JPMorgan Agrees To Pay $100 Million For Forcing Higher Fees On Consumers
July 24 (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co has agreed to pay $100 million to settle litigation by credit card customers who accused the largest U.S. bank of improperly boosting their minimum payments as a means to generate higher fees.
The class-action settlement resolves a three-year-old case stemming from Chase's decision in late 2008 and 2009 to boost minimum monthly payments for thousands of cardholders to 5 percent of account balances from 2 percent.
It comes as JPMorgan, like many of its main rivals, addresses a wide range of litigation over its banking practices, such as whether it conspired to overcharge retailers on card transactions, or manipulated benchmark interest rates.
Cardholders claimed that JPMorgan had induced them to transfer balances from other lenders to Chase card accounts, where the bank would consolidate their debt into loans with "fixed" interest rates until balances were paid off.
But according to the cardholders, JPMorgan boosted minimum payments to force them either to accept higher rates to preserve the lower payment requirement, to make more late payments and trigger more fees or a 29.99 percent penalty interest rate, or to close underperforming accounts.
In a Monday filing with the federal court in San Francisco, lawyers for the cardholders said the $100 million is 45 percent of the $220 million in up-front transaction fees that their clients paid for the promotional loans.
They called the settlement an "excellent result" for cardholders, who would recover "a substantial portion of the transaction fees they paid."
Dang... Looks like those job-creators got caught screwing their customers....again... It's a good thing we have a Consumer Protection Agency now to help enforce these kinds of "business" rip-offs... Maybe paying $100 million in fines will get their attention...
Chase is a rip-off Bank and they suck, I stopped using their Visa for other reasons and got a different bank card. No way should they be able to change the payment terms on existing balances when you are current. BTW this was a class action lawsuit, not a consumer protection bureau deal. Those regulator bureaucrats were apparently asleep at the time.
If you want to be, press one. If you want not to be, press 2
Republicans are red, democrats are blue, neither of them, gives a flip about you.
