UK court sets scene for $14B-plus class action against MasterCard

DerekBickerton 2021-08-19 16:48:11 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> Merricks alleges Mastercard charged excessive “interchange” fees – the fees retailers pay credit card companies when consumers use a card to shop - between May 1992 and June 2008 and that those fees were passed on to consumers as retailers raised prices

Before I clicked I thought this was their monopoly under scrutiny and not about fees, since the only CC companies I know of is Amex/Visa/Mastercard who have a stranglehold on the market, much like Google & Facebook.

Cryptocurrency will hopefully change this, as I believe that's one of cryptocurrency's promises. Already I sound dated since crypto is now a mature thing you can actually use, albeit with some teething problems still present that haven't been ironed out.

mchusma 2021-08-19 13:53:40 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Visa, Mastercard, and amex are a tax on the world, propped up not by being good, but by anti-competitive behavior.

It's absolutely insane the fees they charge.

IMTDb 2021-08-19 13:56:27 +0000 UTC [ - ]

A tax on the US citizen. In Europe, those fees are capped.

detritus 2021-08-19 14:29:43 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Sort of, but in the EU law came in a few years back that made it illegal to charge extra to cover CC processing fees over - say - payments by cash. This meant that companies either swallow the cost or increase prices across the board to cater for the likelihood of that item being bought by card.

Now, this is great for supermarkets or companies able to get very low processing charge percentages - shitty for everyone else, including the likes of me who receive less than 5% of payments by card and thus have a higher percentage to pay.

Personally, I break the law and state on my invoice that CC payments will be charged extra. shrug

Quite why we can't have this clearly essential service delivered by a non-corporate entity, I don't know.

greatgib 2021-08-19 16:57:13 +0000 UTC [ - ]

In Europe, there is a project to create an European official payment processor that would be a competitor to visa, MasterCard, ... It is the EPI project.

selfhoster11 2021-08-19 14:11:43 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Capped but still present. So a smaller tax, but still tax.

ksec 2021-08-19 15:19:22 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Considering most people in UK or even in EU uses Debit Card, and Debit Card has very low rate. What exactly is the problem here?

What is excessive about it ?

quickthrower2 2021-08-19 06:23:10 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Nice. Hope it’s available to expatriates

jaclaz 2021-08-19 10:37:31 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Check FAQ#6: https://www.mastercardconsumerclaim.co.uk/Home/Faq#faq6

though it has to be seen if the Court will accept that.