An increasing number of states across the country areconsidering legislation that would block the ability of retailersto surcharge consumers who pay for a purchase using a credit card,according to CUNA.

The trade group said 28 states have either put such bans inplace or are considering them.

That ability used to be forbidden by card acceptance agreementsbetween retailers and the major card brands, but those rules weredropped as part of a proposed settlement to ongoing antitrust litigation betweensome retailers, the major card brands and six major credit cardissuers.

But retailers opposed to the settlement terms have used theeasing of restrictions on surcharging as an example of how thesettlement falls short, contending that while the settlementagreement allows merchants to surcharge for card use, doing sowould put them at a severe disadvantage with competitors who didnot surcharge.

They also point out that any surcharging would have to be donewith additional rules that make it harder to do.

For example, merchants who want to surcharge credit cardtransactions must notify the card brand that they are surchargingand limit the surcharge to no more than the interchange rate theywould pay on a given transaction and never more than 4% of thetransaction value.

They must also notify the consumer that they are surcharging thetransaction. Retailers must post notices of the surcharge at boththeir store's front entrance and at the point of sale.

Nonetheless, even the possibility that some retailers,somewhere, might surcharge a transaction conducted on a cardappears to have fired lawmakers' imaginations and led them in 18 states topropose adding such surcharging to their books, according to theassociation.

Ten states, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kansas,Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma and Texas already had suchsurcharging bans in place.