Starting on Sunday, Jan. 27, retailers will be allowed to tack a surcharge of up to 4% onto your tab if you want to pay with a credit card. If that sounds like a lot, you’re right. Happily, though, it’s unlikely to happen very often.
For years, card issuers have been making lots of money off so-called interchange fees. Until financial regulators and lawyers dragged this obscure term into general discourse, most people had no idea what an interchange fee is. (Still don’t? It’s the fee, typically about 2%, that a store pays your bank when you use a credit card at checkout.) For low-margin businesses like supermarkets as well as mom-and-pop stores that don’t have the clout of their big-box brethren to negotiate lower rates, these fees cut into profits in a big way.
But in a contentious legal ruling that is still being disputed, a U.S. District Court determined last year that merchants are allowed to pass along the cost of those credit-card interchange fees to customers. Consumer advocates say permitting surcharges is a slippery slope. ”If a national sales tax of 2, 3, or 4 percent were being proposed, everyone would be up in arms,”
Read more: http://business.time.com/2013/01/25/a-4-surcharge-for-using-a-credit-card-legal-but-not-likely/#ixzz2J7KI1Uhb
Join the conversation and have a little fun at Capitalstool.com. If you are a new visitor to the Stool, please register and join in! To post your observations and charts, and snide, but good-natured, comments, click here to register. Be sure to respond to the confirmation email which is sent instantly. If not in your inbox, check your spam filter.
