Foreign Currency Transaction Fees Lawsuit
Tuesday, November 14th, 2006
If you have traveled out of the country with your credit card at any time in your life, you might have noticed some extra fees on your statement for “foreign currency transactions.” If so, you might be entitled to receive at least a portion of that money back – even if those fees were put on your card ten years ago.
The lawsuit took five years to reach a verdict, with the plaintiffs alleging that they were charged a 1% fee as well as an additional 2% or 3% fee by the bank for having their currency converted into U.S. dollars. The lawsuit also alleged that the credit card companies failed to make the charges clear.
A hearing for the final judgment is set to take place this month. While you might be able to earn some of that cash back from your previous transactions, don’t count on avoiding these fees in the future. As a result of the lawsuit, credit card companies now make sure to list the currency exchange fee on their monthly statements as a separate item.
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April 8th, 2008 at 9:38 am
[...] The lawsuit is about the price cardholders of Visa-, MasterCard-, or Diners Club-branded payment cards were charged to make transactions in a foreign currency, or with a foreign merchant, between February 1, 1996 and November 8, 2006. Plaintiffs challenge how the prices of credit and debit/ATM card foreign transactions were set and disclosed, including claims that Visa, MasterCard, their member banks, and Diners Club conspired to set and conceal fees, typically of 1-3% of foreign transactions, and that Visa and MasterCard inflated their base exchange rates before applying these fees. The Defendants include Visa, MasterCard, Diners Club, Bank of America, Bank One/First USA, Chase, Citibank, MBNA, HSBC/Household, and Washington Mutual/Providian. They deny the Plaintiffs’ claims and say they have done nothing wrong, improper, or unlawful.” [...]