CALIFORNIA – Californians have until April 11 to file a claim for up to $5,000 in a class action lawsuit against Wells Fargo and other defendants for violating the California Invasion of Privacy Act. 

California is a “two-party state” that requires a call recipient’s consent before a call can be recorded.

Although Wells Fargo and the other companies involved have not admitted any wrongdoing they agreed to a $19.5 million class action settlement to resolve the call recording allegations.

Appointment-setters never disclosed calls were being recorded

The suit claims that The Credit Wholesale Company, a vendor for Wells Fargo, secretly recorded calls with small businesses in California while selling credit and debit card services.

“Wholesale motivates its telemarketers by paying them a commission each time they successfully set a sales appointment. Fifty dollars per appointment is typical and it can add up,” according to the court document.

But the attorneys said that this posed a problem – if telemarketers can claim a commission just for setting a sales appointment, they are incentivized to exaggerate or even falsely claim that a merchant agreed to an appointment.

By recording all appointment-setting phone calls, Wholesale can audit a telemarketer’s claim for a commission by listening to the call.

“If a telemarketer does warn a call recipient that an unsolicited telemarketing call is being recorded, the call recipient frequently ends the call. So, Wholesale had a solution – don’t tell,” said the court document.

According to the suit, Wholesale never disclosed to the recipients of appointment-setting phone calls that those calls were recorded.

Claimants can get up to $5,000 per eligible call

Wells Fargo and the other defendants agreed to create a $19.5 million fund for Settlement Class Members.

Members who do not opt out can receive a cash payment for each call they received from Wholesale between October 22, 2014, and November 17, 2023.

The settlement provides for an estimated minimum payment of $86 for each eligible call received and could be as high as $5,000 per call.

Class members need to submit a claim by April 11 in order to be eligible to receive payment.

For more information visit https://www.callrecordingclassaction.com/, call 1-888-733-1544 or email [email protected]

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