ACTIF President Jim Shapiro and Legal and Legislative Chairman Michael Towers recently met with both Visa and MasterCard to address such industry concerns as non-conforming charges, interchange rate structures and no-shows fees.

“Both associations were helpful and informative,” said Shapiro. Meetings with credit card industry experts have helped identify several issues worthy of further investigation, he added.

After reviewing several dozen credit card statements from rental operators throughout the industry, Shapiro and Towers learned that “best rate/conforming charges” ranged from as little as 0% to 36% when the industry standard should be in the mid 70% to 80% range.

“There is little question in our mind that further investigation is warranted and will most likely result in substantial refunds to rental operators and millions of dollars being saved,” said Towers. ACTIF has retained a law firm and credit card processing expert who will start to document the association’s findings to date. The review will include forensically dissecting individual transactions, as well as reviewing MasterCard and Visa Association rules for member banks, acquirers and processors to see what their contractual obligations are under the rules.

“This first step in the process will hopefully help us quantify the potential dollar value, identify liable parties and potential class size,” said Towers. In addition, ACTIF has asked former FBI director Judge Sessions, ACTIF’s general counsel, to set up a meeting with the Department of Justice, which recently concluded a related investigation. That probe may have produced information and documents that could aid ACTIF’s investigation.