msn money This post comes from Beverly Harzog at partner blog Wise Bread. January 2013
Would you pay a fee to use your credit card? I don't even need a nanosecond to answer this. My response is: No freakin' way.
Here's why I'm asking the question. Last summer, there was an antitrust settlement between merchants and Visa, MasterCard and big banks about credit card interchange fees. These are the "swipe" fees merchants pay to the networks (like Visa) to process your payments when you use your card.
The settlement called for merchants to receive $7.2 billion in cash and temporary reductions in interchange fees. This settlement also gave merchants the legal right to add a "checkout fee" when you use a credit card to pay for purchases. These fees could start popping up as soon as Sunday.
"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual." Thomas Jefferson
Quote: LadyVet wrote in post #3I was under the impression that those fee's were already "built in" the price of goods and services. I feel like I'm being nickel and dimed to death.
The businesses paid the fee for the consumer.
Because of this, when dealing with a merchant that was exemplary, I would try to pay by debit or cash whenever possible. My thinking was that if I could save them the fee, they would value me more as a customer. Now I won't be inclined to do that.
Orthodoxy SUCKS.
"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual." Thomas Jefferson