Wells Fargo-Financed Window Company Hit with Scathing Fraud Class Action

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A husband and wife are the named plaintiffs in a proposed class action that alleges they and others were the victims of allegedly deceptive, fraudulent, and high-pressure practices related to defendant Wells Fargo’s financing of co-defendant The Window Source, LLC’s business operations.

The plaintiffs’ allegations are succinctly summed up early in the complaint:

“To put it bluntly: the products, the sales, practices, the referral-program, and especially, the financing-scheme devised and perpetuated by the defendants is a fraud and a scam,” the lawsuit scathes.

According to the lawsuit, the Window Source’s in-home sales people, using “incredibly and unconscionably high-pressure” tactics, promise prospective customers that they’ll see immediate savings on their monthly energy costs after installing the defendants’ products. These savings, the plaintiffs argue, are grossly misrepresented, as are the promised increases in the appraisal value of would-be customers’ homes. What’s more, when it comes to the actual prices of the defendants’ products, the plaintiffs wage weary customers are hit with nothing more than a bait-and-switch scheme during seemingly never-ending in-home sales appointments (emphasis ours):

“The actual price of the products offered by The Window Source is not consistent. The sales force of The Window Source, who often refuses to leave prospective customers’ homes (despite these in-home appointments regularly running past 10 P.M.) until the defendants’ sales agreement is signed, plays fraudulent games regarding the prices of its products and service,” the case claims.

The plaintiff say these deceptive in-home sales sessions go down as follows:

“The sales representatives for The Window source regularly call their ‘supervisors’ to obtain special, for-you-only, one-night-only, so-called ‘special savings.’ The elaborate design around this deception and fraud is consistent with the overall business practices of the defendants, as it relates to the sales, advertising, and (deceptive, concealed) financing of The Window Source products, and even the products themselves.”

And where does Wells Fargo fit into the case?

The lawsuit predictably alleges the financing for purchases from The Window Source, ostensibly like the company’s overall business practices, are fraudulent and deceptive. At specific issue, the complaint continues, is the financing relationship between Wells Fargo and The Window Source, which allegedly lead customers to believe that they’re applying for a “traditional, closed-end loan” for only the amount of “the ever-shifting price quote” received from sales reps. Here’s where the plaintiffs allege Wells Fargo exerts its expertise:

“In fact, the defendants, without any authorization or agreement from their customers, sign their customers up for what turns out to be a Visa Home Projects credit card, issued by Wells Fargo,” the lawsuit alleges. “As a standard practice, The Window Source’s sales force completes all paperwork that is executed during these late-night, in-home appointments, and then simply gets the customers to sign the paperwork that was filled out by The Window Source sales representative.”