Wells Fargo and Customers Receive Preliminary Approval for $18M TCPA Class Action Settlement

Wells Fargo has received preliminary approval from an Illinois federal court to settle six Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) class action lawsuits.

The proposed class action settlement amounts to $17.85 million, and resolves TCPA lawsuits filed against the bank in California, Georgia, and Illinois in 2017 and 2018.

Auto Finance News reports that customers covered in the proposed settlement include some 440,000 people across the country who received robocalls advertising Wells Fargo’s goods and services between January 2013 and when the class action settlement received preliminary approval. 

The parties reportedly reached the deal in mediation. 

The customers expressed approval of the settlement deal, calling the terms “fair, reasonable, and adequate, and beneficial to and in the best interests of the class.” U.S. District Judge Manish S. Shah, who granted preliminary approval of the class action settlement, characterized the terms as “fair, adequate, and reasonable when balanced against the potential outcomes of further litigation.”

On the same day she gave the class action settlement preliminary approval, Judge Shah also certified the class of affected customers.

The Wells Fargo TCPA class action lawsuits began in January 2017 when the Northern Illinois complaints were filed. The most recent TCPA phone call class action covered in the Wells Fargo settlement was filed  in November 2018.

Customers claimed that they received spam calls from Wells Fargo with a pre-recorded voice. The calls were soliciting a range of the bank’s goods and services including credit cards, fraud alerts, mortgages, home equity loans, car loans and school loans, and thus violated the TCPA,  according to the complaints.

The TCPA is intended to protect individuals from having their privacy violated by bothersome phone calls. It also prohibits businesses from placing robocalls without the consent of the person to whom the call is directed, according to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

The plaintiffs in the class action said the robocalls violated the TCPA because they were placed without consent.

The Wells Fargo TCPA Class Action Lawsuits are Prather v. Wells Fargo Bank NA, Case No. 1:17-cv-00481, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois; Pieterson et al. v. Wells Fargo Bank NA, Case No. 3:17-cv-02306, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California; Bishop et al. v. Wells Fargo Bank, NA, Case No. 1:17-cv-01505, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia; Hastings et al. v. Wells Fargo Bank NA, Case No. 3:17-cv-03633, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California; Barnes et al. v. Wells Fargo Bank, NA, Case No. 3:18-cv-06520, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California; and Garr et al. v. Wells Fargo Bank NA, Case No. 3:18-cv-06997, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

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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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This article is not legal advice. It is presented
for informational purposes only.