Credit Card Fraud

The wonderful thing abut the stock market is that it is amoral, capitalism itself is amoral. Clearly with such little concern about the criminal behaviour of the big Credit Card companies, the stock market should be willing to put IPO's out for Bolivian Coca or Afghanistan Opium cooperatives. Then those two economic basket cases would at least be able to gain enough capital to reconstruct their economies.

Visa and MasterCard are part of the Banking cartels, they are in fact agents of the banks, much like the ATM service programs, Cirrus and Interac.

Interesting that banking/credit card fraud is considered a less henious crime than say oh I don't know, shoplifting, or robbery, or selling drugs on the street for the third time.

And the reason that Visa and Mastercard are facing legal suits? Why it's a simple thing called MONOPOLY.

As Americans go into Debt, and Canadians as well, Mastercard and Visa have reaped record profits off the go-go casino economy that is America.

Nothing productive here, just Money chasing Capital chasing Money; M-C-M. Housing Bubble, Debt Boom

Which is why America is now the worlds largest debtor.Storm Clouds Over The US Economy

Merchants Hit MasterCard IPO on Anticompetitive Grounds

A law firm co-leading the merchant class-action interchange lawsuit against Visa USA, MasterCard Inc. and a number of their large members yesterday filed a supplemental complaint in federal court asserting that MasterCard’s imminent initial public offering of stock is an attempt to shield itself from antitrust liability for past interchange practices. But if or how the revised complaint will affect the planned IPO that could come as soon as Thursday and raise up to $2.8 billion is unclear.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - MasterCard is expected to hit the market with a bang when it makes its debut on the New York Stock Exchange as early as next week.

But there may be reason for long-term investors to whimper.

Investors big and small are expected to gobble up shares of the credit card association, which has a long history of stable performance. But the company's future appears less certain.

MasterCard faces mounting lawsuits, and long-term investors could end up footing the company's legal bills, analysts said.
Investors in the IPO market like to see growth, and while MasterCard is a well established company, its business has benefited as consumers move from paper to electronic payments. The total value of transactions on MasterCard-branded cards - including purchases and cash advances - rose 13 percent last year to $1.7 trillion, according to company estimates.
MasterCard has booked about $860 million in expenses related to legal settlements over the last three fiscal years. It settled a lawsuit brought on behalf of merchants in 2003 but a number of cases remain outstanding, including separate suits filed by Morgan Stanley's (Research) Discover and American Express alleging the credit card association competes unfairly.