Merchants to receive notice in Visa/Mastercard lawsuitAny individual or company that has accepted MasterCard or Visa cards for payment since October 1992 is automatically considered part of a class action lawsuit brought against Visa USA Inc. and MasterCard International Inc. over attempts to force retailers to accept signature-based debit cards. More than 7.6 million notices are being sent to merchants nationwide by the National Retail Federation, one of the plaintiffs. Merchants who want to be included in the lawsuit are not required to take any action, but those who want to remove themselves from the class action suit or possibly pursue their own legal action are required to request exclusion. This suit, originally filed in 1996, claims that Visa and MasterCard have violated federal anti-trust law by forcing merchants who accept their credit cards to also accept their signature-based, off-line debit cards. In addition to being a slower technology, the debit cards carry a higher processing fee than non-MasterCard/Visa debit cards that use a Personal Identification Number (PIN) instead of a signature. Merchants are also concerned that the use of a signature makes the cards less secure against fraud than a PIN-based card. The lawsuit seeks an injunction stopping the practice and reimbursement of merchants for the higher fees that have been paid. |