Using Credit Cards May Cost More At Stores

From the New York Daily News:
Starting Sunday, consumers might have to pay more to use credit cards.
Merchants who accept MasterCard and Visa will soon be able to tack a surcharge onto your bill. The surcharge is fallout from a class-action settlement reached last July that ended years of legal battles between merchants on the one hand, and banks and credit card companies on the other.
Along with paying a group of retailers $6.05 billion, Visa, MasterCard, and several banks and credit card institutions agreed to allow merchants to charge an extra credit card fee starting Jan. 27.
Ever seen a “cash only” sign at a mom and pop store? All retailers have to pay a percentage of their profits to credit card companies in order to process in-store credit card payments. Smaller merchants who don't want to take this transaction fee out of their profits might institute a “cash only” policy. Other stores establish an unofficial minimum for credit card purchases or factor the transaction fee into their prices.
The surcharge proposed by last year’s settlement is supposed to be equal to the cost of processing a credit card transaction, which usually comes out to about 1.5 to 3 percent of the purchase. According to the settlement, merchants can’t charge consumers more than 4 percent. They also won’t be able to add extra fees to debit card transactions, NBC News reports.
Despite the changes, few merchants seem willing to add to their customers’ costs.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/mastercard-visa-users-pay-cards-article-1.1248759#ixzz2J9l95T4j
And the hits keep on coming for those of us who are in the middle class.