Credit Card - Additional Surcharge Fees to begin Jan 27th

OP thread title is MISLEADING!!! Read the Wiki for more info.

What This Means for Consumers:

• First thing first, nothing will change unless retailers decide to do something. There is NO NEW fee added by Visa/MC. Customers have been paying for credit card fee forever. Retailers just add it to their operation cost (and recover their expenses like this by increasing their product/services price/fee).
• Consumers will pay an additional fee when they use their credit card at retailers that decide to surcharge (outside of the 10 protected states). No one forcing retailers to add those surcharge at all. They were NOT allowed to do it before 1/27/13 but with this change, they can if they want.
• Consumers should be aware there are limits to the amount merchants can surcharge. (Merchant surcharges cannot in any event exceed the maximum amount of 4% of the underlying transaction.)
• Retailers are permitted to apply a surcharge to only credit card purchases and cannot impose a surcharge for purchases made using a debit or prepaid card.
• If retailers intend to impose a surcharge on credit card purchases, they are required to notify customers before customers make an actual purchase at the store entrance and at the point of sale – or in an online environment, on the first page that references credit card brands.
• Retailers must disclose surcharge fees on every receipt – both in store and online. Carefully review receipts where checkout fees should appear.
• States that limit surcharging: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma and Texas. Consumers who are subjected to a surcharge or checkout fees in these states may want to report the retailer to their state attorney general’s office.
• It all falls down to the RETAILER's decision on whether they choose to pass the surcharge to the consumer or not (outside of the 10 protected states). All credit cards (not just Visa) will follow the merchant's decision.

Stores that operate in any of the 10 states that ban surcharges are not prohibited from surcharging in other states. From the Visa Surcharging FAQ [visa.com]:

Quote from Visa Surcharging FAQ : Q. I operate stores in multiple states. I understand that state laws prohibit me from surcharging in some states where I operate, but not others – does that mean I can’t surcharge in any of the states where I operate? No. If a merchant is prohibited from surcharging in one state, Visa’s rules do not prevent the merchant from surcharging in other states that allow the practice.

“We have discussed the settlement with many, many merchants, and not a single merchant we have spoken to plans to surcharge,” Craig Shearman, spokesman for the National Retail Federation (NRF), said in a statement. The NRF was not involved in the class action lawsuit.

NBC News contacted some of the country’s largest retailers. Wal-Mart, Target, Sears and Home Depot said they have no plans to add a credit card surcharge.

Miscellaneous Discussion
wheres the hot deal
In order to process credit cards you cannot add the fees price into the cost of the item. Your processing power would be taken away if they found out you do this (paypal did this to my business once ). So there is no "double dipping" the business is simply passing the fee onto the customer, and honestly that makes sense and is why they won the lawsuit. Why should a business have to pay 3%+ extra just for some customers that choose to pay by credit card? This law doesn't give businesses any extra money it just prevents the credit card companies from taking a cut of the profit without the customers knowledge, and if the customer doesn't like it they can pay by cash/check or use a credit card with a lower fee.
Counter: If business price the CC surcharge into the price of their services, adding an additional explicit surcharge is double dipping. The only way it is not double dipping is if they actually reduce their prices first.


For this change, Visa/MC are NOT charging extra fee they are not already charging. So NO additional fee from Visa/MC.

The ONLY different for most of us is people pay with CASH/debit card MAY pay less outside those 10 states if the retailer want to do this by adding surcharges to credit card customer AND they reduce the price of their products/services?
If retailer just add surcharges to credit card customer but didn't decrease price of their product/service, those extra fees will be pure profit for the retailer(?).

For those states that disallow surcharge, customer pay with CASH/debit card will cover the credit card fee for other customers also?

There is confusion regarding whether accepting American Express means a retailer can't surcharge. The NBC article [nbcnews.com] and WSJ article [wsj.com] disagree.

Quote from NBC News : [...] a merchant who adds a surcharge to purchases on a Visa or MasterCard would have to do the same with American Express cards. But AMEX prohibits surcharge fees. So a merchant who accepts American Express as well as Visa/MasterCard would not be able to surcharge any of those cards.

Quote from Wall Street Journal : Q: Will there also be surcharges on other credit cards like American Express and Discover? A: Yes. In fact, American Express Co. and Discover Financial Services already permit swipe fee surcharges, as long as merchants impose surcharges on payments with other rival cards.