Chase Bank to Refund 95% of $2.5M It Allegedly Overcharged Crypto Buyers

Chase Bank has agreed to repay most of $2.5 million in fees customers say it unfairly charged for cryptocurrency transactions.

A subsidiary of JPMorgan Chase, the bank has agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit resulting from the bank's decision in 2018 to charge higher fees on Chase credit cards that had classified the crypto purchases as "cash advances."

In March, lead plaintiffs Brady Tucker, Ryan Hilton and Stanton Smith notified the U.S. Southern District Court in New York that they had agreed to a settlement with the defendant, Chase Bank. An order signed by Judge Katherine Polk Failla at the time resulted in court proceedings being discontinued and allowed settlement to proceed.

As reported by Reuters on May 28, in a motion was filed to the Manhattan federal court on May 26, plaintiffs said the settlement will result in class members of the lawsuit receiving about 95% of the fees they allege they were unlawfully charged.

Chase, in turn, will not admit to any wrongdoing to the 62,000 class members as part of the settlement deal, according to the motion.

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"Chase has agreed to enter into this Agreement to avoid the further expense, inconvenience, and distraction of burdensome and protracted litigation, and to be completely free of any further claims that were asserted or could have been asserted in the Action," the motion stated.

The class action was first brought forward in April 2018, when Tucker alleged Chase had charged him more than $160 in fees and interest for regularly purchasing cryptocurrencies from Coinbase using his credit card.

Executive director of pricing processes, strategy, competitive intelligence and customer experience at JPMorgan Chase Prashant Singh testified that "between April 10, 2015 and the date of this declaration (May 21), Chase credit card account holders were assessed $2,567,252 in cash-advance fees, after netting for reversals, in connection with credit card transactions with merchants that Chase has identified as potential cryptocurrency merchants."

The amount to be refunded will come to around $2.4 million.

See the details of the settlement agreement and release in full below: