CC companies hit with class action lawsuit on the East Coast
 

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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.

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.

Woohoo this is good news...

Wow

Oz

I wonder who will get wacked.

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.

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.

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.

Go get 'em!

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

second that

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.

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

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

I posted it last night.

Mitch

interesting outlook.

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.

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.

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

Nope there shit DON't stink, at least until Wal Mart, Home Depot and other big main stream guys proved it does.:1orglaugh

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

So will Epassport be joining the class action? :Graucho

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.

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.

That's the way I see it, too.

:thumbsup

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

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!

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.

:)

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.

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

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

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.......

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.

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!

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.

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

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