Visa and Mastercard are preparing to pay a massive settlement to US bank customers over controversial ATM fees.
The settlement will resolve allegations that the payment giants conspired with JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and other unnamed lenders to keep ATM surcharges artificially high.
Specifically, Visa and Mastercard are accused of colluding with the banks to prevent other ATM payment networks from offering lower domestic fees. This allegedly reduced competition and forced people to pay higher fees when using ATMs that didn’t belong to their bank.
Plaintiffs say the alleged conspiracy violated federal antitrust laws designed to promote competition.
Direct notices of the settlement are now being sent to more than 100 million potential members of the class action suit, which includes US banking customers who paid unreimbursed ATM surcharges at bank-operated ATMs between October 1, 2007 and July 26th, 2024.
A final court approval on the settlement is expected at an upcoming hearing on January 23rd, and anyone who has not previously filed a claim in the case or who has additional ATM surcharge claims can do so here.
Last year, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Bank of America reached a settlement totaling $66.74 million to resolve their part in the lawsuit, without admitting wrongdoing.
The three banks were targeted because of their ATM transaction dominance and their roles in enforcing Visa and Mastercard’s Non-Discrimination Rules (NDRs), which allegedly played a central part in preventing ATM operators from charging lower fees via competing networks.
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