Merchant lawsuit alleges Visa and Mastercard inflated card fees

A San Diego pizzeria has filed a proposed class action accusing Visa, Mastercard and five major banks of conspiring to inflate merchants' credit card transaction fees, ClassAction.org reports. The complaint challenges uniform interchange fees and rules that allegedly force merchants to accept costly cards and restrict steering customers toward cheaper payment options. The bank defendants are Bank of America, Capital One, Chase Bank, Citibank and Wells Fargo. The suit seeks to represent U.S. merchants accepting Visa or Mastercard credit cards from January 25, 2019 until the alleged effects cease. It argues that an earlier monetary settlement covered transactions only through January 24, 2019.