NEW YORK—JPMorgan Chase has been hit with a lawsuit in Manhattan federal court accusing it of charging surprise fees when it stopped letting customers buy cryptocurrency with credit cards in late January and began treating the purchases as cash advances.
Filed on behalf of a proposed nationwide class, the lawsuit said Chase charged both extra fees and substantially higher interest rates on the cash advances than on the credit cards and refused to refund the charges when customers complained, Reuters reported.
As CUToday.info reported, several banks in Britain and the United States banned the use of credit cards to buy cryptocurrencies earlier this year after a dramatic fall in the value of Bitcoin, the most popular virtual currency.
The named plaintiff in the lawsuit, Idaho resident Brady Tucker, was hit with $143.30 in fees and $20.61 in interest charges by Chase for five cryptocurrency transactions between Jan. 27 and Feb. 2, Reuters reported. Hundreds or possibly thousands of other Chase customers were hit with the charges, Tucker said.
Tucker said he called Chase’s customer service line to dispute the charges but claimed the bank refused to remove them, according to the lawsuit.
With no advance warning, Chase “stuck the plaintiff with the bill, after the fact of his transactions, and insisted that he pay it,” the lawsuit said. The lawsuit accuses Chase of violating the U.S. Truth in Lending Act, which requires credit card issuers to notify customers in writing of any significant change in charges or terms. The lawsuit is asking for actual damages and statutory damages of $1 million.