Judge rules Visa & MC must give customers refunds for hidden coversion charges
 

A California Supreme Court judge ruled that Visa and MasterCard intentionally concealed da 1% currency conversion fee and must give customers refunds. I haven't seen anything yet about how this will be carried out.

Hi Howard,<BR> My guess is that the lawyers will get about 775 million and the rest will go to shipping and handling.

Ira, too funny!!

Good one ira -- thanks for the info Howard -- at least it's a moral victory :)

More than a moral victory--makes other corporations/businesses pause before they bury info on hidden fees.

After the lawyers get their cut, you'll be lucky to get 50 cents back.

Regardless of how much the cardholders get, perhaps the most important thing is that the nondisclosure practice will stop.

do you have a reference for what you cite? I just wondered if that's final or old news as there was a preliminary decision on that in February. VISA is headquartered in California so it would affect all their customers, but MC is not, so it would only affect California MC customers. <BR><BR>I think they deserve a judgement against them (and I will be owed something by VISA if so) because they do try to hide the fee. When I first heard about this foreign currency conversion fee, I looked all over my terms they send when you get a card and it wasn't mentioned anywhere.

Christina, there's another thread on this topic, and I posted the following link there: http://news.findlaw.com/business/s/20030408/financialmastercarddc.html<BR><BR>Not very detailed, but since the decision just came down yesterday, it's the best I could find.<BR>

Cited from news articles on recent legilsative changes afefcting class action suits:<BR><BR>In a class action suit against Cheerios over a food additive, with no evidence of injury to any consumers, lawyers were paid nearly $2 million in fees, or approximately $2,000 per hour. Meanwhile, consumers in the lawsuit received coupons for a free box of cereal. <BR><BR>A class action suit was filed against a music record label to recover the money that consumers paid for albums by the phony, lip-synching group Milli Vanilli. The lawsuit resulted in the plaintiffs receiving a reward between $1 to $3, while lawyers� fees were $675,000.<BR><BR>Best wishes,<BR><BR>Rex<BR>[email protected]<BR>

You should also be aware that most banks issuing your card also charge a conversion fee...and it is usually higher than what MC &amp; Visa charge.<BR><BR>So, in addition to the 1% Visa, MC charge, you're almost sure to get another 2-3% tacked on to it.<BR><BR>I didn't notice it when the dollar was stronger, but with the conversion to Euros it's painfully obvious.<BR><BR>If anyone knows any cards that don't add their own fee, please pass the info along.

MBNA charges no additional conversion fees on top of those charged by Visa and Mastercard. The last time I enquired, Visa's charge was 1% and MC's 2%, so I use my MBNA Visa as much as possible when charging anything in foreign currency.

Jim_Tardio,<BR>Unless its policy has changed since my last trip outside the US, my Capital One VISA does not charge the extra 2% fee.

Ira, it won't be shipping and handling - it will be a bunch of 50 cents off coupons for each purchase you make over 50 bucks using your Visa/MC. and yes, the lawyers will get about a billion bucks out of it.

Thanks for the tips about MBNA &amp; Capital One. I was also considering a card issued from a European bank...specifically a Lufthansa card.<BR><BR>Does anyone by chance know if European issued cards charge a fee?

Here is a link to the decision by a California Superior Court,not the Supreme Court, in todays San Francisco Chroncle. Both Mastercard ,and Visa said thy will appeal the decision.<BR>http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...;type=business

Let's see:<BR><BR>The conversion rate is 1.6:1 and you want $150, so it took our embedded (re: needed for other things and already paid for) computer 100 nano seconds to make this computation, so we are going to charge you $3.00.<BR><BR>I guess they just need the money.<BR>