Oct 19 (Reuters) - A New Jersey man sued Bank of America,
JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo on Wednesday on behalf of ATM
users, accusing the banks of colluding to fix the fees they
charge customers to withdraw money.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., is
the third such suit seeking class action status on the issue of
automated teller machine fees in the past week.
The latest suit alleges the banks worked with Visa and
MasterCard to set artificially high rates on ATM fees.
The earlier lawsuits were filed against Visa and
MasterCard, Wednesday's lawsuit is directed at both the card
network firms and the banks.
Customers who use ATMs not operated by their bank are often
charged both by the operating bank and by their own bank, as a
"foreign ATM transaction" fee.
Successful ATM operators need access to the Visa and
MasterCard networks, since the vast majority of debit cards are
exclusive to them. Some cards can access alternate, cheaper
networks.
The lawsuits accuse Visa and MasterCard of forcing ATM
operators to charge the same access fee to customers regardless
of which network they use, in order to get access to the Visa
and MasterCard networks.
One of the other lawsuits was filed by a group representing
the operators of ATMs.
Wednesday's lawsuit accused the banks, that collect the
access fees, of colluding with Visa and MasterCard in setting
the transaction price.
A spokesman for JPMorgan declined comment. Representatives
for Bank of America and Wells Fargo did not immediately respond
to requests for comment.
The case is Justin Genese v Visa, MasterCard and others,
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, No.
11-01838.
For plaintiffs: Craig Briskin of Mehri & Skalet and Bernard
Persky, Hollis Salzman, Kellie Lerner and Amy Garzon.
One of the cases filed against the credit card companies
last week is The National ATM Council, Inc et al v. Visa, Inc
et al and MasterCard Inc et al, U.S. District Court, District
of Columbia, 11-cv-01803.
For plaintiffis: Jonathan Rubin of Rubin PLLC.
(Reporting by Aruna Viswanatha)
Follow us on Twitter: @ReutersLegal