J.P. Morgan Chase has been hit with a lawsuit in Manhattan federal court accusing it of charging unexpected fees when it stopped allowing customers buy cryptocurrency with credit cards in late January, and began treating the purchases as cash advances.

The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday on behalf of a proposed nationwide class, stating that the J.P. Morgan charged both extra fees and substantially higher interest rates on the cash advances than on the credit cards and refused to refund the charges when customers complained.

J.P. Morgan spokeswoman Mary Jane Rogers declined to comment on the lawsuit, but said that the bank stopped processing credit card purchases of cryptocurrency on 3 February due to the credit risk involved.

However, Rogers further added that the banks customers are able to use their debit cards to purchase cryptocurrency from their current accounts without incurring cash advance charges.

Several banks across Britain and the United States, including Lloyds Banking Group, Virgin Money and Citigroup, banned the use of credit cards to purchase cryptocurrencies earlier in the year after a dramatic fall in the value of bitcoin.

Share Story: