Why are they showing American Express, when only Visa and Mastercard are part of the deal?

3 - 4% is a pretty hefty charge.
I would start paying cash.

Seems fair enough. Why should cash customers subsidize the choice to use plastic? If cash is cheaper, why not pass along that savings to the customer?

Not me, #2, if the places I shop all the time want to charge me a fee, ´because they can´, I will find new places to spend my money.

I have never had a surcharge and have had the two for years. I don´t mind a very small charge, but somehow they always raise the limit that is available.

Businesses have been paying this fee for years . Visa & MC are making the $$$$, not the businesses. Sometimes it´s as high as 5%. Government agencies have always charged this fee to the customer.

It will be up to the retails to choose whether they want to charge the surcharge or not. The consensus seems to be that most will not. Here´s one reason:

Both Visa and MasterCard have rules requiring retailers to handle credit cards the same way in every store regardless of location, so if a chain has a store in a state where surcharges are banned then none of its locations would be allowed to have a surcharge.

Under the settlement terms, a merchant adding surcharges on Visa or MasterCard would have to do the same with American Express cards, but that company prohibits surcharge fees.

´The bottom line is that very few retailers would be able to surcharge under the settlement, and that the vast majority don’t want to surcharge even if they could,´ Sherman said.

´In the brick-and-mortar world, no one who does any sort of volume business is going to want to surcharge because it will drive their customer crazy and slow down transactions,´ agreed Ed Mierzwinski, Director of Consumer Programs at U.S. PIRG.

Some small retails might where there is no big volume competition.

Re #3, read the whole article. Most retailers already add in the surcharge when they price their merchandise. An additional charge would be double dipping.

More impetus to go to a cash only then barter society. A whole lot of business is going to be going underground, including medical. I hear that in some areas, doctors have gone cash only already.

Don´t forget if you carry a balance on any credit card the interest charges have also gone up. Cash is the way.

Another reason to go the Dave Ramsey cash/debit route.

What do you mean start? They already are! A store I shop it has sign by register .45 to use card!

Business already have this expense built into their prices. Why break it out seperatly? If simply added on to the price, it would essentially be an increase in price.

Perhaps a better way to work this would be to offer a cash discount of 4%.

Since the credit card surcharge is already built in, the honest approach would be to offer a cash discount, the same way it used to be done for gasoline. I´d go for that. I´d also be more inclined to use self-checkout lanes if offered a discount for the added hassle.

I use a credit card for everything I buy, then pay off the whole thing when the bill comes in. Yesterday, I went to a grocery store and specifically asked the clerk if they were charging this fee for a credit card purchase. They said no, so I swiped my credit card. Maybe I gave them an idea.