A leading consumer activist has called fears that significantnumbers of merchants might begin to surcharge credit card paymentsin order to recoup interchange costs the result of a “PR campaign”from Visa and MasterCard.
|EdMierzwinski, consumer program director for the U.S. PublicInterest Research Group, wrote in a blog entry that some people have been “snookered” by thecampaign into being afraid that merchants would charge thesurcharge, but added that US PIRG did not believe this wouldhappen.
|US PIRG doubted this would happen primarily because merchantswould not want to upset their customers, Mierzwinski said.
|“The threat of surcharging, which would lower credit card use(and therefore bank profits, which the banks wouldn't like) mayhelp merchants negotiate lower swipe fees, but we simply don'tthink many merchants will surcharge their customers,” he wrote inthe Feb. 2 entry. “In addition, 40% of all consumers live in 10large states (California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kansas,Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma and Texas) that prohibitsurcharging by state law. The settlement does not override thesestate laws.”
|Mierzwinski and US PIRG are on record supporting the merchants' side in the litigation overcredit card interchange.
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