BrianGarst.com

Stories like this always get me mad:

…It’s called a swipe fee or interchange fee, and businesses are forced to add it to the purchase price. “This all adds up. … This is a lot of money that we are having to pay,” Lipert said.

…Some merchants’ groups and businesses have found allies on Capitol Hill to fight the fees. The National Association of Convenience Stores and 7-Eleven each sponsored a petition drive among customers, urging Congress to take action to give them some relief.

“The merchants are getting ripped off, it’s that simple. There’s monopoly power with Visa, MasterCard. They have over 70 percent of the transactions,” said Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vermont, who is pushing for congressional action on the issue.

Bull.  Businesses are not ‘forced’ to do anything.  They choose to accept the cards because the benefits (attracting customers) outweigh the costs.  Period.

I often consider prices at these shoddy ‘mom and pop’ stores to be excessively high, but you don’t see me running to Congress to grab the gun of law to hold to their head and force price controls on them.  I can choose to shop at other stores, and they can choose not to accept credit cards.  That’s called freedom.