"Illegal online gambling" decision spells trouble for New York Lottery

Yet another incident of bank overblocking under the authority of the UIGEA surfaced this week in the publication “The Consumerist”, which reported that the US bank Chase chose to treat a credit card customer’s New York Lottery subscription payment as a cash advance, with the $10 fee and astronomical interest rate that goes along with it.
The customer charged a annual subscription to the New York State Lottery Mega Millions game on his Chase MasterCard in the amount of $98, subsequently noticing that his monthly statement carried a $10 cash advance fee and a $1.24 interest charge for that cash advance fee, along with the $98 charge to the New York State Lottery.
When he called Chase, he was referred to the lottery, being told that it had incorrectly processed the charge as a cash advance instead of a regular charge.
However, when the punter contacted the Lottery he was informed that it had not been responsible for the incorrect charge. Lottery officials explained to him that what had actually happened was that the bank was taking advantage of the UIGEA, which went into force on June 1st this year.
This gave credit card companies the power to handle charges for illegal Internet gambling in this fashion, he was informed. The bank had apparently seen fit to incorrectly classify the New York State Lottery and legal horse betting in the State in this ‘illegal’ category, and that the Lottery was seeking legal advice on the best way to address the situation.
The customer then returned to the bank, armed with the knowledge he had garnered from the Lottery and requesting that the charges be reversed. The bank refused, and the punter, who claims to have been a loyal client for 30 years, closed his account. Permanently.

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