Retailers have brought a lawsuit against VISA for illegally fixing the fees that retailers pay on each VISA card transaction according to an article at
newsday.com. While this fight may seem like only a fight regarding the fees that stores have to pay to VISA and might not seem to have much to do with customers, there were a few lines in the article that caught my attention.
Visa forbids retailers to charge consumers a fee for using credit cards. Instead, Visa charges the merchant that fee, known as an interchange, and the merchant either absorbs it or, more likely, passes it along to consumers in the form of higher prices.
San Francisco-based Visa says merchants now want the right to change that system by putting a surcharge directly on consumers who use credit cards...
The retailer in the current lawsuit say that this is not their aim, but they surely would not hesitate to adopt this option if it were available to them. If the ultimate ruling in the lawsuit allows retailers to pass along credit card fees to the customer, there may soon be a time that it will cost you a fee to simply use your credit card.
Use Your VISA, Pay A Fee?
