You may be entitled to a cash prize if you had a Visa, MasterCard, or Diner’s Club Cards during any time between February 1 1996 and November 8 2006. A successful class action lawsuit contended that credit card companies overcharged customers for foreign transactions and didn’t disclose the fees well enough. You can apply for a straight $25 refund, 1% of estimated foreign transactions, or annual estimation refund of 1-3% of foreign transactions for which you have records . Claim your moneys by filling out forms that were mailed to you, going to ccfsettlement.com, or calling 1-800-945-9890. It is not is necessary to have actually conducted foreign transactions to claim the money.
CCFsettlement [via Snopes] (Thanks to Takkun!)
Credit Card Settlement [NYT]
(Photo: mariachily)
I went to Canada and used it on things. Not too worried either way.
@Takkun: They probably made it look fakish just because there are people who wouldn’t submit info in that case.
I got my letter in the mail last week.. hopefully I’ll get my $25 soon, I don’t even remeber using my card while abroad, but heck FREE MONEY!!!!
I just got mine yesterday. Nothing about it screamed “fake” – especially since they didn’t really ask for any extra personal information. I’ve gotten numerous class action notices in the mail (from Verizon Wireless, Microsoft et al) and they looked the same. Maybe they had different versions of this?
In any case, I went for option number 2. I spent about 3 months abroad total, and I made very few credit transactions. But hey, all they asked for was how many days I spent abroad!
Wow! they really love making life difficult for you in the good old USA!
We recently had the same thing happen over here in my country, and the banks sent everyone an official letter apologising AND telling them the total of their foreign transactions during the disputed period. They then said they would be refunding the 2% directly into the credit card or you could choose to have it put into another account if you no longer had a credit card.
We didn’t have to lift a finger, and we didn’t have to produce any receipts – if your bank doesn’t have a record of your credit card transactions, then who does?
I got one of these! sweet. I thought it was one of those “deposit this and we’ll know it means you want to sign up for our PROGRAM! WOOOO!”
@MercuryPDX: The reason you and I got the letter, even if we never made a foreign transaction, is because we’re still part of the lawsuit, but we are under what is known as the “Settlement Injunctive Class” rather than the “Damages Settlement Class.” Basically we get no money, but it’s to get an injunction so the companies stop charging these fees. Anyone who ever had a Visa, Mastercard, or Diners Club credit or debit card falls under this category, and we don’t get to opt out of it.
Has anyone actually received a refund? I submitted mine online a couple months ago; haven’t received anything yet.
HMMM Does anyone remember Paypal charging ultra bogus foreign transaction fees too? I wonder if we can throw another settlement against them