Mastercard users may be eligible for up to £70

eskbanker

Grumpy_chap said:

The title of this thread and, indeed, the MSE guide is misleading.
It was not necessary to have been a Mastercard user to be able to claim.

Agreed about the thread title, specifying Mastercard users, but the MSE guide, with its prominent subtitle (and subsequent explanation), seems OK to me?

Mastercard compensation claim

Are you one of millions due up to £70 from Mastercard – even if you've NEVER had one?

Grumpy_chap

eskbanker said:

Agreed about the thread title, specifying Mastercard users, but the MSE guide, with its prominent subtitle (and subsequent explanation), seems OK to me?

Yes, looking again, you are probably correct.  Perhaps my reading of the guide subject matter was tinted by virtue of having arrived from the link in this thread and I carried the preconception from the thread title onto my assessment of the guide title.

NoodleDoodleMan

DullGreyGuy said:

NoodleDoodleMan said:

Incidentally - how do Visa cards come into this scenario ?

The whole thing stems from the EU Commission looking into the legality of interchange fees and in particular cross border fees. It deemed that Mastercard had breached EU legislation and so the charges were unlawful; this is the stem of the class action suit in the UK. Visa, were also investigated by the EC but had already changes their fees and so the EC took no further action against them and so their fees weren't deemed unlawful. 

AmEx is different because its both network and card issuer and so interchange fees only apply to AmEx cards issued by other banks which outside of the US has traditionally been relatively tiny. 

Thanks for the clarification.

Ectophile

born_again said:

Not a chance.  Charity begins at home. 

I don't think that was ever supposed to mean that charity ends at home.

pecunianonolet

The original copy on the MSE website said that you need to self certify that you meet the criteria so essentially anybody could claim as the admin and cost to actually verify eligibility would outstrip any potential fraud by making false claims?

Does that mean it is a free for all and all we need is the least publication about it as possible to make sure the amount per claimant doesn't drop to amounts below the cost of a pint? 

DullGreyGuy

pecunianonolet said:

Does that mean it is a free for all and all we need is the least publication about it as possible to make sure the amount per claimant doesn't drop to amounts below the cost of a pint? 

Thats the general concept, it's capped at £70pp, if not enough people claim the surplus goes to a charity, but in principle there is no floor. Based on estimations of how many could claim then it'd go down to £2 or so but the estimates could have been wrong in which case the postage stamp to send the cheque could be more than the value of the cheque 

km1500

Grumpy_chap said:

The title of this thread and, indeed, the MSE guide is misleading.
It was not necessary to have been a Mastercard user to be able to claim.

1. Lived in the UK for 3 months (one consecutive period) between 1997 and 2008
2. Aged over 16 in that period
3. Bought stuff in that period
4. Lived in UK on 16th September 2016
5. Did not previously waive rights

not misleading - it is the truth, albeit a subset of the truth !

NoodleDoodleMan

I didn't find the qualifying conditions confusing - but I was initially puzzled as to the logic of how somebody who never had a Mastercard CC could claim compensation.

PixelPound

NoodleDoodleMan said:

I didn't find the qualifying conditions confusing - but I was initially puzzled as to the logic of how somebody who never had a Mastercard CC could claim compensation.

The idea being because of the higher fees, retailers had higher prices to cover it, so even if you did not have or use a card, so long as you actually bought something (even if paid with cash) then you will have paid higher price than needed to due to factoring the fees for those who did use the card.

NoodleDoodleMan

PixelPound said:

NoodleDoodleMan said:

I didn't find the qualifying conditions confusing - but I was initially puzzled as to the logic of how somebody who never had a Mastercard CC could claim compensation.

The idea being because of the higher fees, retailers had higher prices to cover it, so even if you did not have or use a card, so long as you actually bought something (even if paid with cash) then you will have paid higher price than needed to due to factoring the fees for those who did use the card.

Thanks. That just about covers everybody and their dog if they satisfy the five qualifying conditions.