Repossessed Vehicles Settlement with WFS Approved
We are pleased that a class action settlement against WFS Financial Ltd. was finally approved last week by San Joaquin County Superior Court Judge Carter Holly. The settlement affects persons who vehicles were repossessed and sold by WFS, and who received certain forms of WFS's post-repossession Notices of Intent to Dispose (NOIs).
We posted the news of Judge Holly's preliminary settlement approval in July. Since then, more than 6,000 class members were sent Class Action Notices that allowed them to object to the settlement or opt out. Nearly 1,500 of those class members had made post-repossession deficiency payments to WFS and were sent Claim Forms that allowed them to get all of that money back.
Judge Holly's approval of the Settlement Agreement requires WFS to mail cash payments to all class members who submitted timely Claim Forms. It also requires WFS to stop collecting any deficiency balances from class members, to update its records to reflect an account balance of zero, and to electronically instruct Equifax, Experian and TransUnion to delete the tradelines associated with all of the class members' WFS accounts. That means that class members with poor credit reports due to WFS's tradeline will have that tradeline removed from their credit reports.
WFS must stop collecting against class members and instruct the credit reporting agencies to delete its tradeline by January 2, 2008 and must mail the cash payments to class members by January 7, 2008.
The judgment is final as to all class members except 143 people, to whom WFS said it mistakenly sent Class Action Notices without Claim Forms. Those persons made post-repossession payments to WFS and will be re-sent Notice with Claim Forms so they will have an opportunity to get their money back.
No one objected to the settlement, and only one class member asked to be excluded. Several class members came to the final approval hearing and were pleased that the settlement was approved.
