An Illinois homeowner has filed a class-action lawsuit against Wells Fargo & Co. that accuses the financial services company of falsely claiming that customers’ home values had declined significantly so it could freeze millions of dollars in home equity lines of credit (HELOC).

The suit, which was filed in the U.S. District court for the Northern District of Illinois, alleges that Wells Fargo unlawfully failed to accurately assess the value of customers’ homes before concluding that there had been a significant decline in property value.

“Even putting aside the fact that what they are doing is illegal, there’s no justification for denying people these secured credit lines in favor of unsecured high-interest credit cards,” attorney Jay Edelson said in a press release. His firm, KamberEdelson LLC, filed the suit and has previously filed similar class-action lawsuits against JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. over their respective HELOC account suspension practices. “This is the type of greed that led to taxpayers having to bail out banks like Wells Fargo in the first place.”

In a statement responding to the suit, Wells Fargo said it is “confident in our fair and responsible lending practices, including how we determine home equity credit limits available to customers depending on the amount of equity in their home.” Additionally, the company said, its lending practices are based on contractual and regulatory guidelines and include a fair appeals process.

“While we are beginning to review the lawsuit, from what we have read so far, it appears to mischaracterize credit controls designed to sustain homeownership,” the company said.

The class action suit was filed on behalf of Michael Hickman, 46, of Westmont, Ill., who alleges that the credit limit on his HELOC account was reduced due to a supposed substantial decline in the value of his home.

The complaint alleges that Hickman’s home and the homes of thousands of other class members did not substantially decline in value; rather, Wells Fargo used a variety of unreliable computer models to produce artificially deflated values. The suit further alleges that Wells Fargo failed to provide customers with proper notice of the reductions and that the bank improperly required customers to seek reinstatement by paying up front for their own property appraisals.

Following the reduction of Hickman’s HELOC credit limit, Wells Fargo offered to raise the limit available on one of his higher-interest credit cards, the suit claims.