Debit Card Double Standard (WayTooHigh.com)

As students prepare for another term back at school, MasterCard Worldwide® just issued a press release again encouraging the use of debit cards. What is missing from the release are the excessive fees merchants are burdened with when PIN cards are transacted at the much higher percent-of-sale rates. While expounding the value of debit cards as a budgetary tool, the real cost factors are omitted.

Last year, a Visa USA®-funded advocacy group urged consumers to use debit cards as budget advice for transacting business ('Debit Card Becoming Card of Choice for Good Reasons. This release is more of the same, but today, many of the reward and incentive program then mandate that debit card holders should then use it as traditional signature, higher-interchange rate transactions.

[source: WayTooHigh.com with link to Aug 3rd, Businesswire release]