Lisa and Andrew Harding racked up tens of thousands of dollars in online gambling debt during 2002 and 2003, prompting a lawsuit from credit card company Retailers National Bank, which accused Lisa Harding of failing to pay the bills.
Last week, the pair filed a countersuit against several credit card companies, including Visa International and its USA division, MasterCard International and Discover Financial Services. They also sued banks that issued the cards, including Retailers National Bank and Citibank, and companies they said electronically transferred funds for some of their bets, including Western Union Holdings.
The countersuit, filed in Superior Court in Alameda County, California, claims that the companies ran afoul of California's unfair business practices act by processing the gambling transactions, and violated a state prohibition against providing credit for gambling. The suit also claims the companies violated the USA Patriot Act, which prohibits illegal money transmissions.
"We brought this so this will not happen to anybody else, so companies will stop making money off of illegal gambling loans in California," said Ira Rothken, an attorney for the Hardings.
Many major credit card companies have policies of not doing business with any sites they know offer online wagering. Rothken said it's up to the companies to enforce those policies -- something he said they didn't do in this case. "Evidently, there are bugs in their system," Rothken said.
Paul Klemm, an attorney who's representing Retailers National Bank, said he hadn't received the cross-complaint and wouldn't comment on the case.
The countersuit is seeking to relieve the Hardings of their debt. If it succeeds, it wouldn't be the first suit to put a dent in an online gambler's liability to a credit card company. In two similar suits also brought by Rothken, both Discover Card and Visa agreed to relieve some portion of the charges that online gamblers had rung up.
Online gambling payment has also become a hot topic among federal lawmakers. Two weeks ago, a Senate committee approved a bill that would make credit card payments to gambling sites illegal. The House passed a similar bill in June.
Talkback
I'm sorry but I feel no sympathy for these people. Whatever happened to paying your own debts, rather than trying to sue your way out of them? Will no-one take responsibility for their own actions anymore? I'm sure that these irresponsible idiots must have given their card details in the first place when they were trying to play! How about the banks keeping the winnings if things had gone the other way? - I'm sure this would have been just as unpopular!
I have no love of banks, but these people need to understand that the money wasn't free. Their suit should not prevail (and I don't believe it will, notwithstanding the Neo-Nazi, I mean Neo-Conservative inpired USA Patriot Act). The banks will get screwed anyway since they're never going to see the money (I mean we'll get screwed when the banks write it off and raise their interest rates on OUR credit cards). But these people should have this debt hanging over them for a long time. They should not be bailed out.
I think it is brilliant what these people are doing, others have to understand addiction and the banks and credit card complanies should try and help. As soon as they see people are depositing to these cheating casinos they should put a bar on them. Instead they raise your credit or let you go well overdrawn. It would be very easy for banks etc to implement something and help put a stop the the new craze of on line gambling which no one can ever win on as they are cheats. Many people are getting hooked on somethingthey would never of considered before.
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