A NIS 16 million lawsuit was filed yesterday with the Tel Aviv District Court against Israel Credit Cards-Cal Ltd. (ICC-Cal) (Visa) and PayPal Inc., and the claimants have asked the court to recognize it as a class-action suit.
The statement of claim says that ICC-Cal charges customers conversion fees for transactions, including shekel transactions. The claimants also say that PayPal is aware of this practice, and allegedly did not try to prevent it or warn its customers.
The claimants say that since PayPal entered the Israeli market in 2010, by establishing PayPal Israel Ltd., Israeli customers could open accounts and make domestic transactions in shekels. The claimants say that ICC-Cal continued to charge a conversion fee between shekels and dollars for the Israeli customers at 2.5% the amount of the transaction, even though the transaction was in shekels.
"It is emphasized that charging customers for a foreign currency conversion procedure is only made by ICC-Cal and not by its competitors Leumi Card Ltd. and Isracard Ltd., even for the exact same type of transactions carried out in Israel in shekels via PayPal," states the statement of claim.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on June 22, 2011
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