Lawsuit accuses JPMorgan of charging high fees for crypto purchases

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It seems like Jamie Dimon and company are fine with making huge amounts of interest off the cryptocurrency market in private, while bashing digital currencies like Bitcoin in public. The situation, however, just got a little worse for the billionaire investment banker after JPMorgan Chase and Co had been slapped with a lawsuit on the exorbitant interest rates it allegedly charged a client who purchased cryptocurrency in Idaho.

According to a Fortune report, Tucker used his Chase credit card to buy cryptocurrency from Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN). In his lawsuit, Tucker claimed the bank treated his purchases as a cash advances instead of normal payments, resulting in him getting charged with interest rates of as much as 30% annually together with additional fees.

Tucker said his previous Coinbase purchases were also made using his credit card, and he would pay them off at the end of each billing cycle without incurring of the additional financial charges—until the recent incident.

Tucker, who is seeking a class-action status for the suit filed in a Manhattan federal court insisted that he and other bank customers were taken for a ride by JPMorgan Chase and Co with such exorbitantly high charges, saying the banking giant “smacked them with instant-cash-advance fees, plus much higher interest rates than normal, and left them without any recourse.”

The man is seeking a refund of all related fees he paid, as well as an additional $1 million in damages.

Sources who spoke with CoinGeek confirmed that this practise appears to be standard across the crypto market sphere, with banks treating the purchases of cryptocurrencies as loans similar to credit cards where they can charge interest rates as high as 30%.

Banks all over the world have taken a hard-line against cryptocurrency purchase, charging exorbitant fees and very high interest rates for the privilege. In Malta, which purports to be “The Blockchain Island,” the country’s largest bank, Bank of Valletta, does not allow cryptocurrency purchases with its credit cards.