The Visa/Mastercard Settlement arose from a lawsuit claiming that merchants paid excessive interchange or swipe fees for accepting Visa and Mastercard payments because of an alleged conspiracy among Visa, Mastercard and the Bank Defendants. After years of delays, the Court granted Final Approval of this Settlement on December 13, 2019. Some organizations have filed appeals to the final-approval order. All appeals are resolved, and the claims process began in December 2023. Merchants must submit a claim to the Settlement Administrator, or have a claim submitted on their behalf, to be eligible to receive any cash from the $5.54 billion settlement fund.

The settlement covers payments your organization accepted made via Visa or Mastercard from January 1, 2004 to January 25, 2019.

When a cardholder makes a purchase with a credit or debit card, there is an interchange fee charged to the merchant. This fee is usually 1% to 2% of the purchase price. Interchange fees typically account for the greatest part of the fees paid by merchants for accepting Visa and Mastercard. Visa and Mastercard set interchange fee rates for different kinds of transactions and publish these rates on their websites, usually twice a year.

The filing deadline is February 4, 2025. Claim forms have been approved and the settlement administrator opened the claims filing process in December 2023.

Yes, you can go to the court website for more information (www.paymentcardsettlement.com).

Once your claim has been submitted our partners will assess your claim and subsequently request any documentation they require.

If your business has multiple locations, we ask that you complete our online registration using information corresponding to your headquarters/primary location.

Once you complete that submission, you will receive instructions to register, where you can easily provide additional information for your organization, such as additional locations, tax IDs, and merchant IDs.

If you own more than one business and the businesses operate as separate entities, then we suggest that you complete a registration form for each distinct business.

If you did not process with your current payment card processor / merchant service provider all the way back to 2004, then you can provide information from your previous processors. Still, your current merchant information is what is most critical.

Our partner works on a contingent fee basis so they retain a portion of your settlement recovery amount. If your business is not entitled to a settlement recovery, then you will not be charged a fee.

Once you register, we will email you periodic updates. Also, you can go to the court website for any additional updates. The website is www.paymentcardsettlement.com.

Merchants had until July 23rd, 2019 to exclude themselves from the settlement. If you excluded yourself from the settlement, you cannot get any money from this settlement. You can also find more detailed information on this topic at the Official Court-Authorized settlement website www.paymentcardsettlement.com.

The amount paid from the settlement fund will be based on your actual or estimated interchange fees attributable to Visa and Mastercard card transactions (between you and your customers) from January 1, 2004, through January 25, 2019.

The amount of money each Authorized Claimant will receive from the settlement fund depends on:

- the money available to pay all claims

- the total dollar value of all valid claims filed

- the cost of class administration and notice

- applicable taxes on the settlement fund and any other related tax expenses

- attorneys’ fees and expenses,

- and money awards to the Rule 23(b)(3) Class Plaintiffs for their representation of merchants in MDL 1720, which culminated in the Class Settlement Agreement, all as approved by the Court.

Consequently, at this time, there is no way to accurately estimate your return.

Returns could be significant because over 150 of the largest merchants, such as Wal-Mart, Amazon, Delta Airlines, American Airlines, and Google have already been compensated by the Defendants, or have opted out of the settlement class, and are not eligible to be paid from the $5.5 billion in net settlement funds.

Class members are required to submit a claim in order to receive any proceeds (monetary relief) from this settlement. Therefore, if you do not submit a claim on your own, or have Smarta Payments or another third party submit a claim on your behalf, then you will not receive any of the settlement funds (cash payment from the settlement).