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Visa credit card company has banned U.S. citizens from using Visa credit cards to fund binary options trading outside the U.S.
Visa has not publicly announced the move, but has sent notices to payment processors and others who serve as middlemen who permit traders get their monies to binary option trading operations.
A copy of the notice was obtained by the financial news website FinanceMagnates.com and their report can be read here
According to the website, Visa instituted the ban because a number of binary option trading operations that are based outside the U.S. are involved in fraud and not regulated.
The Visa ban comes on the heels of media reports last week that detailed fraud in the worldwide binary options trading industry.
The media reports were fueled by a leaker who worked for a binary options trading operation, grew disenchanted with the fraud and provided stolen confidential customer information from the operation that exposed how traders were ripped off.
Residents of Canada are also included in the ban, FinanceMagnates.com reported.
Legal binary options trading operations that are based in the U.S., such as NADEX or the Cantor Exchange, are not affected by the ban, the website reported.
Gambling 911 has contacted the Visa press office at Visa corporate headquarters in San Francisco for comment, but so far has not heard back.
If any comment from Visa is forthcoming, Gambling 911 will report it.
The ban by Visa to disallow Americans to use that credit card to fund binary options trading--which some consider a form of gambling--is reminiscent of a move made by another credit card company years ago in regard to Americans using credit cards to fund gambling at online casinos.
In a now-memorable legal case from almost 20 years ago, a San Francisco woman rans up thousands of dollars in debt on her MasterCard credit card gambling at a foreign online casino.
When she couldn't pay the debt, she sued MasterCard, saying she shouldn't have to pay because gambling debts aren't legally enforceable in California.
She won the landmark case and did not have to pay the credit card company.
MasterCard immediately then banned its cards from being used to fund online gambling, and other credit card companies soon followed suit.
By Tom Somach
Gambling 911 Staff Writer
