What You Need to Know About the $5.5 Billion Visa and Mastercard Settlement (2024)

• Earlier this year, Visa and Mastercard settled a class action lawsuit that claimed they charged US merchants excessive fees to accept payments between 2004 and 2019.
• At $5.5 billion dollars, it’s one of the largest class action settlements in US history.
• Most US merchants are eligible for a share of the settlement funds if they took card payments in those years – but many eligible merchants still haven’t filed a claim.
• It’s an easy process, and there’s still time – but the deadline is approaching soon! 
• Keep reading below for more information, or start your claim right now.

1) Most US merchants are eligible

Nearly all merchants in the United States, who accepted Visa and/or Mastercard transactions between Jan 1, 2004 and Jan 25, 2019, should be eligible to file a claim. The specific amount a merchant may receive can vary based on a number of factors, including what fees they were charged, the types of cards used, and the total number of claims that are filed by the deadline. For some merchants, the amount they’re eligible for may be as high as the entirety of their Visa/Mastercard transaction fees for the period.

2) Most of the money is still unclaimed

Despite being a historically large settlement, the court recently had to extend the claim filing deadline (now August 30) because not enough merchants have submitted claims. Why? Some merchants may not be aware of the settlement, some may not know how much money they could potentially receive, and others may find the process more intimidating than it should be. 

Eligible merchants should have received a notice of eligibility in the mail, but many report that the notices have been missed, misplaced, or overlooked. The online form is easy to submit, and there is no penalty for filing a claim if it turns out that you’re not eligible. Given the timespan covered by the settlement and the amount of money available, we recommend that any merchants who think they may be eligible to go ahead and file a claim. All links to file a claim in this blog post go directly to the official court-sponsored website – not a middleman.

3) Here’s how to file (it’s easier than you think!)

We get it, filing a claim as part of a large class action settlement may be intimidating, but in this case it’s surprisingly easy. Here’s what you’ll need to do::

• Navigate to https://www.paymentcardsettlement.com/en/Login to create an account 
• If you have a notice you received in the mail, then navigate to “Enter Claimant ID and Control Number”
• If you did not receive a notice in the mail, or don’t have the notice, then navigate to “Provide TIN”
• Fill in a short form with information about your business (things like tax ID, business name, and contact info). 

Once this information is submitted, the process will kick off to identify how many transactions may be subject to a full or partial refund of fees – and what they total up to.

4) Don’t forget to check back and finish the claim process

• Log back in and check for updates one week after submitting your claim. 
• You will see a status indicator for your claim, indicating whether it was confirmed as eligible, rejected, is still being processed, or if any other issues were encountered (more details here)
• If you’re eligible, you should then see the total amount of interchange fees that are attributable to you. IMPORTANT: this is not the amount you will get in the settlement. That will be calculated later.
• You’ll have 30 days to either accept those numbers and finalize your claim, or challenge those numbers. We recommend that you work with your financial professional to address any lingering questions. 
• After you finalize your claim, you’ll have to wait a while – keep an eye out for communications from the claims administrator as they may reach out to you for follow-up questions or documentation.  

We hope eligible merchants take the time to understand the money they can potentially receive as part of this settlement. File a claim now and see if you are entitled to funds.