Comments on: Credit Card Foreign Transaction Fee Lawsuit Details are Here!

By: Gary

Gary — Fri, 09 May 2008 09:15:30 +0000

I have lived oversaes since 1991. My claim is somewhere in the area of $3600 ($1000/month x 120 months x 3% = $3600). Do I need to fear retribution from my credit card company if we win this lawsuit? Could they decide to cancel my card “for no reason”?

By: Roberta Green

Roberta Green — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 01:31:19 +0000

I’ve probably had 10 credit cards since 1996 (All Visa or Master Card). Some got reissued due to frauds. I don’t have the account number of old cards. If I call the major credit card issuing banks will they tell me the numbers of the credit cards I’ve had in the past???? Is there any other way to get my credit card history?

By: Jenny

Jenny — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:35:26 +0000

I, too, completed these forms a long time ago. Any updates?

By: Shari

Shari — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 14:47:32 +0000

I completed my forms long ago. When will the checks be sent out? Does any one have payout dates?

Thanks!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 23:14:10 +0000

So does anyone know when we are going to get our money back after you sumit your claims??? Dates perhaps…just wondering

By: Vesselin

Vesselin — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 11:10:30 +0000

Does this apply only to US citizens - or to the citizens of any country that have used one of these credit cards, if they have used the card outside of their country of residence?

By: ABC

ABC — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:20:22 +0000

michael, I think you’re entitled in the settlement to obtain required records free of charge. Mention the litigation settlement as your reason for requesting the records.

By: Marianne

Marianne — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 21:44:47 +0000

Well, now I don’t know what to do! The prospect of found money is very nice (esp since we lived overseas and had tons of transactions in the time period)…even if it is low it is still money that we don’t have and could surely use. But I don’t like the idea of giving out account numbers. Why in the world do they need that? To verify that you actually did have a credit card and aren’t attempting to scam them? I don’t know.

By: michael

michael — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 01:14:55 +0000

I spent almost a full year over 2001-2002 in England while going to school..I used my ATM master card every day+capital one card!! lunch, school, bus, train everything..so I called my bank and ordered the records today(at fist they said they had no records..(then they magically found them) hmmm..it will cost me 76 dollars to get those records…I can only hope that I will get some of that back…I’m willing to submit and find out!! even after what I have read above..wish me luck??

By: Jeff

Jeff — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 02:04:04 +0000

This is a comment re: the link to http://biyts.info/credit_card_fees.html

I went there and was surprised that it said I could only get a max of about $100. I looked at the math several times and then realized what was (in my opinion) wrong with it.

The person writing that page (which seems to be a site dedicated to being against class actions, but that doesn’t make the argument wrong) says the following. The amount of settlement from the credit card companies is only enough to cover 9% of what they supposedly made off of poorly disclosed fees.

So if you assume that every person claimed everything they may be entitled to, each person would only be able to get 9% of what they were due.

The person then takes an example healthy refund and multiplies it by 0.09 and gets the $50-150 refund. Now there is example is someone who spends a *lot* overseas.

I think it is a false assumption that people will claim (via the last form) the full amount of every overseas charge. Many people will discard the form, think it a scam, or take the $25 refund.

My point is that if the total claims are less than $338 million or so, I expect claimants will get their full claimed refund, perhaps minus the attorney’s fees (it’s not clear to me if unclaimed fund $s will offset the fees or not).

So if you are trying to decide what kind of claim to make (as I am), treat the warning above with due caution. If you agree that class actions are inherently bad (I do not), that’s a separate issue.

Oh and by the way, if anyone has the email addresses for Citibank or other issuers, posting them would be appreciated. I can only find phone #s so far, and I’d rather not wait on hold.

By: Kent

Kent — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 19:03:49 +0000

I’ve had extensive travel outside the U.S. during that period and have my records, so I looked at the third option that they recommended would give me the best return. The sticking point, however, is that they want all of my bank and credit card names and ACCOUNT NUMBERS! Is this a scam? How do I verify that this as a legitimate operation. I can understand that they might want to see proof, if I’m audited, but any good attorney should know better than to tell people to send such information to unsolicited individuals that you don’t know!

By: J. Rossetter

J. Rossetter — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 22:27:09 +0000

How do I find out if we qualify for any part of this settlement. We were in Europe for 7 weeks June-July 1997, again in June/July 2005 and Japan April 2006. Our daughter has been done extensive foreign travel - Bangladesh, Italy, Japan and the Guatemalen Islands over the last 4 years. Where do we find out more information to determine if we have arefund coming and how to proceed to gain it? Thank you!

By: Lance Heckerman

Lance Heckerman — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 19:06:09 +0000

The California Penal code states:

PENAL CODE
SECTION 182-185
182. (a) If two or more persons conspire:
(1) To commit any crime.
(2) Falsely and maliciously to indict another for any crime, or to
procure another to be charged or arrested for any crime.
(3) Falsely to move or maintain any suit, action, or proceeding.
(4) [b]To cheat and defraud any person of any property[/b], by any means which are in themselves criminal, [b] or to obtain money or property by false pretenses [/b]or by false promises with fraudulent intent not to
perform those promises.

The statement “to obtain money or property by false pretenses” applies here. When the card companies charged for a currency conversion that never took place, they are guilty of criminal fraud if they did this knowingly. I have had a number of folks telling me that what Visa and Mastercard did is not a criminal act and just billing errors. According to the current law, Visa and Mastercard committed the criminal act of conspiracy to defraud their customers. Am I citing the law correctly in this case? There is enough evidence to warrant an investigation to determine if they knowingly committed fraud and identify the individual conspirators for possible criminal prosecution.

By: Lance Heckerman

Lance Heckerman — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 18:03:17 +0000

The settlement is ridiculous. In the filed lawsuit, Visa & Mastercard collected $500 Million & $200 Million in criminally fraudulent overcharges. We are only settling for less than half of what they owe? This is what is wrong with these class actions. The lawyers get their money and we get it in the rear. This is a civil suit and to my knowledge no criminal charges have been brought, which is very interesting. Criminal fraud has taken place and the greedy corporate fat cats get off with a slap on the hand. Where the hell is the accountability?

By: Chris Statile

Chris Statile — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 04:36:44 +0000

So the attorney’s are getting $313,000,000 plus $5,000,000 in exspenses while the consumers get maybe $25 or $100 each. SOUND FAIR? How much work do you think they actually did? Even at the highest billing rates this is exacally what’s wrong with our current legal system. Maybe the attorneys should go through all the billing records of all the consumers for the past 10 years if they want to collect their contingency fees. Now that would be fair.