During the last few weeks, while you have been working through your re-openings from the pandemic and stay-at-home orders, you may have received a notice regarding a class action involving merchants that accept Mastercard and Visa.

If you are a merchant that accepted either Visa or Mastercard between January 1, 2004 and January 25, 2019, you might be owed money from a recent 5.54 billion-dollar class action settlement. On December 13, 2019, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York entered its Final Approval Order on the case which entitles any merchants who accepted these cards during that period to receive a recovery based on the fees they paid to use the credit and debit cards. As a self storage operator using credit card processing for payment, it is likely that you are eligible to be a member of this settlement class.

The class action involved the “interchange fees” charged to merchants that accepted Visa or Mastercard credit or debit cards between January 1, 2004 and January 25, 2019. Interchange fees are the fees charged to merchants for processing the credit or debit card transactions, which are typically 1-2% of the purchase price. The claim was that Visa and Mastercard violated federal antitrust laws when they charged these interchange fees.

What is important to know now is that this settlement is out there. You should be talking with your merchant services provider about the possibility of preparing a claim and how they can help. At some point, when the appeal is finalized and the claim period begins, you might be entitled to money from this five billion-dollar pool of funds. But you can only be paid if you submit a claim!

Should you have any questions on operating your business during this unprecedented time, please do not hesitate to contact Weissmann Zucker Euster Morochnik & Garber P.C.

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