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Visa, Mastercard and five banks face new class action over card fees

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A proposed class action, The Pizza Standard LLC v. Visa Inc. et al. (case 1:26-cv-06087), was filed on September 30, 2026. ClassAction.org describes the plaintiff as a San Diego pizzeria. It alleges that Visa, Mastercard and several of the largest US banks have maintained a conspiracy to artificially inflate the fees merchants pay on credit card transactions. It says this continues despite a class action settlement of more than $5 billion in recent years over the same allegedly anticompetitive market restraints. Everything below is the plaintiff's allegation, not an established fact.

The 134-page complaint says the effectively non-negotiable transaction fees imposed by the defendants amount to "a deadweight toll on virtually every credit card purchase in America". It puts the total at hundreds of billions in "monopoly rents", at rates that "no competitive market would produce". The source gives no period over which that total accrued. The complaint also says merchants now pay over $100 billion annually in fees to accept Visa and Mastercard credit cards, calling the scale of the scheme "staggering".

According to the complaint, Visa and Mastercard have worked for decades with the bank defendants (Bank of America, Capital One, Chase Bank, Citibank and Wells Fargo) to set uniform schedules of interchange fees. These are the effectively non-negotiable charges merchants pay to credit card-issuing banks on each transaction. To keep those fees high and "ensure merchants cannot escape them", the defendants allegedly built a "web of anticompetitive rules" that disabled any market force that could discipline card costs.

The suit describes the restraints in three main ways. First, merchants that accept any Visa or Mastercard credit card must accept all such cards regardless of cost, which removes any incentive for issuing banks to compete by lowering fees. Second, merchants cannot steer customers to cheaper payment options, for instance by surcharging based on the card a customer uses. Third, these and other restraints have blocked competition among issuing banks and other card networks, letting the defendants raise fees every year "without consequence", the case alleges.

The filing adds that Visa and Mastercard used the same restraints to inflate their own network fees, made up of per-transaction fees and fixed fees. It calls these "an additional supracompetitive tax on each credit card transaction".

The complaint then turns to the earlier litigation. It says that in December 2019 the court approved a class action settlement in a years-old multidistrict litigation that provided upward of $5 billion in monetary relief to merchants, but only for a class period ending on January 24, 2019. A separate "equitable relief" class settlement seeking injunctive relief has been preliminarily approved, but its benefits apply only prospectively. Merchants will not receive "a single dollar in compensation" for fees paid since January 25, 2019, the suit says. In its words, merchants that accepted Visa and Mastercard cards after January 2019 have "borne the full brunt of Defendants' continuing anticompetitive conduct", and "this settlement structure leaves millions of American merchants without any remedy for their ongoing injuries".

The proposed class would cover all individuals, businesses and other entities that have accepted Visa-branded and/or Mastercard-branded credit cards in the United States from January 25, 2019 until the alleged anticompetitive effects of the defendants' conduct cease. The named defendants include Visa Inc., Visa U.S.A. Inc., Visa International Service Association, Mastercard Incorporated, Mastercard International Incorporated, Paymentech, LLC, and the banks and their parent companies: Citibank, N.A. and Citigroup Inc.; Wells Fargo & Company; Bank of America, NA and Bank of America Corporation; Capital One Bank USA, N.A. and Capital One Financial Corporation; and Chase Bank USA N.A. and JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Key facts

  • The Pizza Standard LLC, described as a San Diego pizzeria, filed a proposed class action (1:26-cv-06087) on September 30, 2026 against Visa, Mastercard and five big banks: Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, Citibank and Wells Fargo.
  • The 134-page complaint alleges the defendants set uniform interchange fee schedules and enforce rules that stop merchants from refusing costly cards or steering customers to cheaper payment options; it claims merchants now pay over $100 billion a year in Visa and Mastercard fees.
  • It also alleges Visa and Mastercard inflated their own network fees, made up of per-transaction and fixed fees.
  • The suit says the earlier settlement, approved in December 2019 with upward of $5 billion for merchants, covered only a class period ending January 24, 2019, and that a preliminarily approved injunctive settlement is prospective only.
  • The proposed class covers everyone who has accepted Visa or Mastercard credit cards in the US from January 25, 2019 until the alleged anticompetitive effects cease.

Why it matters

Card fees touch nearly every retail transaction in the US, and this suit tries to reopen a fight that an earlier settlement of more than $5 billion was meant to address. The plaintiff's core argument is a gap in time: the 2019 monetary settlement stopped at January 24, 2019, and the newer settlement offers only forward-looking rule changes. So, the complaint says, merchants have received nothing for fees paid since January 25, 2019. It also claims the overall fee burden has reached over $100 billion a year and that the alleged rules let fees rise every year "without consequence".

Who it affects

Directly, the defendants: Visa, Mastercard, and the banks Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, Citibank and Wells Fargo, along with their parent and card-issuing entities and Paymentech, LLC. On the other side, the proposed class is every individual, business or other entity that has accepted Visa-branded or Mastercard-branded credit cards in the United States from January 25, 2019 onward, which the complaint describes as millions of American merchants. The suit does not give the pizzeria's owner, or say how much it paid in fees.

How to use it

This is a legal filing, not a product, so there is nothing to adopt. A merchant that has accepted Visa or Mastercard credit cards since January 25, 2019 falls inside the class as the suit defines it. The ClassAction.org page notes that there is usually nothing a person needs to do to join a new class action when it is first filed. The article gives no hearing dates or next steps, so anyone with a stake would need to follow the docket for case 1:26-cv-06087.

How solid is it

Everything here is an allegation in a complaint as reported by ClassAction.org, a class action news site. Nothing has been proven or adjudicated. The article quotes the complaint at length but includes no response or comment from Visa, Mastercard or any of the banks. The case number, filing date and the quoted figures are consistent within the article. The settlement figure appears as "more than $5 billion" in the article's lead and as "upward of $5 billion" in the description of the December 2019 settlement.

Risks and caveats

The "hundreds of billions" in alleged monopoly rents has no stated time period, so it cannot be compared with the $100 billion annual figure. No specific damages amount sought in this suit is stated. The article does not say when the preliminarily approved equitable relief settlement will receive final approval, and it gives no hearing dates, schedule or next procedural steps. The court is not named explicitly. Treat every claim as the plaintiff's version until the defendants respond or a court rules.

“This settlement structure leaves millions of American merchants without any remedy for their ongoing injuries”

— The class action complaint, as quoted by ClassAction.org