Apple sued by Venmo users claiming it inflated payment fees

In recent reports, Venmo and Cash App users are now dragging Apple to court over P2P payment fees. The users that are taking Apple to court over this same issue are from New York, Hawaii, South Carolina and Georgia. In total, four customers are using these payment platforms that are taking the tech giant to court over payment fee-related issues.

Some might wonder what the main issue is about the P2P payment fees that triggered this court case. Well, it has to do with the inflating fee prices charged on each P2P transaction that users make on these payment platforms. Well, this then brings another concern to some netizens that might take an interest in this case.

If the P2P payment fees are charged after transactions on Venmo and Cash App, why then are these users dragging Apple to court? Well, this has to do with Apple’s alleged agreement with the payment platforms in this case. So the plaintiffs are arguing that the hike in P2P transactional fees is Apple’s fault and they hold the ability to solve it.

Venmo and Cash App users are fed up with the high P2P transactional fees

On Friday, a Class Action Complaint against Apple was filed by users of some apps on their App Store. These apps are Venmo and Cash App, both of which are financial apps and have millions of users. The plaintiffs argue that Apple’s agreement with these apps is resulting in a hike in transactional fees on P2P payments.

Because Venmo and Cash App operate on Apple devices, they pay a certain fee to Apple. Additionally, these apps are direct competitors to Apple’s Cash business, which some users rely on for payment. These apps, just like Apple Cash, charge users a transaction fee per payment and that’s how they make their money.

According to the plaintiffs, the fee they pay for P2P transactions on Venmo and Cash App is outrageous. They point to an agreement between Apple and other financial apps on the App Store as being the reason for this fee hike. The agreement in question limits competition between these financial apps on the App Store and Apple.

Apple also prevents the usage of decentralized blockchain technology on these apps, a channel that could reduce transaction fee costs. With these arguments, the plaintiffs allege that Apple is making these apps more expensive to use, hence staying on top of the competition. The plaintiffs suing Apple hope that the court can make them remove these anticompetitive measures so P2P payment fees can reduce.