By Lyle Moran
If your U.S. business accepted credit cards anytime from 2004 to 2019, you can receive your portion of the $5.5 billion dollar settlement. The signup period for the payout from Visa Mastercard has been given an extension until August 30.
Lawyers hope a court-approved extension of the claims filing deadline will provide time for resolution of conflicts and allow more business owners to file claims in the interchange fee case.
The 90-day extension from the original May 31 deadline was requested by counsel for the class of merchants and granted by a federal judge in the Eastern District of New York in mid-May. One reason the lawyers cited for seeking the extension was that there have been tens of thousands of instances where multiple parties have filed claims for the same business and more time was needed to resolve such conflicts. The attorneys also wanted to provide a chance for additional businesses to file claims and secure the monetary relief to which they are entitled under the court-approved settlement. The settlement partially resolved a long-running antitrust case in which the two credit card network giants were alleged to have overcharged merchants by exacting excessive interchange fees. Those so-called swipe fees are what a merchant pays to accept credit card or debit card payments from consumers. Visa and Mastercard didn’t admit to any wrongdoing in the case, which only pertained to civil matters. The class of merchants includes any U.S. businesses that accepted Visa and/or Mastercard credit or debit cards between Jan. 1, 2004 and Jan. 25, 2019.
The amount of money eligible businesses may receive from the settlement could range up to hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to a press release about the filing extension, depending on the merchants processing history. Class-action claim forms were sent to about 18.6 million merchants starting late last year. An official with the settlement administrator told the court in a May 14 declaration that the company had recently “sent out approximately 12 million reminder postcards over the span of two weeks to class members who had not yet registered or filed claims.”
“We really hope that merchants take advantage of the extra time that they have,” said Ryan Marth, a Robins Kaplan partner who is one of the co-lead counsel for the class of merchants. “This is real money for real businesses.” Marth said he could not provide a figure regarding the number of claims filed until after the claims period ends, the claims submitted have been validated and the data is submitted to the court. Sam Turner, co-owner of The Nicollet Diner, which is based in Minneapolis, said he filed a claim in the case several months ago.
The extension of the original deadline to file claims could give more businesses like his the chance to ensure they don’t leave money on the table, he said in an interview. “The deadline came up as we transitioned into summer, which is a very busy time, especially for a lot of restaurant owners, so it’s something that may have fallen by the wayside for a lot of them,” Turner said. “I think that anything that they can do to get more folks included that were impacted by this is a good thing.”
CCSalesPro CEO James Shepherd, a payments consultant, called the extension of the claims filing deadline “fantastic.” He said having as many merchants as possible file claims could help convey to Visa and Mastercard that business owners take the issue of excessive interchange fees seriously. “Getting a lot of small business owners to file for this sends a really strong message,” Shepherd said in an interview. “The message that we send back to Visa and Mastercard is, ‘don’t overcharge us. And its a Win-Win, since merchants get paid their own portion of the $5.5 Billion Dollar settlement expected to be paid by 2025."
If you have not signed up your business yet, U.S. Merchant Payment Solutions has partnered with one of the nation's top Class Action Suit Recovery law firms. Click on this link below, fill out the basic info, and then sign the Adobe Sign agreement in the email that will come shortly.
Merchants should sign up for the $5.4 Billion Dollar Visa Class Action Settlement here:
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