The Battle Has Needlessly Begun and Congress is Ready to Screw it Up!

Retailers, Banks Battle Over Credit Card Fees - washingtonpost.com

The battle is on. In one corner we've got a tag team consisting of the National Association of Convenience Stores, the National Retail Federation and the Merchants Payments Coalition who all seam to be "teeming" with anger.

In the other corner, you've got the infamous Dynamic Du(opoly).

Unfortunately, the referee of this bout is the Government Accountability Office.

I say both sides should team together and kick the referee out of the ring. When the bell sounds consumers can decide who the winner is.

My personal belief is that once Congress steps in, everyone will lose. The Tag Team, Teh Dynamic Duo(poly) and the Consumers. Seems to be their history. Lose Lose Lose situations always occur when the Con(gress)Man gets involved.

I say: "Let the people decide!" If consumers want to pay with their credit/debit card let them pay with their credit/debit card. If they want to pay with cash, let them pay with cash. If retailers want to offer a discount for cash, let them offer a discount for cash. It's called free will and it's called free enterprise.

Earlier I posted a press release from Visa stating that, "By a 2-to-1 margin, consumers say retailers should pay the cost of accepting credit and debit cards."

If the study is indeed accurate, then the solution is simple. Let the "TWO PEOPLE" pay with their credit and debit cards and let the "OTHER ONE" pay with cash. Everybody wins!

Who needs the (insert expletive here) con(gress)man or a congressional committee wasting hundreds of thousands, if not millions of tax-payer dollars, doing a study to determine which cry baby gets the bottle?

It's not really difficult to solve (unless of course, government sticks their noses into it...if they do, I say to both Visa/MasterCard and the Retailers...take a lesson from Mike Tyson...bite it off!) You 'ear what I'm sayin'?

Let's just KISS (keep it simple stupid) and Make Up. Both sides should agree to let the consumers decide how they want to pay. Both sides should agree to let the merchants decide if they want to discount the price to save on interchange. But by all means, let's try and keep the government out of this. Involving them is as stupid as typing your credit card or debit card numbers into a box on a website...


Retailers Battle Credit Card Fees - Banks Say Interchange Charges Are Fair

A battle is brewing over the processing fees that banks charge merchants each time a customer uses a credit or debit card.

Congress is considering three bills that would regulate the so-called interchange fees -- which generally amount to 1 to 2 percent of a total sale and totaled $48 billion in 2008. Meanwhile, the Government Accountability Office is doing a study of the fees, (oh please...let the people decide!) as required by a law signed by President Obama in May that bans many unfair credit card industry practices.

Merchants across the country and the card industry are waging a fight for public support. The merchants say the fees are excessive and eat into their already small profit margins, forcing them to pass on the cost to consumers. The card issuers say they are providing merchants a much-needed service as more Americans choose to pay for their purchases with plastic.

Both sides have created YouTube videos, bought newspaper ads and released studies to prove their points. Large national chains such as 7-Eleven have embarked on petition drives.

The Merchants Payments Coalition will release a study on Thursday of how European countries, Canada and New Zealand handle interchange fees. Merchants in those countries generally pay lower interchange fees. (Editor's Note: here's the PDF version of the Study)

The study found that if American merchants paid the same swipe fees as those in Australia the past four years, the net savings would total $125 billion. Editor's Question: In whose pocket did that $125 billion go? I don't need a study to tell you it wasn't the consumers...

Again...let the people decide.

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