was no way to determine the class members’ individual consent through a class action lawsuit, ruling that the argument’s of lead Plaintiff Christine Head and case law persuaded her that “individualized issues of consent can be overcome without resort to a series of minitrials.”

She ruled that Head’s claims, asserting violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, were not only “typical of the class, they are largely identical.”

Citibank attempts debt collection with wrong numbers, robocalls

“Ultimately, the basic questions in this case are the same for all class members: Did Citibank call a putative class member without authorization? And, did a prerecorded or artificial voice play during the call?” Silver wrote. “If the answer to both questions is yes — and all evidence indicates that it will be yes for many putative class members — recovery is appropriate. Precedent … demonstrates these questions can be litigated as a class.”

In her class action lawsuit, Head accused Citibank of making artificial or prerecorded calls to her and possibly more than a million other people who were not Citibank customers.

She says that Citibank placed more than 100 robocalls to her cell phone number between October and December 2017 regarding the overdue credit account of a man named Jack Bingham.

“Head does not know Bingham and did not authorize him or anyone else to open a Citibank account using her cellphone number,” the claim says.

In its argument against certification, Citibank also told Silver that Head had failed to identify others who had an experience like hers. However, Silver rejected that argument and the bank’s bid to exclude the testimony of Head’s expert witness.

Head said that as Citibank “does not deny” that it places billions of robocalls each year about overdue debts, and that millions of its accounts are marked as being a “wrong” number, “it seems virtually impossible that Citibank has not robocalled at least 40 different persons whom Citibank did not have authorization to call.”

Head’s lawyer, Matthew Wilson of Meyer Wilson Co. LPA, told Law360 that his firm and other class representatives were gratified by the federal judge’s ruling.

“Can you imagine getting dozens of prerecorded debt collection calls from a huge bank — for somebody else’s debt?” he said. “That’s what happened to Chrissy Head here, who never even had a Citibank account. It appears to have happened to lots of other people, too.”

According to an October 2021 class action lawsuit, Citibank has also failed to pay interest on escrow accounts, in violation of its mortgage agreement. Lead plaintiffs in the case, Glenn and Kim Greenberg, say Citibank fails to pay the legally required two percent interest, “while enriching itself on the free use of the funds paid into the escrow account by plaintiffs.”

Join a Wrong Number Prerecorded Message Debt Collector Lawsuit Investigation (links to paid attorney advertising).

Head is represented by Matthew R. Wilson and Michael J. Boyle Jr. of Meyer Wilson Co. LPA and Michael L. Greenwald and Aaron D. Radbil of Greenwald Davidson Radbil PLLC.

Citigroup is represented by John G. Kerkorian, Daniel JT McKenna and Matthew A. Morr of Ballard Spahr LLP.

The Citibank TCPA violations class action lawsuit is Head v. Citigroup Inc., Case No. 3:18-cv-08189, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona.

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