If you moved money through PayWave between November 2021 and February 2025, you almost certainly paid a fee you were not told about. Not a large one — a few cents on a small transfer, a few dollars on a large one. Multiplied across 250,000 affected customers, the firm's modeling puts the total at approximately $750 million.
The mechanics are not complicated. PayWave's published fee schedule described its instant-transfer service as costing "up to 1.5% of the transfer amount." The rate actually applied was 2.90% plus a fixed 30 cents, charged per transfer — and, where a transfer failed and was retried, charged again. Separately, the app described currency conversion as taking place "at the market rate." The rate applied embedded a spread averaging 3.1%, disclosed nowhere.
On February 14, 2025, PayWave amended both disclosures. It has not refunded the difference, and it has not accepted that any difference was owed.
Why this is not a class action
On November 1, 2021, PayWave added a mandatory arbitration clause and a class-action waiver to its customer agreement. It did so by in-app notice, with a 30-day right to opt out referenced in a changelog entry. Very few customers saw it. Fewer still opted out.
Clauses of this kind are routinely enforced by the US courts, and we have not asked a court to strike this one down. There is a more direct answer. The clause requires that each customer's claim be arbitrated individually. Read as written, it obliges PayWave to arbitrate every claim, one at a time — and to pay the respondent-side filing fee the American Arbitration Association charges for each demand.
The waiver forecloses a class action. It does not foreclose a claim.
So we are using the clause as drafted. As of July 31, 2026 we have filed 14,900 individual demands and registered 41,200 claimants. Twenty-five bellwether demands were selected on July 9 to test the common issues; the first hearings are listed for August 25.
Who is likely to be covered
- You held a personal or business PayWave account at some point between November 1, 2021 and February 14, 2025.
- You were resident in the United States when you opened it.
- You paid at least one instant-transfer fee, or completed at least one currency conversion, during that period.
- You did not opt out of the arbitration clause in December 2021.
- You have not signed a release of these claims in exchange for a refund.
The eligibility questionnaire on this site applies that test and gives you a reasoned answer either way. It takes about four minutes and commits you to nothing.
What a claim is worth
It depends on how much you moved and which services you used. Our modeling puts the mean recovery at $3,000 per registered claimant before deductions, with most claims falling between $1,200 and $3,300. Higher-volume users and anyone who converted currency regularly sit above that range.
What happens if you register
You answer eight eligibility questions, then complete a registration form that saves as you go. We verify your identity, ask for any account statements you still have, and prepare a demand in your name. You sign a claimant agreement that sets out our fee — 40% of what we recover for you — and every other deduction, before you sign anything else.
No fee is payable unless the program recovers money. Registration closes on November 30, 2026.
This article is general information about procedure and is not legal advice on any individual claim. Attorney advertising. All case references, figures and names are fictional sample content prepared for this demonstration.
