Wells Fargo Settles Suit Over Card Processing Fees

By E. Scott Reckard, Los Angeles Times

Wells Fargo & Co. agreed Thursday to pay as much as $34 million to settle allegations that it imposed improper credit card processing charges on about 96,000 California businesses over a four-year period.

The settlement by the San Francisco bank amounts to a partial return of what the plaintiffs contended were “junk fees” that were never properly disclosed beforehand ? and never explained when the merchants called to ask about them.

The disputed charges included extra fees charged by the bank when merchants had to punch in a credit card number by hand, said Howard M. Jaffe, a Los Angeles lawyer representing the businesses.

“If a merchant failed to swipe the card, couldn’t get the machine to read it and just manually input the numbers, they’d get dinged ? usually by a modest amount, but it added up to millions and millions of dollars,” he said.

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