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Recent Tweets from @WayTooHigh
September 26, 2009
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credit card antitrust, credit card interchange report, credit cards, debit cards, interchange fee, mastercard, scanmyphotos.com, visa | Tagged: credit card fees, waytoohigh.com | 
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Posted by waytoohigh
Priceless: The Case that Brought Down the Visa/MasterCard Bank Cartel
September 25, 2009
Click here to buy the book.
Excerpt:
In Priceless, author and lead counsel Lloyd Constantine relates the dramatic account of backroom strategizing and courtroom conniving during the high-stakes litigation. Constantine, who led the team representing the plaintiffs, vividly describes how the case pitted retailers against credit card companies, and pries the lid off dodgy debit card practices. The plaintiffs, including Wal-Mart, Sears Roebuck, The Limited, Safeway, and a class of five million stores, pitted their financial futures against Visa and Mastercard in this war between giants.In the vein of breakout bestsellers like A Civil Action and A Confederacy of Fools, this fast-paced narrative, peppered with larger-than-life characters, tears open the case and shows readers how the more than $3-billion-dollar settlement came about. The riveting story features cameos by lawyers, judges, and businessmen, including then University of Arkansas law professor Bill Clinton and New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. The triumph is also a David and Goliath tale, in which a small boutique law firm beats four of the largest law firms in the world, including London-based law firm Clifford Chance
Leave a Comment » | credit card antitrust, credit cards, debit cards, interchange fee, mastercard, visa | Tagged: Lloyd Constantine | Permalink
Posted by waytoohigh
More Interchange Rate Increases
September 25, 2009As reported earlier, beginning next week, rates charged by Visa and MasterCard and its member banks will again change. [ScanMYPhotos.com] received out letter of rate changes two weeks ago.
Two times each year, we receive the same formatted letter and confusing pricing matrixes that explain rates for accepting credit and debit cards are again changing. This time, it comes as U.S. Senator Chris Dodd proposes a significant change to these unfair fees. Any rate reduction must be met with recognizing the years of illegal profiteering from price-fixing by MasterCard, Visa and its member banks and issue refund for those overcharges -amount is in the hundreds of billions.
Leave a Comment » | antitrust, credit card antitrust, interchange, interchange fee, mastercard, visa | Tagged: Christopher Dodd, swipe fees | Permalink
Posted by waytoohigh
Dodd Will Push To Control Bank Fees For Merchants
September 25, 2009From The Hartford Courant (8/24). Click here to read more.
Excerpt:
U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd is coming out swinging again at banking fees, saying he will push for more changes in credit card fees — this time those paid by merchants — even as he seeks to limit bank income from overdraft charges.
Dodd said Wednesday that he will propose legislation to “substantially modify” the fees that merchants pay so they can accept major credit cards and have those transactions processed through banks. Dodd, architect of credit card reform signed into law in May, previously indicated that he next intended to take aim at “interchange” or “swipe” fees.
“Every state you go to, you hear it from retailers,” Dodd said. “The fees are excessive.”
Leave a Comment » | antitrust, banking, credit card antitrust, credit cards, debit cards, interchange fee, mastercard, visa | Tagged: Chris Dodd, swipe fees | Permalink
Posted by waytoohigh
The Mirror Image: Health Insurance and Credit Card Companies
September 23, 2009While health insurance executives are earning as much as a hundred thousand dollars EVERY hour, watch this humorous video to show the extreme parallels between health insurance and credit card company windfalls.
Leave a Comment » | merchant interchange | Permalink
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Banks Revise Overdraft Fees, Why Not Interchange Fees Too?
September 23, 2009Ron Lieber wrote in The New York Times that JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America have overhauled their debit card overdraft fees.
Read article (9/23).
This has been a multi-billion dollar annual boondoggle for the banks at the expense of millions of consumers. The larger question is why haven’t the banks also addressed merchant interchange fees – which account for substantially more unfair costs to businesses and consumers?
It was the public outcry, an NBC Nightly News segment and extensive media coverage on debit card overdraft fees that helped cause this very rapid shift in policy. It is also being used as a marketing tool, as the credit card issuers can now promote they have waived and adjusted the terms of these overdraft fees to better compete. However, there is no competition when it comes to merchant interchange fees; retailers are still forced to accept Visa and MasterCard’s terms. Issuing banks can simply pass along any lost overdraft fees with higher merchant interchange fees, which simply means that ultimately the consumer still gets screwed.
My five-year legal battle as class-representative in an antitrust class-action against Visa, MasterCard and its member banks continues to reap unsubstantiated profits for the credit card companies with even greater costs.
Merchant interchange fees are an insult that is an atrocity and slap in the face of every consumer and merchant that accepts debit and credit cards. Along with the banks, which until Visa and MasterCard’s IPO’s controlled one-hundred percent of the two giant credit card associations, are continuing to wage a battle against its customers. If only they listened to their critics addressing these equally excessive charges.
Leave a Comment » | antitrust, bank of america, credit card antitrust, credit cards, debit cards, interchange, interchange fee, mastercard, visa | Tagged: ATM fees, bank of america, interchange, JPMorgan Chase, overdraft fees, Ron Lieber | Permalink
Posted by waytoohigh
What Is “Interchange” [video: Electronic Payments Coalition]
September 20, 2009You just have to watch this how-to video. The key facts about illegal antitrust price-fixing are omitted, as are the reasons why merchant interchange fees in the U.S. are upwards of six-times what other industrialized nations pay. Remember, this video and the organization promoting it is funded by the banks and Visa and MasterCard.
The problem is that few understand what these fees are; it is a hidden tax on consumers – amounting to upwards of $48 billion in anticompetitive charges each year. As proof, since this video was posted, only about 450 people viewed it, which my guess was largely from those who produced it.
Leave a Comment » | banking, credit card antitrust, credit card interchange report, credit cards, debit cards, interchange, interchange fee, mastercard, merchant interchange, price-fixing, profiteering, visa | Tagged: Electronic Payments Coalition, interchange fees, merchants payments coalition | Permalink
Posted by waytoohigh
Give the $125 Billion Back to Consumers
September 18, 2009How to INSTANTLY save $125,000,000,000 ($125 billion) – take control of credit card interchange “swipe” fees.
Leave a Comment » | merchant interchange | Permalink
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NACS Study: US Pays More for Interchange “Swipe” Fees
September 18, 2009A new study by the Merchants Payments Coalition finds that Americans pay a much higher percentage for interchange charges than the rest of the industrialized world.
WASHINGTON, DC – A new study by the Merchants Payments Coalition (MPC) found that if U.S. consumers paid the same low credit and debit card swipe fees as consumers in Australia pay, then the net benefit would have totaled $125 billion over the last four years.
Interchange fees, or “swipe fees,” cost Americans an average of $2 on every $100 they spend with credit cards — a higher percentage than anywhere else in the industrialized world. Why? Because other countries and their governments have been able to negotiate with the big banks and credit card companies for fair rates and transparency, the MPC notes. NACS is one of the founding members of the MPC.
But, in the United States merchants and their customers are still forced to pay sky-high interchange fees.
Interchange fees started out in the 1960s as a way for banks to cover the cost of processing credit card transactions. But even as technology has dropped that cost dramatically, the banks and credit card companies have pushed swipe fees higher and higher, turning it into a cash cow. For many businesses, credit card fees are now their single-highest non-labor operating cost.
With almost any other equipment, supplier or service, retailers can comparison-shop, negotiate or otherwise influence its final cost of doing business. Store owners can conserve on energy usage and seek out the most competitive prices for merchandise, just to cite a few examples.
Not so with credit card interchange fees. Visa and MasterCard control more than 80 percent of the marketplace. They set the fees in secret, give businesses no ability to negotiate and virtually insist they be buried in the price of merchandise. Unfortunately, the card companies’ hidden fees get passed on to all consumers in the form of higher prices and lower value for nearly everything they buy.
“It’s bad enough that the credit card companies force these hidden fees on us and our customers when we can least afford it,” noted NACS Vice Chairman of Government Relations Tom Robinson, president of Robinson Oil Corporation. “But when we are paying more than anywhere else in the world, and other countries have taken action to protect their citizens from abuse, it is inconceivable that our government would turn a blind eye to the issue. It is time for Congress to step up and defend the principles of the free-market economy by taking action on (interchange) fees.”
Though Congress and the White House have addressed other credit card reforms, the MPC is arguing that any fix will be incomplete without addressing interchange fees. Consider:
Banks raked in an estimated $48 billion in interchange fees in 2008 – an average of $427 per American household in just one year.
- This $48 billion total is more than triple the amount collected as recently as in 2001.
- Hidden interchange fees cost Americans more than all credit card annual fees, cash advance fees, over-the-limit fees, and late fees combined.
- U.S. interchange fees are the highest in the developed world. The U.S. pays approximately 60 percent of interchange fees globally – about double the U.S. percentage share of global GDP.
Compared to the rest of the world, U.S. interchange fees are more than two times the rates in the U.K. and New Zealand, four times the rates in Australia and more than six times the cross-border rates recently agreed upon by MasterCard and the European Union.
Meanwhile, the payments industry has back with its own “study.”
In a September 17 press release, Visa announced the findings of a new study that shows that “consumers believe retailers benefit far more from accepting credit and debit cards than they pay in costs.
The press release noted that consumers believe merchants see card cost acceptance as a part of doing business, much like paying for utilities such as electricity.
“Retailers and their well-funded trade associations have filed lawsuits and are aggressively lobbying Congress to allow them to shift their business costs to consumers by allowing merchants to charge checkout fees whenever consumers use credit or debit cards. At the same time, national convenience store chains have launched misleading, in-store petition campaigns to cover for their checkout fee efforts, noted Visa’s press release.
“The response is loud and clear: consumers aren’t buying the message convenience store chains and big retailers are selling,” said Bill Sheedy, group president of the Americas for Visa Inc., in the release. “This research demonstrates that consumers are well aware that legislation is a Trojan horse that likely will lead to higher prices for cardholders while retailers pocket the savings.”
Leave a Comment » | antitrust, credit card antitrust, Credit Card Fair Fee Act, credit cards, debit cards, interchange, interchange fee, mastercard, visa | Tagged: merchant credit card fees, NACS, swipe fees, unfaircreditcardfees.com | Permalink
Posted by waytoohigh
“Swipe Fee” Reform – International Lessons (via UnFairCreditCardFees.com)
September 18, 2009Click here to read the recent report profiling interchange merchant interchange fees rates. U.S. credit card interchange fees ~2X rates in UK, New Zealand. ~4X rates in Australia. ~6X cross border MasterCard rates in the EU
Excerpt:
[Source: UnfairCreditCardFees.com, Merchants Payments Coalition]
“Not only do other nations provide lower interchange rates, but we can also learn from other countries’ experiences with interchange reform. Major countries around the world have addressed interchange reform, with some already demonstrating beneficial results for their economies. In particular, lessons learned from experiences in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the European Union, provide instructive examples about why interchange reform makes economic sense in the U.S. – especially now.”
Leave a Comment » | antitrust, credit card antitrust, credit cards, debit cards, interchange, interchange fee, mastercard, price-fixing, profiteering, visa | Tagged: merchants payments coalition, unfaircreditcardfees.com | Permalink
Posted by waytoohigh
Bank of America Debit Card Fees (NBC)
September 14, 2009Click here to view NBC Nightly News (9/14) segment on debit card fees. Scooping up huge fees from debit cards. After the segment aired, the bank refunded those overdraft fees for the person profiled. How about refunding all fees for everyone? Overdraft fees are a cash cow for many banks, generated about $27 billion in fees this year.
Leave a Comment » | merchant interchange | Permalink
Posted by waytoohigh
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