Adult businesses that processed transactions through Visa and MasterCard prior to June 21, 2003 may be owed part of a record $3.05 billion settlement that resulted from three mainstream lawsuits against the credit card giants.
According to Spectrum Settlement Recovery, a company that represents class members in class-action matters, more than 5 million merchants who accepted Visa or MasterCard during the period between Oct. 25, 1992 and June 21, 2003 “are eligible to collect a significant refund [of processing fees they paid to Visa and MasterCard] as part of this settlement. Fund allocation will be based on [the] volume of debit and credit card transactions between such dates.”
According to court documents, the series of lawsuits began in 1996.Wal-Mart and The Limited filed a suit alleging that Visa and MasterCard overcharged for processing and violated the Sherman Antitrust Act by requiring merchants who accepted their credit cards also to accept debit cards, which carried a higher processing fee. In 2000, the suit was granted class-action status. Several appeals (reaching as high as the U.S. Supreme Court) later, the case was ordered to trial. A settlement agreement was executed on June 4, 2003.
In the interim, the U.S. Department of Justice filed an antitrust suit against the card companies (in 1998), as did groups of merchants who had opted out of the original class action in South Carolina, California, and New York (in 2003). The three actions were consolidated in 2003, and the settlement agreement was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in January 2005.
Reviews of claims submitted by merchants and disbursements from the fund are expected to begin in 2006.
“Per the plan of allocation, the settlement provides rates of compensation for three transaction types: off-line debit charges, credit card charges, and online debit card charges for PIN-secured transactions,” according to a Spectrum representative.
“The credit card industry has taken advantage of adult-entertainment companies for decades,” notes Spectrum’s Pete Bennett. “If your business accepted Visa or MasterCard between 1992 and 2003, the credit card companies probably owe you real money.”
Adult merchants discovered their standing as class members almost serendipitously when adult director and cameraman Miles Long received a call from an old friend who mentioned the settlement. Long’s friend is employed by Spectrum.
“I was floored,” Long tells AVNOnline.com. “It turns out that in addition to making it difficult for us in the adult industry to do business, Visa and MasterCard have overcharged everybody on every transaction.”
The card companies impose additional start-up and annual fees and higher transaction charges on adult businesses in both the brick-and-mortar and online spheres because they consider adult entertainment a “high-risk” category.
“We’ve been collectively lumped together and stigmatized,” Long says. “It’s time for us to stand together as an industry and say ‘Give us our money!’ To know that they would go so far as to overcharge us intentionally and then get caught with their hand in the cookies jar ... As an industry, I would really like to see us get what’s coming to us.”
No deadline for filing a claim as a class member has been set, though one is expected to be declared by October.
Business owners interested in receiving more information about the class action and their options may contact Bennett at [email protected].
