Foreign Exchange Fee Settlement

A settlement was reached on the Foreign Currency Conversion Fee Antitrust Litigation. You can get additional information on this at http://www.ccfsettlement.com/. If you traveled outside the country and withdrew money from an ATM or paid using a credit card (Visa, MasterCard, Diner's Club, and maybe some others) between February 1996 to November 2006, you can file a claim and receive a refund. Apparently, us poor consumers were overcharged in foreign transaction fees during this time period.

There's a couple of different refund options. M chose the first refund option, which was to submit the claim form with the bare minimum information (name and address). If the settlement goes through, I believe that's a straight $25 refund. I chose the second option, which was to include the number of days I've been out of the country during that time period, and the reason for travel. The third (and last) option requires the most work, which would have been to list out all the foreign transactions you've had in those 10 years (who even keeps records dating that far?). The deadline is not until May 30, 2008, so still plenty of time. I'm very glad they made filing online an option... makes life so much easier.