Recent Tweets From WayTooHigh

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WayTooHigh: Visa and MasterCard operate like price-fixing cartels and violate federal antitrust laws.

 

WayTooHigh: Q: Why should retailers be taking on a ride when affinity reward credit cards R used? A: Consumers ultimately pay = NO FREE REWARDS

 

WayTooHigh: Visa, MasterCard make bulk of their money from charging fees to financial institutions that issue the cards http://ow.ly/io8j

 

WayTooHigh: Bank of America Says Three Directors Quit as Exodus Totals 10 http://ow.ly/iM7h

 

WayTooHigh: All About the Visa and MasterCard Promotional Gift Card Scheme (repost) http://ow.ly/kdY6

 

WayTooHigh: Q: How can banks (MasterCard / Visa) site “competitive pressures” regarding need for soaring credit card rates? They own the Monopoly board!

 

WayTooHigh: You know it’s a good day for consumers and retailers when Visa publicly expresses extreme disappointment: http://ow.ly/kdXF

 

WayTooHigh: Q: Why hasn’t MasterCard, Visa, Chase, CitiGroup, BofA, etc… not been shut down for collusion and credit card price-gouging. A: Dunno

 

WayTooHigh: More Scheming by Visa and MasterCard. Anatomy of How an Electronic Gift Card “Works:” http://ow.ly/kdWc (new post)

 

WayTooHigh: MAJOR SCAM: Visa, MasterCard gift cards issued rather than checks. They keep micro-payments remaining, because you can’t exceed your balance

 

WayTooHigh: @nancytrejos– As credit card companies lower reward benefits merchants interchange fees should be too, WE (consumers) pay those rewards

 

WayTooHigh: Looking forward to watching NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday – my hero, Rachel Maddow takes on someone I can’t stand, Dick Armey

 

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  WayTooHigh: Rob Reeg. pres Global Technology & Operations for MasterCard Worldwide, frightens consumers http://ow.ly/izsH with misinformation

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  WayTooHigh: credit card companies cut ad spending 50% (Brandweek) = less risk and lower mkting costs, yet record interchange fees? http://ow.ly/k8UC

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  WayTooHigh: Why should retailers be taken on a ride when affinity reward credit cards are used? Consumers ultimately pay = NO FREE REWARDS
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  WayTooHigh: media spending for credit card ads PLUNGED 50% means LOWER interchange change fees as marketing was part of the cost, so why HIGHER fees?
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  WayTooHigh: As recession-weary consumers are swearing off their credit cards, credit card brands are swearing off advertising http://ow.ly/k8Ua

   

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  WayTooHigh: Network Rivalry Sparks 10-Year Quadrupling of PIN-Debit Pricing (via Digital Transactions) http://ow.ly/k8mc
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  WayTooHigh: only justification [for soaring interchange fees} is when you have an anti-competitive business model and you can illegally fix prices
   
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  WayTooHigh: Improved processing technology and the weak economy should be driving card-acceptance prices down http://ow.ly/k8lP (Digital Transactions)
   
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  WayTooHigh: RT @Denrael: @WayTooHigh there is competition but challenge is getting wallet space [Not really, MasterCard and Visa wield 80% Market Power]
   

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  WayTooHigh: Bank of America drops arbitration requirement (via AP) – http://ow.ly/k7KK (new post)
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  WayTooHigh: When I sued Visa, MasterCard + its member backs for illegal price-fixing of credit card fees back in ’05, never imagined power of Twitter

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  WayTooHigh: Bank of America Says Three Directors Quit as Exodus Totals 10 http://ow.ly/iM7e
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  WayTooHigh: Stop Unfair Credit Card Fees Tell Your Elected Representatives To Act On Interchange Fees http://ow.ly/iEOe
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  WayTooHigh: FIGHT CREDIT CARD FEES: Write Congress – Share this link with fellow merchants http://ow.ly/iENK
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  WayTooHigh: Circle K Circulates Petition Chain placing petition protesting credit-card fees in its convenience stores http://ow.ly/iEN1
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  WayTooHigh: More consumers using debit cards (50.4%) over all noncash sales (AP), but ScanMyPhotos.com and many merchants process it at higher CC rates
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  WayTooHigh: New to ScanMyPhotos.com: For updates on our antitrust lawsuit against Visa, MasterCard, major banks See: http://ow.ly/k4Wj
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  WayTooHigh: Had media interview w/ biz pub. Explained credit card companies get away with high rates because they = monopoly, fix-prices, NO competition
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  WayTooHigh: RT @7ElevenCedarPk: NYTimes article on 7-Eleven and the petition for unfair credit card fees. http://bit.ly/5fgCx
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  WayTooHigh: The fees – known as credit-card interchange fees, or swipe fees – are unfair to us and deceptive to the donors. http://ow.ly/jwd8
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  WayTooHigh: Congress must support “Credit Card Fair Fee Act,” especially in a recession. Takes ~$60 bln out of banks unfair rev into consumers pockets
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  WayTooHigh: Maria Aspan (American Banker) says Citigroup will charge annual free for some credit cards. even as Interchange fees at record high
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  WayTooHigh: credit card company merchant interchange swipe fees ARE wiping independent businesses off the map in neighborhoods across the U.S.

   

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  WayTooHigh: TARP Recipients Fighting To Keep Charging Exorbitant Credit Card Fees (via Huffington Post) http://ow.ly/gVvH
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  WayTooHigh: Obama administration planning broad reworking of fees financial firms pay for their federal regulation, (WashPost) http://ow.ly/k0aJ
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  WayTooHigh: Visa and MasterCard issuers collectively set credit card interchange fees in secret. These fees can’t be negotiated

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  WayTooHigh: A central bank study in March recommended changes to Brazil’s credit-card market to make it more efficient http://ow.ly/jjm1
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  WayTooHigh: U.S. retailers and consumers refuse to be treated worse than New Zealand, Canada, Australia and other countries. http://ow.ly/jVvR
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  WayTooHigh: 4-party credit card payment systems is broken; interchange fees no longer cost-based, floods banks with $ at expense of consumers
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  WayTooHigh: Competition – what Visa, MasterCard, banks know little about, is why 0 interchange fees will benefit consumers = lower costs
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  WayTooHigh: Did you know that when you make a non-profit charitable donation, Visa, MasterCard and credit card issuers MAKE $$$ off the top.
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  WayTooHigh: Tulips, Silver, Housing Market and Oil Speculators Have Nothing on MasterCard and Visa {July, 08, WTH) http://ow.ly/g1aY #18000
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  WayTooHigh: Commerce Commission And Visa Reach Agreement To Settle Credit Card Interchange Fee Proceedings http://ow.ly/jLmK
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  WayTooHigh: Why Won’t Visa Give U.S. Competition & Transparency Promised to New Zealand on Credit Card Fees? (via @NCASOnline) http://ow.ly/jVvd
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  WayTooHigh: Retailers are asking the public to help them eliminate a credit card interchange fee that often gets passed on to users http://ow.ly/jVuD
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  WayTooHigh: How Credit Card Companies Are Changing the Fine Print (via Mary Palon, WSJ) http://ow.ly/jVsw
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  WayTooHigh: Banks are like health care industry, LOADS of misinformation on credit card interchange fees. Credibility at zero.
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  WayTooHigh: Many non-profit charities HURT by MasterCard and Visa credit card fees. Forced to pay upwards of 5% interchange fee for few manual charges

   

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  WayTooHigh: Credit Score Shell Game: As High Scores Vanish, Borrowers’ Luck Runs Out (via Nancy Trejos Washington Post) http://ow.ly/ftrP #18000
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  WayTooHigh: Businesses incurs a fee anytime a customer swipes a card. http://ow.ly/j0eY

  

• WayTooHigh: Credit Card Issuers’ trick: Ads showing “fun” ways to design photos on credit card = distraction, should be URGING you to READ terms #18000
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  WayTooHigh: Three bills have been introduced in the 111th Congress that address the issue of interchange fees http://ow.ly/jNRA

   

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  WayTooHigh: It’s Visa and MasterCard that should thank consumers every time they use a debit / credit card at stores: http://ow.ly/iftW
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  WayTooHigh: From MasterCard Inc. Q2 Earnings Call, NO explanation about price-fixing and intl interchange fees that are 1/3 that in U.S.
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  WayTooHigh: NZ Commerce Commission settled out of court w Visa in deal that will change fees charged on all retail transactions in NZ http://ow.ly/jLA1
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  WayTooHigh: Commerce Commission And Visa Reach Agreement To Settle Credit Card Interchange Fee Proceedings http://ow.ly/jLmA
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  WayTooHigh: Our economy lost trillions POST Bush’s $300 p/ person stimulus program. But, Republicans silent on anything but attacking current plan.
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  WayTooHigh: SHAME on Visa, MasterCard, credit card companies for misguided effort to shift message from BANK GREED to chain store profiteering.
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  WayTooHigh: Congress must support “Credit Card Fair Fee Act,” especially in a recession. Takes ~$60 bln out of banks unfair rev into consumers pockets
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  WayTooHigh: Visa, MasterCard look abroad for growth (via Reuters) [Even thought U.S. interchange fees ~3x more than abroad?] http://ow.ly/jIw9
   
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  WayTooHigh: Stop Unfair Credit Card Fees Tell Your Elected Representatives To Act On Interchange Fees http://ow.ly/iEOa
   
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  WayTooHigh: When anticompetitive and illegal interchange fee price fixing ends, family-owned restaurants, dry cleaners, etc. will be SAVED

WayTooHigh.com: Influencing Opinions and Raising Awareness

Today marks the third year since ScanMyPhotos.com launched WayTooHigh.com – The Credit Card Interchange Report. It is also about the time we received that infamous rate increase letter from Chase Paymentech which was sent to millions of merchants just like us.

Some rates have risen more than 300% in the past few years. The most recent rate “adjustment” letter arrived days ago, but does not identify the new fees until after they take effect. That sympathetic letter from our payment processing service announced a rate increase when cardholders had us process their affinity, frequent-flier signature cards; a quality causing retailers to effectively also be taken on a ride. That was the letter which led to The Wall Street Journal front-page Marketplace profile on our parent company [30 Minute Photos Etc.] and the beginning of our Federal class-action complaint against Visa, MasterCard and international major banks.

Changes have occured over the years. Merchant interchange rates have continued to ascend, while our traditional photographic film business wallowed due to the same technological shifts which made digital more practical.  These are the efficiencies which also helped bring down many antiquated analog services.  Next to film, the yellow page directories, fax machines and thousands of other businesses, the changing times also drew attention to the $40 billion annual merchant interchange debacle which didn’t budge.

But, unlike other businesses that were forced to change, the two giant credit card associations and their 80% market power kept trudging along.  Today, film, phone books and other once shining business models are historic vestiges from an antiquated past.  However, the electronic payment network, which today is super-fast, efficient and liberated from the days of manual credit card imprinters and carbon-copy receipts (that had to be mailed away for processing) remains.When you study the free interchange processing for checks, and international interchange rates that are a third and less the cost in the U.S., you quickly understand that Visa and MasterCard’s game – managed by thousands of member banks – is blemished.  Their anti-competitive price-fixing is illegal and drawing international attention and loud shouts from Washington D.C.

While this website has been written in our voice, as a retailer who best understands the issues, we have also become the leading personality and fixture behind the interchange battle.  And, it continues to gaining traction.  Visa and MasterCard restructured their companies, but the issues and fees remain as do their potential liability.The mix of banks, public relations and legal firms which read our comments each day is shared with close scrutiny by Visa, MasterCard, and much more importantly by other business owners, governments and associations around the world.  From giant multi-national conglomerates to “mom-and-pop” shopkeepers, we have been reporting, sharing commentary and observations with the world community which is also causing grief to Visa and MasterCard.  WayTooHigh.com and the nearly fifty other class-actions suits after we filed the first are shining a knock-down message that time is running out on the cartel’s imposing might.

Many of you have been following the shift in our business too – from film to digital and our extraordinary international media coverage for the new super-fast photo scanning business model we pioneered. From multiple articles in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and scores of other media coverage, the entrepreneurial passions at ScanMyPhotos.com was successful in making the leap from analog to digital. So, why hasn’t Visa and MasterCard also transitioned from an ancient , cost-based interchange fee structure to one that represents today’s technological realities?

In the late 1980’s technology evolved where transactions were processed electronically and paper records were not needed for most payment card transactions.  Since that time, the costs of various components of credit card transaction processing (phone, data processing and Internet services have decreased significantly.  These changes led to significant reductions in the costs of processing payment card transactions.

As class-representatives, on behalf of the millions of merchants with shared dedicated to eradicating supra-competitive interchange fees, we will continue to engage and call attention to this multi-billion dollar injustice.

News Update From ScanMyPhotos.com

Why Visa Inc. Stock Is Falling Today

Although it is only speculation and our opinion, due to the triple digit market rise on Monday and Visa’s several point fall, it seems that investors are finally warming to the reality of why the bank’s unloaded nearly half their investment in the giant credit card association.

Four months ago, WayTooHigh.com – The Credit Card Interchange Report began posting several advisories on the planned Visa IPO.

This is the most popular recent link, which identifies in Visa’s own words why the world’s largest retail electronic payments network may be more than risky. 

• “Visa’s IPO Is Worth a Close Reading” (via WSJ)
• What is the Federal Reserve’s Role in the Visa IPO?
• How the Fed’s $200-Billion Intervention Indirectly Boosts Visa’s IPO Valuation
• Why Should The Public Bail Out Visa and the Banks?
• Visa Inc. Files 10-K Annual Report, Amends S-1 Registration
• “Visa: Bailing Out The Banks” (NY Times)
• “Should You Join the Visa IPO Craze?” (via Charlotte Observer)
• Visa Inc. IPO Largest in US History; First it was 5, then 10 and Now $18.8 Billion – That’s Some Rich Valuation Appreciation
• Visa’s Inc’s $10,000,000,000 Misguided Hedge From Litigation (WayTooHigh.com)
• Understanding the Word “Insolvency” Is Crystal Clear
• Thousands of Banks Pin Hopes on Visa Inc. to Bail Them Out
• “Significant Victory” Announced Against MasterCard by Class Plantiffs

Want to know more about lead plaintiff ScanMyPhotos.com? Click here and read their daily blog: Tales from the World of Photo Scanning

More Holiday Cheer Planned For Merchants and Consumers

After more than two years and a non-stop battle against Visa, MasterCard and its member banks, we are pleased to be on the cusp of major news from our friends in Europe.

According to Bloomberg, “[t]he commission has been investigating MasterCard’s interchange fee for more than five years. MasterCard won’t be fined because it informed the EU about the fee, the commission has said previously.”

click here to read the entire article. 

lead Plantiff, Mitch Goldstone to Address CES

The co-founder of 30 Minute Photos Etc and ScanMyPhotos.com will be announcing in December that he was invited to again address CES: the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in early January. This is the world’s largest consumer trade show and is the second year that Mitch Goldstone has been invited to present.  As a well-known photo imaging industry speaker, he regularly explains how technology has changed the entire photo imaging industry and created entirely new revenue centers, such as the super-fast nationwide photo scanning service which his company has become famous for.  He expects to again use the example of how credit cards were once cost-based; requiring extensive paper work, thick carbon copy receipts and manual imprinter machines.  Today, just as with his photo imaging and scanning business, everything is lightening fast and much more cost effective.  What he once charged $5.00 for is now low as 2.5 cents.  Conversely, the member banks are accused [by us] of continuing to conspire to illegally fix billion of dollars in fees; fellow retailers are forced to accept whatever charges are demanded.  As a retailer and ecommerce business, 30 Minute Photos Etc. and ScanMyPhotos.com are beholden to Visa and MasterCard and their 80% market power.  Most ecommerce businesses are forced to accept those two leading payment cards to stay in business.

More details on CES in December.

 [Source: WayTooHigh.com]

Will Visa USA’s “Consumer Education” Tool be Silenced During Their IPO?

Americans for Consumer Education and Competition, Visa USA’s PR and advocacy machine, which “has the financial support of Visa USA” has been quiet of late. 

Normally that are countering our comments and issuing press releasesthat taunt millions of merchants which accept Visa’s network of electronic payment cards.  They explain how helpful debit cards are and how it helps train teens about conserving money.  However, we wonder whether Visa’s Washington D.C.-based tool will pull up tent and move on, as their source of funding is required to lay low during their planned IPO period?   When industry experts begin to question why any investor would want to purchase equity in a company that faces possible insolvency due to their pending litigation, the company can be voiceless.  One of their most comical press releases appeared right after our first class-action complaint in 2005.  This one was adorable: they suggested that our litigation would force consumers to pay more. Instead, over the years, the member banks have vastly raised their rates and today we are paying $40 billion in hidden interchange fees each year.  They failed to mention that while their release provoked the courage to demand that consumers need efficiency and choice, Visa is the giant monster which, along with MasterCard control, 80% of the total electronic payment network and the only thing that is efficient is how easily they can fix prices and practice anti-competitive illegal maneuvering to enrich their pockets.

Also notice how convenient it is for the giant card association to be wedged in the midst of a “quiet period” imposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission.  Visa will be unable to comment when the EU Fair Trade ruling is announced within the next few weeks.  They will also have to be silent as more and more merchants question the foundation of the interchange fees.  They will have to be silent as motorists ask why Visa is reaping windfall profits for its member banks during our economic energy crisis.

[Background: When The Bill Comes Due,” Businessweek]

[commentary: WayTooHigh.com]