Credit Card refunds owed for foreign currency charges

FYI -

KFYI - "The Valley's Talk Station":
"If you've bought anything in another country using your credit card, you may be in for a refund. A recent settlement of a class-action lawsuit against credit card companies has resulted in the credit card companies agreeing to reimburse customers for overcharges in currency-conversion fees. That is, when your purchase – in francs, pounds, lire, euros, or yen, for example – was converted to dollars, the banks charged high, and undisclosed, conversion fees which the lawsuit settlement revealed were a ripoff. As a result of settling the 2001 lawsuit, the companies agreed to make $336 million available to pay customers back for those fees.

If you have all of your receipts from those purchases, you can use those to total up how much is owed you in currency conversion fees. Otherwise, you can submit the claim for the standard amount of $25.

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard says some consumers have thrown out the notices, fearing they were phony. Goddard says they are legitimate, as long as they came from P.O. Box 290, Philadelphia, PA. He warns there are copycat mailings out there trying to glean personal and financial information such as your birthdate, Social Security number, bank account numbers, etc. He says any solicitation that seeks any of that information should be ignored."

We're so concerned about privacy fraud (with cause!) that sometimes we miss out on legitimate opportunities.