Comments on: The interchange-fee rip-off

By: jamielaw

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By: Decada_Group

Decada_Group — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 22:06:23 +0000

You know you don’t have to deal with the High Interchange Fees. There are ways around it if you have the right people negotiating these fees.

My company Decada Financial Group has a program that deals with merchant providers to significantly reduce the costs.

If you want to know more about this, call or email me.

Regards,

Alex Thavorn
877-533-2232 x 103
alext@decadagroup.com

By: ZachPP

ZachPP — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 20:10:09 +0000

Relax folks! Soon some legal firm will file a class action suit and the small retailer like me will ultimately get a $23 check for “excessive” fees and the attorneys will once again walk away with millions. Three years later the process will be repeated. Attorneys get filthy rich and the small retailer gets taken to the bank (pun intended)!

By: musicperson75

musicperson75 — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 12:55:04 +0000

Having been in the credit card processing business for many years I agree that Visa does little except advertise.
We need more competition in this space if we ever want to see interchange rates go down. Visa was sued and lowered pin based debit rates only to go ahead and push signature debit and raise fees there.
http://www.prestigemerchantservices.com

By: voomies

voomies — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 04:36:22 +0000

banks are desperate for fees due to the defaulting mortgages they hold which isn’t getting any easier. US housing will continue to plague the markets in 2010 as strategic foreclosures rise from the current 25% of total foreclosures they are today. Why stay in a mortgage when the rest of the neighborhood is renting at 1/3 your monthly cost? Read a wild California foreclosure story at http://storyburn.com

By: MiltonRecht

MiltonRecht — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 00:37:32 +0000

Left out of Andrew Martin’s story is the role the FDIC and the House Financial Service Committee played in maintaining the high interchange fees and decreasing competition.

In 2005, Wal-Mart filed an application with the FDIC to buy a Utah based Industrial Bank. Wal-Mart stated in its application and press releases that it wanted to own the bank to save on transaction fees from debit cards, credit cards, etc.

Knowing the competitiveness of Wal-Mart, it would use its transaction fee savings to lower prices, which would have put tremendous pressure from competing merchants on banks, Visa and Mastercharge to lower their transaction fees.

Unfortunately, for the consumer, the FDIC, the Democratic controlled House Financial Services Committee and the Independent Community Bankers Association opposed Wal-Mart’s application. The FDIC did not approve the application.

The reason fees are high in banking products and services is that our banking regulators and Congress do not want low cost competitors in the banking industry and stop the competition that would lower consumer costs. When voters complain, they pass price fixing legislation, but do nothing to solve the underlying problems.

The tight regulation of the consumer banking industry leaves little opportunity for real price lowering competition. If Congress and the banking regulators allowed the consumer banking market to be competitive, prices would go down and services would improve.

By: sanejan

sanejan — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 19:10:15 +0000

I use to be Paypal, Google chekcout customer acception credit card online, did no know about this 800 lb gorilla the Interchange fee charged by visa and mastercard , switched to these theives and now finding out these are day light robbers , then the paypal and google checkout and I am not happy at allll

By: fred5407

fred5407 — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 17:46:42 +0000

I know it does cost something to process transactions, and that it also costs the business if they have to process a paper check. That is part of the cost of doing business. The problem as I see it is a monopoly by VISA. When one entitiy has an inordinate market share then anti trust laws should automatically kick in. Our problem as I see it is Government Officials and Departments are up for sale to anyone with money. This is a more pressing problem than healthcare, terrorism, or the down economy. The unwillingness by Government to clean up its act normally leads to its downfall, as shown in many nations on many occasions.

By: SGKingsley

SGKingsley — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 17:17:38 +0000

The chip-and-PIN debit card is actually incredibly inconvenient, compared to a regular pen-signed credit card.

In any case, I am thinking of getting an Amex card. The interchange fees, I expect, will be somewhat enormous.

But then I suppose that’s how Neiman Marcus offloads its returns risk; by buying insurance on it through interchange fees.

By: dWj

dWj — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 16:56:12 +0000

Of course the reason they raise their charges is because they can.

I don’t understand why they wouldn’t be able to raise the pin-based intercharge if we went to chip-and-PIN. Can you elucidate this a bit?

By: Unsympathetic

Unsympathetic — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 16:43:52 +0000

Who is it that accepts fatuous pablum from Visa executives? “Normal people” know Visa isn’t adding a value but rather is simply a commodity and should be regulated as such. The data isn’t transmitted over cables owned by Visa.. the machines doing the card reading aren’t owned by Visa.. where’s the value add? A single computer science undergrad intern could code all the necessary hardware and software in under a week.

Much like all “financial engineering,” Visa adds extraordinarily little value and should be heavily regulated. [ I didn't say NO value.. i said very, very, very little. ]

By: Dollared

Dollared — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 16:43:06 +0000

And we don’t think the antitrust laws apply because….?