Merchants Strike Back? 

Merchants file lawsuit against card associations and banks.

Call Forwarding Scam: You may receive an automated message on your telephone that says you have won a prize or money. The message directs you to dial a 2-digit code preceded or followed by the * or # key (such as *79 or 72#), and then an 800 number to claim your prize. When you dial the number, you are not connected to anyone. What this procedure has done, though, is program your telephone to forward your calls to a long distance operator. Con artists can then call your number, be forwarded to the long-distance operator and place calls that are billed to your home telephone number.

What do I do if I get one of these calls? If you receive this type of call, simply hang up. If you receive this message on your answering machine, do not place this call. No legitimate sweepstakes or contest would contact you in this manner.  Know the numbers used for Call Forwarding from your local telephone company.

Protect yourself!  Every business handles confidential data, either your own, or those of your clients.  The single, lease expensive protection you can possibly own is a paper shredder!  You can get these as low as $39 delivered to your door.

If you throw out documents without shredding them, "dumpster divers" can send them back to a credit-card company, pretending to be you but saying that your address has changed. If the information taken involves consumer (customer) information, things get worse.

FACTA, the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, has established a standard for improved privacy and identity theft protections.  Banks, mortgage companies, insurance companies, and MERCHANTS large and small are turning to paper shredders to protect their organization from the powerful penalties of FACTA violation- “Any person who maintains or otherwise possesses consumer information for a business purpose” – in electronic or paper form must “take reasonable measures to protect against unauthorized access or use of the information in connection with its disposal.” FACTA requires disposal to be done properly – burning, pulverizing, or shredding.  Take the following penalties into consideration:   Civil Liability - Actual damages sustained if identity is stolen as a result of corporate inaction. Or statutory damages up to $1,000 per employee. Federal Fines- Up to $2,500 for each violation. State Fines- Up to $1,000 for each violation.

Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi LLP has filed an antitrust class action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut against Visa, MasterCard, Bank of America, Citibank, and other major banks on behalf of merchants alleging collusive practices of their setting, by horizontal agreement, credit card interchange fees at supra-competitive levels. 

The plaintiffs represent a class of merchants that operate millions of commercial businesses throughout the United States that accept Visa and MasterCard as a form of payment. At issue are the alleged practices by the defendants that cause merchants to pay "supra-competitive, exorbitant and fixed interchange fees for the acceptance of these credit card payments."

“Interchange fees are just a way that credit card companies squeeze merchants to enhance their revenue stream. There is absolutely no need for these fees to be so high, and without anything to control them, the banks and the credit card companies continue to find ways to escalate the fees. We hope this lawsuit leads to significant changes,” says Mitch Goldstone, President and CEO of 30 Minute Photos, who is one of the plaintiffs.

“Small merchants do not have any options available to them to fight this individually, but collectively, I am confident we can make a difference against big banks and credit card companies. ” says Jonathan Mathias, owner of A Dash of Salt, L.L.C., another plaintiff in this case.

When Wal-Mart won its multi Billion dollar lawsuit against Visa and Mastercard, the response was an interchange increase for everyone else.  What will happen this time? Wait and see, but we are probably looking at YEARS before this one gets resolved.  Certainly the associations are raising merchant fees to accommodate the banks so they can fend off the advances that American Express is making with these same banks, offering their higher margins.  The only point in the entire credit card chain that is captive and unable to complain has been the merchant.  Maybe that will change. Only time will tell.

We will keep an eye on this, and other trends in the industry and keep you posted as the situation develops!

With the start of summer this merchant certainly hits the spot!   Mistcooling.com  is a leader in outdoor and indoor  mist cooling products and mosquito go-away system for home owners, commercial and industrial applications.

MistCooling.com says: "We have started accepting credit cards with MerchantAnywhere.com, and now we realize we had lost about 40% of business by not accepting credit cards before."

Update on the 40 Million lost card numbers: The class-action suit was filed in California Superior Court in San Francisco against CardSystems Solutions, Visa and MasterCard on behalf of California credit card holders and card-accepting merchants, according to a copy of the suit.

The lawsuit accuses the companies of violating California law by neglecting to secure credit card systems and by failing to inform consumers in a timely manner about the security breach at payment processor CardSystems, which was disclosed publicly on June 17 by MasterCard.

The lawsuit asks for CardSystems, Visa and MasterCard to inform consumers whose personal information was exposed and give special notice to those whose data was confirmed stolen. All involved should also get access to a credit-monitoring service, according to the suit.

"Additionally, the credit card companies should waive any charge-back fees or penalties to merchants in the case of fraudulent transactions that involve any of the credit cards involved in the security breach", said Ira Rothken, the San Rafael, Calif.-based attorney who filed the suit.

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