Help Fight Unfair Credit Card Fees!
I am writing you today to express my concerns about outrageously high credit card fees, and to enlist your support to put an end to credit card company price fixing.
> About $2 of every $100 American consumers spend using credit and debit cards go directly to the credit card industry through swipe fees, also known as interchange.
> In 2008 alone, American consumers paid $48 billion in credit and debit card swipe fees.
> This fee is set in secret by the credit card industry, forced on business, and foisted on consumers.
> It is costing American merchants and consumers billions in higher retail prices whether or not they pay with cards or with cash or checks.
> Interchange fees have tripled since 2001, from $16 billion to $48 billion. This is the fastest growing cost for most retail businesses (growing faster than health care costs) and, for many, is the second highest operating cost.
> Visa member banks collectively agree to charge the same swipe fee rates. MasterCard member banks do, too. This is price-fixing. It hurts merchants and consumers and it must stop.
> The fees can't be negotiated and are not adequately disclosed to merchants or consumers.
> That's why unfair credit and debit card swipe fees continue to rise rapidly despite improved processing technology, consistently low interest rates, and rapidly rising card volume.
> The Government Accountability Office recently concluded that small businesses are hurt the most by swipe fees because they pay higher rates than their large competitors.
> Moreover, Americans pay among the highest credit card interchange fees in the world, three times what British consumers pay and seven times the rate that MasterCard recently agreed to with the European Competition Commission, for example.
> Governments including Britain, as well as the European Union, are taking steps to deal with credit and debit card interchange fees and make them fair.
> The United States lags far behind our other major trading partners in terms of grappling with this threat to open markets and free competition.
> This is why I urge you to support S 1212, The Credit Card Fair Fee Act, which stops the price-fixing by the credit card industry and provides an open and transparent process to negotiate credit card interchange fees.
> Thank you for your attention to this issue.
Sincerely,
Brad Tabor
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