One of the largest banks in the US is preparing to pay millions of dollars to settle allegations that it bombarded thousands of people with illegal robocalls.
A federal judge in North Carolina has preliminarily approved a $4.1 million class action settlement between Truist Bank and cellphone users who say they were hit with the unwanted calls, reports The Charlotte Observer.
-->The lawsuit against Truist was filed by a class of 5,998 people with Kevin Truong, a resident of Texas, serving as the lead plaintiff.
Truong says he received at least 35 robocalls from Truist Bank between September 14th and December 31st of 2021.
According to the complaint, Truong was neither a customer of the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank, nor had he consented to receiving the calls.
“These calls injured Plaintiff by invading his privacy, interfering with his cellular telephone, and wasting his time.”
The suit alleges the robocalls, which originated from call centers and were intended to locate or collect payments from the bank’s customers, violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991.
Among other things, the Act prohibits making robocalls to a “cellular telephone service” or “initiating any call to a residential telephone line using an APV [artificial or prerecorded voice] to deliver a message without the consent of the called party.”
While Truist Bank denies liability in the lawsuit, it has agreed to settle to avoid the expenses and uncertainty associated with a lengthy trial. Class members could each receive approximately $440, per the report.
As of December 31st of 2024, Truist Bank had a little over $523 billion in total assets, according to the Federal Reserve.
