Norway Watchdog Says Bank Overcharged Customers $83M

A consumer watchdog organization in Norway is taking legal action against the country’s largest bank on behalf of 150,000 customers.

The Norwegian Consumer Council has accused big bank DNB of overcharging customers 690 million kroner (approximately $83 million) for management fees related to “falsely active funds,” The New York Times reported on Tuesday (June 21).

In what is being considered the country’s biggest class-action lawsuit to date, the watchdog claims DNB charged customers roughly six times more to manage their funds over the course of 2010–2014, the Financial Supervisory Authority and the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration stated.

DNB continues to deny the claims and any wrongdoing but did note that, during the period under speculation, it had a return of 44 percent but managed funds in the way it communicated to customers it would.

Big payments players are facing lawsuits around the globe in recent news.

Just last week, Home Depot launched a new federal antitrust lawsuit claiming that Visa and MasterCard are using security measures prone to fraud, putting retailers and customers at risk of thieves.

It’s the latest large retailer to raise security concerns, with a lawsuit filed this week in U.S. District Court in Atlanta. Last month, Walmart sued Visa over similar issues.

Atlanta-based Home Depot says new payment cards with “chip” technology remain less secure in the U.S. than cards used in Europe and elsewhere in the world.

Even with chips, U.S. cards still rely on customers’ handwritten signatures for verification, rather than more secure Personal Identification Numbers, or PINs, Home Depot maintains.

“Regardless of how the cardholder’s identity is confirmed, the chip makes data much more secure, rendering it almost useless to create fraudulent cards or transactions,” MasterCard spokesman Seth Eisen said in a statement on Wednesday (June 15).