🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <31C8C814.146D@atl.mindspring.com> jonejonz@atl.mindspring.com writes:


>The contract between the merchant and credit card issuer varies between vendor.
>American Express allows no 
>markup, whereas VISA and MC allow for markup with certain merchants. Large
>merchants such as Best Buy or 
>Macy's are typically prevented from markup due to the favorible status of their
>contracts (usually less than 
>1% of the ticket surcharge to Macy's for every charge). The little guy, who
>typically pays a 2.5 to 4% 
>surcharge, is allowed to markup, depending on the contract.

It's the little guy that gets hammered. I know a local firm that was adding on 
a 3-4% fee for credit cards. Wasn't long before the merchant bank let him know 
in no uncertain terms he would lose merchant status if he did it again. 
Instead of just giving cash discounts for not using credit cards he decided to 
start forcing the sales people<employees> to eat the credit card fees out of 
their commissions. Looks like it's soon to be lawsuit time on that one.

>Enforcement in these areas, however, is almost non-existent. The fact is, a
>company who is paying 3% on all 
>charges back to VISA is more important to VISA than little old you. They'll
>usually cut him a little slack.

Everything I've seen it's the merchant that gets nailed when stuff like this 
is reported to Visa/MC/Amex. Merchants only need to offer cash discounts to 
get around the surcharge problem. If they aren't smart enough to figure it out 
then they get nailed for stupidity.



Jeff

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