Kansas City, Mo. – August 26, 2025: Chuck Rouse of the Payments Group of Rouse Frets White Goss Gentile Rhodes, P.C., secured a dismissal of defendants in a California fraud case that was part of an effort to create a new tort against gift card issuers and transaction processors for alleged failure to protect gift card purchasers from third-party fraud scams in which consumers are deceived into buying gift cards and giving them to the fraudsters.
Third-party fraud scams have become an increasing problem with respect to retail gift card programs, prompting legislation in several states to require fraud training for gift card issuers and transaction processors and fraud warnings to consumers. The California case attempted to create a new tort under which card issuers and transaction processors had a duty to protect consumers from such fraud by third parties. The tort would have held card issuers and transaction processors responsible for failure to protect consumers in situations where they are tricked into buying their cards by an outside party as a part of a fraud scheme.
About Chuck Rouse: Chuck has practiced for the past 25-plus years extensively in the area of regulatory compliance regarding payment methods, payment instruments and prepaid cards/access instruments. He is a winner of the National Law Journal’s Trailblazer Award for Cryptocurrency/Blockchain/Fintech, was selected by the payments industry as one of the Top 10 Payment Lawyers in the U.S. and as the No. 1 overall, and received the ICON Award by Missouri Lawyers Weekly. Chuck has designed compliance models for more than 500 prepaid card programs, and is an inventor on patents regarding legal technologies including methods and systems for optimizing escheat and derecognizing prepaid cards, stored value cards, credit memos, and electronic payment instruments.
About the Payments Practice Group: The Payments Group addresses compliance of prepaid card and payment instrument programs with federal and state regulations with their work over time touching over a trillion dollars of card loads on billions of cards in hundreds of card programs in many countries. The Payments Group’s worldwide practice focuses upon compliance with regulations governing the prepaid card industry, including consumer protection laws, unclaimed property laws, anti-money laundering regulations, licensing requirements, privacy rules, fraud laws, local taxation laws, and GAAP standards.
About the firm:
Rouse Frets White Goss Gentile Rhodes serves and protects individuals, companies, estates and livelihoods. Based in Kansas City, the firm offers sophisticated representation in both the private and public sectors.
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