Has your farmgate business accepted Visa and/or Mastercard credit cards as payment at any point since March 23rd, 2021?
You could be eligible to receive a portion of a recent multimillion-dollar class action settlement with Visa and Mastercard.
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) is Canada’s largest association of small and medium-sized businesses.
CFIB is dedicated to increasing business owners’ chances of success.
Since 2008, CFIB has been negotiating with government and the credit card industry to drive policy change at all levels of government.
“Many business owners find dealing with credit card fees unnecessarily confusing and it is almost impossible to compare rates between different processors,” explains Corinne Pohlmann, Senior Vice-President of National Affairs at CFIB.
“Small merchants have been bearing the cost of premium cards, while the industry restricts their right to surcharge or refuse those cards.”
According to CFIB, the settlement is another small step toward ensuring fairness for many farmgate operations and other small business owners that have been dealing with expensive credit card processing fees.
The portion of the settlement a business can receive depends on its size and average annual income.
Small merchants with an annual revenue of less than $5 million may claim $30 -per year (a maximum total of $600) they incurred merchant discount fees between 2001 and 2021.
Starting May 30th, 2022, farmgate operators can submit a claim through the Credit Card Class Action website here.
Applications for rebates are available until September 30th, 2022.
The change is expected to come in effect in October 2022.