An entrepreneur in Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, filed a civil lawsuit against her bank, alleging an “overzealous and racist” bank investigator caused her car dealership business to collapse. The investigator is being accused of falsely accusing the business owner of fraud and causing her creditors to sever ties.
Williams went into auto trade after dropping out of high school as a teenager. She would buy cars at a low price, fix them, and sell them to working-class people with no or bad credit, according to The Atlanta Black Star.
Williams, who had made $1 million in sales by March 2023, was eventually approached by Shazard Mohammed, the manager of a local M&T Bank branch. He told her he was interested in supporting her business and invited her to apply for a line of credit, according to the lawsuit she filed in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas.
Williams opened a bank account at M&T online, met with Mohammed, made initial deposits of $35,000 and applied for a $100,000 line of credit. A few days later, she went to access the funds on her account and discovered it was frozen while being denied access, per her lawsuit. Mohammed reportedly told her that her credit application was still in process, but did not say why her account was frozen.
Williams then found out that Hannah Gmeinder, an investigator at the bank, had initiated a fraud investigation into her business...
An entrepreneur in Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, filed a civil lawsuit against her bank, alleging an “overzealous and racist” bank investigator caused her car dealership business to collapse. The i...