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Hundreds of thousands snared by Wells Fargo auto loan scam, victims are entitled to monetary compensation

Marc Dann

By

Wells Fargo

Look up the word “scam” in the dictionary these days and you just might find the Wells Fargo logo. The giant lender, already accused of cheating homeowners in bankruptcy and creating fraudulent credit card and bank accounts for millions of unsuspecting customers, has now been caught charging people who took out car loans for insurance they didn’t need.

According to media reports more than 800,000 people were charged for insurance they did not need. Charges for the insurance, which were often deducted directly from customers’ bank accounts, forced 274,000 borrowers into delinquency and resulted in almost 25,000 wrongful vehicle repossessions. Members of the military on active duty were among the victims of WF’s latest scam.

Wells Fargo will soon begin sending out letters to customers who have been caught up in the auto insurance scam. Along with the letter, borrowers will be offered a settlement of approximately $140. Those whose cars were possessed illegally will be offered $800. Both amounts are laughably low and fall far short of compensating victims for the harm done to their credit rating, the premiums they paid for insurance they neither wanted nor needed, the embarrassment caused by vehicle repossession, and the bank’s utter negligence and unethical behavior.

If you or someone you know receives a letter and a check from Wells Fargo do not cash it or sign the settlement agreement that may be attached to it. Instead, you should immediately call 216-373-0539 oremail the experienced attorneys at the Dann Law firm to schedule a no-cost consultation. We’ll review your loan documents and if we learn you’ve been cheated we’ll begin fighting for the money you need and deserve.

If you do not receive a letter and a check but have taken out a Wells Fargo car loan in the past ten years you should contact us. That’s because the company obviously can’t be trusted to do the right thing and may not reach out to every customer who has been scammed. Our free review is the sure way to establish if you’re entitled to monetary compensation.

And here’s an important note: we’ll also conduct a free review of your Wells Fargo mortgage that will enable us to determine if the bank is cheating you. If that’s the case you may be entitled to a substantial cash award.

The New York Times recently published a comprehensive report about the car insurance scam. You may read it here. In the meantime, please contact us at once at 216-373-0539 or via email to arrange a free consultation if you obtained a car loan through Wells Fargo in the past ten years. We’re ready to fight for justice and the compensation you deserve.

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Attorney at Law Magazine, Cleveland Edition - Marc Dann

Anyone who knows Marc Dann: clients, colleagues, opposing counsel, judges, reporters, is well aware of what he does for a living. But only the members of his family and closest friends truly understood why he does what he does.

Until today. That’s because the “Attorney of the Month” article about Marc that appears in the latest edition of Attorney at Law magazine delves into the influences that shaped his remarkable legal career and led him to eschew life as a partner in a “tall building” law firm for an office in a strip plaza with a waiting room overflowing with “regular, working-class people” who needed his help.

The article traces his life in the law from his first job as director of the anti-trust division in the office of the West Virginia AG, through his tenure as a crusading Ohio state senator and attorney general, to his current position: one of the nation’s most successful and innovative consumer protection and foreclosure defense attorneys.

You may access the entire article here. It’s well worth the click…

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McDonalds

Lawsuit claims restaurant chain’s website and mobile app are not fully accessible to and independently usable by the blind or visually-impaired.

CHICAGO, April 25, 2017 —The Manning Law Firm of Newport Beach California has joined with former Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann of the Dann Law Firm to file suit in federal court alleging that the McDonald’s restaurant chain is in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act (UCRA). The suit was filed because the company’s website and mobile app are not fully accessible to or independently usable by people who are blind or visually impaired. The action was filed on behalf of Sean Gorecki, a legally blind California resident who, despite numerous attempts, has been unable to access goods and services regularly offered on McDonald’s website and/or mobile app that are readily available to the non-visually impaired.

The Case, Sean Gorecki vs. McDonald’s Corporation, Case No. 1:17-cv-03036, was filed in The United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division because McDonald’s is headquartered in Oak Brook, Illinois. Among other remedies, the suit seeks a permanent injunction ordering McDonald’s to make its website and mobile app readily accessible to and usable by blind and visually-impaired individuals.

“McDonald’s could easily make the legally-required accommodations called for in the suit,” Atty. Dann said. “Every day thousands of blind and visually impaired people, including Mr. Gorecki, use screen reader software programs like Job Access With Speech (JAWS) for Windows devices or Apple’s VoiceOver to access websites and apps. But in order to function properly, the information on a website or app must be formatted so the screen reader can render it into meaningful text. Numerous companies have built that capability into their sites and apps. McDonald’s has chosen not to do so. That’s an unfortunate business decision and, we contend, a clear violation of the ADA and the UCRA.”

“The Department of Justice and case law, including National Federation of the Blind v Target Corp., establish that websites and apps belonging to private companies fall within the ADA’s accessibility requirements,” Atty. Manning noted. “The NFB v Target case is compelling because after denying wrongdoing, Target began working with the NFB to ensure that blind and visually impaired consumers had equal access to products and information on Target.com. As a result, the case was settled, Target received Gold Level NFB-NVA Certification and the company is now recognized as a leader in web accessibility.”

“The settlement was a win for the blind and visually impaired and for Target,” Manning commented. “Mr. Gorecki, I, and the other members of his legal team believe we can achieve a similar outcome in our case.”

The numerous problems Mr. Gorecki encountered when attempting to access McDonalds.com and the company’s mobile app to purchase goods and services include:

  • The home page has graphics, links, and buttons that are not labeled or are incorrectly labeled, or lack alternative text (“Alt-text”).
  • The Nutrition Calculator does not add items to the meal when a screen-reader user selects “add”, and the values for the Nutrition Calculator are not clear.
  • There are several links throughout the website that say “void (0).”
  • The menus and sub menus have redundant coding that causes screen-readers to repeatedly state “menu sub-menu.”
  • Finding a location is not fully accessible due to the structure of the headings and the constant pop-up to urge the screen-reader user to enter e-mail and zip code to sign up for the mailing list.
  • The website is structured in a confusing manner for screen-readers

“McDonald’s knows these deficiencies exist, but they’ve elected not to address them so Mr. Gorecki was left with no other recourse than to assert his rights under the ADA and the UCRA,” Dann said.

In order to address the issues and bring the company into compliance with the law, the suit asks the court to order McDonald’s to make its website and app accessible to the blind and visually impaired, regularly check the performance of both platforms, conduct end-user accessibility tests, and develop an accessibility policy as well as a process for reporting and resolving accessibility-related issues.

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Bath & Body Works

On April 26 I announced that the Dann Law Firm and California-based Manning Law Firm of Newport Beach had filed suit in federal court alleging that the McDonald’s restaurant chain is in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act because the company’s website and mobile app are not fully accessible to or independently usable by people who are blind or visually impaired. Since then Dann Law Firm has filed similar actions against GrubHub, the online food delivery service, as well as Bath and Body Works and DSW.

I’d like to take credit for being the one who recognized the need to bring these suits on behalf of the blind and the visually impaired, but I can’t. The credit goes to Emily White, the managing partner of our Columbus office and director of our disability law department who made the following observations:

  • People with disabilities aren’t just people with disabilities, they’re also consumers who have billions of dollars to spend;
  • The explosive growth in e-commerce—224 million Americans are expected to spend nearly $400 billion online this year–is generating a concurrent increase in the number of people with disabilities who are finding it difficult if not impossible to buy goods and services online.
  • Those difficulties may represent violations of the ADA and other laws designed to protect the rights of persons with disabilities;
  • The companies violating those laws should have the hell sued out of them;
  • Our firm should do the suing.

Not only was she right, she changed my entire perspective on persons with disability and the law. Before she educated me I had always viewed disability law as a critically important area of practice—but one that was totally separate and removed from consumer law which has always been the primary focus of our firm. Once she explained the nexus between the two I was convinced that we should begin holding companies that refuse to make their e-commerce platforms accessible accountable for their actions.

So we sued McDonald’s, GrubHub, Bath and Body Works, and DSW–and we’re prepared to take action against other companies that ignore the law and make it difficult if not impossible for the blind and visually impaired to engage in e-commerce.

I’m extremely proud of and energized by the work we’re doing in this field and I’m pleased that the media, including Chicago’s Channel 5, is paying attention to this rapidly expanding area of the law. I was happy to help them put the story together because media scrutiny will raise awareness about the critically important issue of disability rights and that, in turn, may motivate companies to do the right thing and break down the virtual barriers they’ve erected on their e-commerce platforms. But until they do so, we’ll continue to use the law and the courts to ensure that persons with disabilities have the opportunity to do what millions of Americans do every day: shop online.