JPMorgan Chase has reportedly agreed to pay $2.5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed against the financial institution in 2018, over it allegedly overcharging customers who were buying cryptocurrencies with Chase credit cards.
According to Reuters, JPMorgan Chase was overcharging users for buying cryptocurrencies as these transactions were being classified as cash advances. As part of the deal, JP Morgan did not admit to any wrongdoing to the 62,000 members of the class-action lawsuit, but a motion filed in Manhattan federal court reads the financial institution agreed to pay customers $2.5 million, noting it will see class members get “about 95% of the fees they said they were unlawfully charged.”
It adds:
.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.
One of the plaintiffs, Brady Tucker, reportedly claimed JPMorgan Chase violated the Truth in Lending Act since it did not inform its customers crypto purchases were being treated as cash advances. This saw them pay higher fees, which the bank then refused to refund and led to the class action lawsuit.
At the time the lawsuit was filed JPMorgan was seemingly hostile toward cryptocurrencies, with its CEO Jamie Dimon claiming bitcoin was a “fraud.” Since then, the bank has launched its own stablecoin called JPM Coin.
As CryptoGlobe reported, a report published by JPM late last month showed that using their “intrinsic value calculation,” developed by in-house analyst Nick Panigirtzoglou, bitcoin is correctly valued after the recent halving event.
Featured image by Drew Beamer on Unsplash.
