Kimmykim

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Class Action Lawsuit Filed
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Posted Tuesday, May 20, 2003

It was announced today that a Merchant 911 member, also an attorney, has filed a class action lawsuit naming Visa, Mastercard, AmEx and Discover. The class action suit charges the defendants with violation of several Federal Laws including anti-Racketeering laws. All Merchant 911 members, as well as other e-commerce or MO/TO Merchants are invited to join the litigation.

Below is the text of the Law Firm's official Press Release ...

The Triangle Law Center, PLLC, a North Carolina based law firm, announced that it commenced a class action lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina on behalf of all Internet, telephone and mail order merchants against Visa U.S.A., Inc., MasterCard International, Inc., American Express Company and Discover Financial Services, Inc (collectively, the "Defendants"). A copy of the complaint filed in this action is available from the Court.

The action, numbered 5:03-CV-372-BO(3), is pending in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina located at 310 New Bern Avenue in Raleigh, North Carolina. The Honorable Terrence W. Boyle is the Judge presiding over the case. To join this class action litigation as a plaintiff or for further information, please call Mark W. Ishman, Esq.
at (919) 942-1410 or e-mail [email protected] or join the class online at www.ishmanlaw.com.

The complaint charges that Visa, MasterCard and their co-conspirators (i.e., their issuing and acquiring banks) violated Section 1962(c) and 1962(d) of the Racketeering Influence and Corrupt Organizations Act, Section 16 of the Clayton Act, Section 2(a) of the Robinson-Patman Act and other unlawful business practice violations by conspiring to commit fraud and theft
through means of wire and mail when processing merchants' Internet, telephone and mail order transactions. The complaint alleges that the Defendants breached their contract, their implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, duty of care and fiduciary duty as a banking institution by failing to take appropriate measures in addressing fraud and theft in the Internet, telephone and mail order industry. The complaint further alleges that Visa and MasterCard failed to disclose certain supra competitive transactional and penalty fees to Internet, telephone and mail order merchants and forced such merchants to pay such supra competitive fees with the abuse of their monopolistic powers.

Moreover, many of these supra competitive fees were only stated in their unpublished rules and regulations, which were never disclosed to merchants at the time of contracting. Furthermore, the complaint alleges that in "cybershoplifting" scenarios, there are virtually no set of facts or documentation in which an Internet, telephone and mail order merchant could argue to prevent Defendants from debiting penalty fees from their merchant accounts. As a result of these unlawful acts, according to the complaint, Internet, telephone and mail order merchants have paid virtually all of the costs associated with fraud and theft in their industry while Defendants made millions of dollars from their supra competitive transactional and penalty fees.

If you wish to join the litigation or to discuss your rights or interests regarding this class action, please contact plaintiffs' counsel, Mark W. Ishman, Esq. of the Triangle Law Center at (919) 942-1410 or via e-mail at [email protected]. You can also join this class action online at www.ishmanlaw.com.

The Triangle Law Center www.ishmanlaw.com has expertise in representing high tech, Internet based companies. The Triangle Law Center represents clients throughout the nation and world, concentrating its practice in Internet, Intellectual Property and Business law.

FlyingIguana

took long enough for this to happen. i thought all these companies just enjoyed getting ass fucked by the credit card companies.

hopefully this can help stop the fraud against websites.

TheFLY

Woohoo this is good news...

OzKaNoz

Wow

Oz

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TheFLY

I wonder who will get wacked.

mrsexkey

This was just a matter of time once Mastercard and Visa settled their suit with Walmart and Sears. Hopefully now they will pay for the shit that they have been pulling on the adult industry for the past few years.

KRL

Yeh real great let's fuckup and financially bury Mastercard and Visa so a bunch of lawyers can get rich and we'll get stuck with all the costs as will consumers with the pass thru which is what all companies do or they go bellyup.

Yeh bite the hand that feeds us. Real smart logic.

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BJ

Mutt

wow, this is a great lawsuit. Internet merchants have taken it up the ass from VISA/MC bad, basically promoting and advertising to the public to commit fraud against Internet merchants, just get used to buying shit online, these Internet pioneers will foot the bill until we get off our asses and make it work right.

i think this is going to be a successful lawsuit.

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Rick Latona

Go get 'em!

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FlyingIguana

they've been biting us for years. its time to bite back.

angelsofporn

second that

Snake Doctor

I disagree with you on that one.
This case will never make its way to a jury IMO, so I doubt there will be punitive damages of the sort that could hurt one of the companies listed in the suit.

Dollars to donuts this gets settled out of court, with the biggest part of the settlement being rules changes that affect how we do business for the better. Hopefully we'll get put on a level playing field with all other merchants.

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flyingco

Very unlikely going happen. I will concur it will not make it to the jury round. At the rate lawsuits are flying all over the place you would have thought VISA/MASTERCARD would have learned something from now; but apparently they still do business the way they do; they need a change of directors on all levels for sure.

-Nato

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NETbilling

http://gofuckyourself.com/showthread...hreadid=135659

I posted it last night.

Mitch

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Why

interesting outlook.

KRL

I'm sick of all these pricks to be honest with you. They've been the most difficult component of my online ventures since the Net started. Its always something with these guys.

I'm working on developing some new systems that will eventually create a more direct connection between buyer and seller without the need for processors. Still lots to do, but the plan is very promising.

But until then we have to deal with these processors, so like I said above, the idea should be for improvement not destruction.

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Kimmykim

Perhaps some of you don't realize this lawsuit was NOT filed by a porn company or an IPSP.

This is just an average Joe Internet Merchant situation.

Everyone is tired of the heavy handed bullshit and hidden rules that can be invoked retroactively at the drop of a hat.

I don't know of any IPSP that doesn't want to play by the rules.

BUT, you do not change the rules in the middle of every fucking inning, in order for the home team to keep on scoring.

FlyingIguana

this is the only way to get improvement when you're dealing with a monopoly.

jimmyf

Nope there shit DON't stink, at least until Wal Mart, Home Depot and other big main stream guys proved it does.

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graphicdude

This will likely be only a small bump for credit card companys if at all. It would take a LARGE class action or new federal regulations to stop the BS they pull with online vendors.

But it is a start... IMHO

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John3

So will Epassport be joining the class action?

Kimmykim

ePassporte would not qualify for the class action I don't believe, it's only been operational since January and has not experienced any of these issues as of yet. Nor do we expect it to do so.

Epoch on the other hand, would be a likely candidate.

$tandaman

That's just excellent news, this was bound to happen at some point, it always has in the past.

CC's are fucking themselves with their actions, while fucking many other industries.

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John3

That's the way I see it, too.



I could take that one step further, but I'll email or ICQ you with that . . .

Cassie

from what i saw from the article that kimmy posted, it's not a direct reference on the adult biz (unless i missed something) which is good in a sense for it would give these companies no, direct ammo for pulling out of the adult industry.

with an action like this, if they wanted to play fair (and yes that is stretching it quite a bit) then they would have to pull out of mainstream as well or they could just reimburse those of us who paid these bs charges and get on with business.

finally after 3 years, someone with clout is finally putting their foot down and taking a stand.

mastercard had (or may still have) a hush hush policy whereas a customer was/is permitted only TWO chargebacks a year from their account. any additional chargebacks would be declined. i have a friend with paysites where the same customer charged back four different times in one year. i gave that info to my friend and that person called their merchant services and provided them with this info. then a call to mastercard was made and believe it or not, the additional two chargebacks were reversed AND all fees incurred with the chargeback were reversed as well.

this is the type of stuff that these companies do not want the merchant to know cause these companies make money off of your loss!

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magicmike

Exactly, the more lawsuits like this that come up, or the more companies that join in a class action eventually they'll have to start paying attention...

hopefully.

Good to see anyways.

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jimmyf

I saw it right away Kimmykim.

I said when Amex quit letting people use there card for Porn because of the Fraud, well if they can cheat you with Porn,
what are the cheats going to do? Just cheat you with other things.
I really think that is the Problem with Visa and MasterCard, they just found away **they thought** to recoup some of
the fraud.

These pricks need to take it in the short's big time. The only way to get a lot people's attention is the pocket book the
only way.

I see them settling in the next 3 to 5 years all combined 15 Billion.
And that's a Min.

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John3

If that's true, it's news to me.

OzKaNoz

Really it's about time.
Maybe someone can also do something about all the BullShit charges Banks lay on people too.

I mean come on, they charge $2 to pull out $10 out of a ATM.

Sorry off topic but I am really pissed at my bank.

Oz

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Cassie

would be news to lots of people. i found this info out thru an aquaintance who worked for amex. all cc companies are required to have a copy of each other's policies so that they can work within corporate guidelines and this is the infomation she had. this policy is completely non disclosed (or the policy of past if it has been changed since this time last year).

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psyko514

it's not exactly a policy. it's a suggestion.

legally, a customer has the right to dispute any charge, despite the number of times he's done it in the past.

MC/Visa/Amex cannot refuse to do a dispute. What they do is advise the customer to deal with the merchant directly. If the customer insists on disputing with the CC company, they are legally obligated to fulfill the request. But they can also close the account at the same time.

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SleazyDream

when ATMs first appeared in canada they were free to use. the idea was that it was cheaper to use an atm than a person teller.

then they started charging $1.00 per transaction. but you got free transactions at your own home bank. suddenly this was limited to only 10-20 transactions per month at your bank.

suddenly it was $1.25 - only a quarter but a 25% increase in profits with the stroke of a pen. then overnight it was $1.50.

Then the ATMs started to charge an ADDITIONAL $1.50 on TOP of the $1.50 to use an atm that wasn't you bank.

then suddenly atms that USED to be the atms of major banks suddenly had different names on them so they could charge EVERYONE the $1.50 fee PLUS the interac $1.50 fee on withdrawls.

then limits got decreased on these (non bank- owned by banks) ATMS to $200 per day - so they they could charge you for more withdrawls if you needed $500 or such.....

it's getting worse and worse every day - now it's just easier and cheaper to get cash from my bank teller. - what they wanted me to avoid doing in the first place.

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psyko514

Say you have a TD bank card and you go to a ScotiaBank machine to withdraw money.
ScotiaBank charges you a fee as they are providing a service to you that they have no obligation to provide. They also charge a fee to your bank for providing this service this you. Your bank passes the fee down to you.

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SleazyDream

ummm - as a canadian chartered bank (given fed gov't insurance on deposits) and a member of interac they ARE LEGALLY obligated to provide that service.......

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psyko514

you're right about interac, however i'm not sure that they have to provide the service just because they're a cdn chartered bank.

it costs them money, and they pass the cost on to you. as simple as that.

i work for the bank. i get discounts on mortgages, insurance, loans, etc. i also get free banking. the only banking fees i pay are for using my card at another bank.

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chodadog

Do you suggest that the processors just bend over, and take it? These credit card companies have an incredible amount of control. If they're breaking the rules, somebody needs to put them in check. Or would you prefer that they continue fucking the processors, and you (indirectly)? What about when the chargeback % gets lowered to 0.5%?

I think these lawsuits are needed. Kudos to the plaintiffs!

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UnseenWorld

OR, the CC companies will limit themselves to face-to-face sales, in which case Internet businesses will be *fucked*!

I have a friend who was so glad that "those bastards at such and such company are getting sued. I hope they are forced out of business!" My response was, "In that case, I hope your grandmother's retirement fund is heavily invested in that company so that I can say 'Be careful what you wish for.'"

This doesn't even get into the grief of the employees of the company who don't get raises, are forced to work longer hours or to do more work in the same time or even get fired.

Unfortunately, whatever you do has unintended consequences.

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Kimmykim

OMG you make the entire Canadian ATM industry sound like one giant Vegas strip club ;)

HardProfits

Instead of being a sideliner, I have sent my request into Mark W. Ishman (Attorney at Law) and asked to join the class action suit

People, this is a cause worth fighting for. If you have the money, then dont wait for someone else to do the work for you

And even though I do not use PayCom, I would probably (of asked) join them in a class action as well

Our industry is being attacked from all angles, and finally people like Chris and his team have said enough is enough

Here Here PayCom - Here Here

SleazyDream

just as banks are required to cash other banks checks - interac is the same in canada.
you bank already gets the $1.50 fee - or part of it - to cover the transaction cost. the ADDITIONAL $1.50 is STRAIGHT PROFIT.

I have friends on the board of directors of local credit unions, scarry but the MOST PROFITABLE thning they have right now is their ATMs - and they don't even charge as much as a bank does for use of them. they make more profit from the atms then loans, investments or other banking fees. think about it - $3 charge on a $40 withdrawl (the average withdrawl size) - there are no other banking fees that high - that's 7% PER TRANSACTION.

I say again - ATM NET banks about 7% per transaction.

next thing you'll see is a major bank charging you for withdrawing money from any ATM other than your home branch. mark my words there. They are WORSE than fucking loansharks

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Snake Doctor

The whole atm fee thing has been something that consumer advocacy groups have been screaming about for a long time. (read: Ralph Nader)

When banks first came out with ATM's, they sold their boards of directors on the capital expenditure with the explanation that they would recoup the costs through savings in teller labor, and the 24 hour banking would give them a competitive edge.

I have a pretty good deal going where I bank, I get free checking, no fees, no per check, none of that shit. And ATM transactions are free so long as I use one of my banks ATM's. (And there's enough of those around that its not often I have to use another bank's)

But when I do use another bank's, I get hit with 3.50 (2 for the bank that owns the ATM and 1.5 for my bank) That really sucks.
I know alot of people who pay $20+ per month in ATM fees.

I'm sure there will be a class action suit over this before its all said and done. You can laugh if you want but Nader sued the airlines for keeping him on hold for hours and won.

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iroc409

my bank has this nice check card "gold".. they give you a bunch of crazy insurance and crap with it, but the nice thing is no foreign atm charges. it's like $5 a month or something, but it'd be worth it if i start traveling more. they're fairly nationwide... but not completely. and going somewhere conveinient and getting slapped for $3.50 sucks. but what exactly do you have for choice? they do it because they can. and we suck it down happily.


same way with online payments.. *cough* charging you $5 just to put money into your account. not only that, but you can only deposit in $50 increments. i wanted to open an account the other day, and pay for something for $50. but, i'd have to put $100 in to pay for it, and i really didn't see the sense in depositing an extra $45 for a service i don't use that much (at the moment). you already get the transaction fees, why jab with the fees to deposit and withdrawal?


but, again, what choice do i have?

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Paul Markham

That's the only way to stop these banks, take a few minutes and go get in a line. If everyone boycotted the ATMs the banks would be full of very angry people.

Wait and see how long it takes before FREE ATM withdrawals returned.

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KRL

They will just find another way to fuck us in the ass. Bankers, and MC/VISA are in business to rape and pillage.

Think about how fucking stupid it really really is that after working so hard for a paycheck or a profit, like fucking sheep people rush to the bank on Friday to give their money to someone else to hold and keep.

Bankers are greedy crooks like lawyers. They get away with financial murder every day.

I just wish everyone would go the bank all at once and try withdrawing your money. Only then would the banker's scam be revealed.

You think your money is really there? Guess again.

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iroc409

lol.. are you sure you want to encourage everyone to make a run on their banks?

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Paul Markham

I read a report on the way CC companies profit from fraud. Pity I did not keep it so this is from memory.

When Crescent pulled there Free to over 18s scam, only 33% of people complained. So 67% were charged and a fee taken. So that is porn maybe people would stay quiet.

Then a clearing bank sold a known fraudster a big list of credit card numbers, which he then proceeded to charge $19.99 recurring. Only 40% of the people charged ever complained.

So the CC companies were just charging for fraudulent payments.

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KRL

The Fed will just buy some more printing presses like they've been doing recently to keep this whole ball of fluff afloat.

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Kimmykim

That's the way it works in the states already honey If you maintain enough of a balance or get a deal somewhere then banks will waive their fees and some will even credit you the amount that other banks charge you to use their equipment...

Fees at ATMs are ridiculous, there is NO doubt about that. I realize that moving money isn't free but there aint no way in HELL that it costs 3 bucks to do it ;)

Rochard

Looks like a trend is starting.....

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