Imagine if 30 Minute Photos Etc. tacked on a 2% or 2.5% "convenience" fee for all our ecommerce and retail customer charge transactions? This would be in violation of our agreement with Visa® and MasterCard®, as we are disallowed from adding a surcharge to cover electronic payments. [See MasterCard's 268 page "merchant rules manual"].
However, while retailers are precluded from passing on the interchange fee, municipalities regularly do exactly that. When you pay property taxes with a credit card, the cities force people to pay an extra fee. If you use a debit card, the funds are instantly deducted from you account, yet the municipalities still get that added revenue.
Take a look at three examples:
Orange County, California
Lynchburg, Virginia
Lexington County, South Carolina
[Source: WayTooHigh.com]
