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Comment by TimPC | Hacker News Reader

The solution by the way is for federal legislatures to make illegal the terms about not charging fees for credit card use. If merchants can pass on part or all of credit card fees we get out of this dystopian situation where credit card companies pay users to use the credit cards and merchants are forced to raise prices for everyone regardless of whether they use a credit card.

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Absolutely! There's no reason why someone paying with cash should be forced to pay 2.5% credit card fee on every transaction (because the merchant isn't allowed to give a discount for cash or increase for credit card use) even though they're not even using a credit card. It just forces everyone to use the credit card in order to get some of the fee back.

I have read (but can't verify) that credit card fees are similar to the costs of cash handling.

This was at one point true but credit card fees have been steadily rising with the introduction of larger and larger rewards programs. It's certainly no longer true.

There was a central bank study that showed debit is the cheapest. Then cash because of the time spent counting, going to the bank, or hiring an armored car service. Employee theft and robbery risk are also issues. Tax evasion is not a valid savings.

Cash handling costs can’t be eliminated until the store goes card only.

Either legislation is changed or enforcement is gone. It is standard to see cash price posting with notices about convenience and processing fees at NY restaurants for example and of course has always existed for gas pricing.

I charge processing fees myself and after confirming myself also had local legal vet it. It was years ago but at the time there was just a cap on what that fee can be (4%)

I sold merchant processing in my twenties for a bit, that was definitely a real or assumed regulation at that time.

This suggests that there are state level regulations that may not align nationally to me

> This suggests that there are state level regulations that may not align nationally to me

I know at one point at least some of it was by-state. IIRC at least one retail place I worked at would not take a certain card (it was either discover or amex) because the merchant agreement would not allow us to offer a cash discount.

Passing on all of the fees will cost the average consumer even more. No one living paycheck to paycheck is getting a flat 2.25% cash back.

While there are people using credit cards to cover expenses when there is no other option, I'm not sure how well it holds as a reason against legislation aimed at increasing competition with alternatives. That problem should be solved via the competing alternatives, especially considering how predatory these cards are for low income people in the first place.

The problem is credit cards have used manipulative terms of service to force users of all other payment methods to subsidize the cost of credit card use. They’ve then driven up credit card usage by giving consumers rewards for doing so. As they’ve done so fees have gone up and with them the size of the subsidy had as well.

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