Wyndham Vacation Resorts No-Consent Credit Accounts Class Action

How would you feel if you attended a timeshare presentation, then found out that the presenting company had opened a credit card account in your name, without your request or permission? The complaint for this class action alleges that Wyndham Vacation Resorts, Inc. and Comenity Capital Bank use consumers’ personal information to institute credit card accounts or lines of credit in the names of people who did not request them.

The Nationwide Class for this action is all persons in the US, its territories, and the District of Columbia who received a Wyndham credit card or line of credit without their agreement, except for those who activated or registered the credit card or line of credit. A Missouri Class has also been defined.

In July 2020, Douglas and Suzanne Ashby sat for a sales presentation in Branson, Missouri, on timeshares from Wyndham Vacation Resorts, Inc. Credit accounts were not discussed.

The couple decided not to buy a property, but they did agree to use an existing credit card to buy Club Wyndham points they could use on future Club Wyndham vacations. A Wyndham representative asked for their driver’s licenses and social security numbers. When they asked what he needed them for, he said to get “the best deal.”

The agreement to purchase points did permit Wyndham to obtain credit information on them from a consumer reporting agency, but in the same document they also indicated that Wyndham could not share the information they’d given with its affiliates.

However, after they returned home, they received a credit alert and letters that “welcomed” them to a new Wyndham credit account, issued by Comenity Bank, with a $20,000 limit. The letters they received about “Your Vacation Club Credit Account” were dated the day after the presentation.

According to the complaint, this was not a one-off incident: “Wyndham engaged in a nation-wide practice of using consumers’ personal information to open credit cards or lines of credit without those consumers’ knowledge or permission.”

After the Ashbys protested to Comenity, the complaint says, “Comenity closed the accounts in August 2020, but not before it damaged the Ashbys’ credit.” When they complained again, in November 2020, the representative they spoke to claimed that they had agreed to the account.

The complaint reproduces other, similar complaints about Wyndham, unwanted credit cards, and damaged credit, from the CFPB database and the Better Business Bureau.

A former Wyndham employee tried to blow the whistle on the company, but she was fired. The complaint quotes her as saying that Wyndham would tell consumers to fill out paperwork in order to get lower interest rates, but that they “were actually applying for … credit cards … and being sold more points without their knowledge or permission. The credit card would not bill them for weeks and by then it was too late to rescind the purchase.”

Article Type: Lawsuit
Topic: Fraud
Tags: Credit Cards, FCRA, Fraud, TILA