By JOHN MAYLEBEN
If you’ve been following the process of settling the class action lawsuit against Visa and MasterCard, you may have noticed that everything stalled while the parties work to resolve a few appeals of the approved settlement. As a reminder, this class action settlement claims that merchants paid more fees than they should have for accepting Visa and MasterCard as payment from consumers.
This lawsuit against Visa and MasterCard made news a couple of years ago because of the size of the settlement. It is estimated to be more than $5 billion and will be disbursed to any merchant that accepted Visa or MasterCard transactions between 2004 and partway through January 2019.
If all appeals are resolved soon, then the claims period may open sometime in 2021. Eligible retailers cannot file a claim now, but fortunately, MRA has partnered with Managed Care Advisory Group (MCAG) who specializes in recovering money due to eligible organizations from class action settlements. You may contract with MCAG now to ensure that a timely and comprehensive claim is filed on your behalf as soon as a claims process is available.
As your advocate, we recognize that you may not have the resources or time to monitor this settlement and file an optimal claim. As an industry expert, MCAG will assist you with settlement claim submission, data aggregation, and collection of any proceeds due to your organization from the settlement fund.
MCAG works to gather available historical data over the fifteen-year settlement period that pertains to all of your business locations, across multiple processors, and submit multiple claims. MCAG’s extensive expertise in analyzing merchant sales data reduces your potential burden with the submission process, including:
- Eliminate the responsibility to track important dates and claim filing deadlines
- Limit your administrative burden – no need for your staff to gather, analyze, or submit claim forms
- Review of all relevant data – the settlement covers Visa and MasterCard transactions from 2004 into 2019
- Help ensure claim form compliance – MCAG’s processes are consistently validated via Settlement Administrator reviews
- Recovery optimization managed by a seasoned industry expert
When it looked like a settlement was going to happen a couple of years ago, we enrolled nearly 2,000 merchants into the settlement services provided by MCAG. Those enrollments are still good; If you’re one of them, there is nothing more you need to do.
If you haven’t signed up or are uncertain, please click here to complete the enrollment form today.
If you have questions about this settlement or the process, please don’t hesitate to contact our customer service team at 800.366.3699.
Payment Card Settlement Disclaimer
On December 13, 2019, the Court granted final approval of the settlement filed on September 18, 2018 for the Rule 23(b)(3) Class Plaintiffs in this action. No claim forms are available at this time, and no claim-filing deadline exists. No-cost assistance will be available from the Class Administrator and Class Counsel during any claims-filing period. No one is required to sign up with any third-party service in order to participate in any settlement. For additional information regarding the status of the litigation, interested persons may visit www.paymentcardsettlement.com, the Court-approved website for this case.
John Mayleben, one of the nation’s first Certified Payments Professionals designated by the Electronic Transaction Association, is an MRA consultant and national expert on payment processing.
