What I'm irked about is how could there possibly be state laws preventing adding a surcharge - the laws were probably enacted due to some perception of providing consumer protection against misleading advertised prices or such. What it does, however, is hide and legitimize the secret taxing of commerce by banks. Why should I subsidize other's use of a fee-requiring payment method in higher prices when I pay cash?
There are ten states that have such laws:
http://usa.visa.com/personal/using_visa/checkout_fees/index.html#10statesAre these really the result of a lobbying campaign for laws friendly to credit card companies? I was curious, so I investigated a bit further. The California law is titled the
"Song-Beverly Credit Card Act of 1971."“No retailer…may impose a surcharge on a cardholder who elects to use a credit card in lieu of payment by cash, check or similar means…”
Statute: Cal. Civ. Code § 1748.1(a) (West) The law basically has no teeth to it - if a customer is upset about being charged a fee, they can send a certified mail letter and demand the fee back. If the store doesn't reply, they can sue:
(b) Any retailer who willfully violates this section by imposing a
surcharge on a cardholder who elects to use a credit card and who
fails to pay that amount to the cardholder within 30 days of a
written demand by the cardholder to the retailer by certified mail,
shall be liable to the cardholder for three times the amount at which
actual damages are assessed. The cardholder shall also be entitled
to recover reasonable attorney's fees and costs incurred in the
action.
A cause of action under this section may be brought in small
claims court, if it does not exceed the jurisdiction of that court,
or in any other appropriate court.
The same title is actually pro-consumer in that it prohibits any credit card merchant services contract that prevents the store from offering a cash discount:
1748. Any provision in a contract between a card issuer and a
retailer which has the effect of prohibiting the retailer from
offering price discounts or from charging a different and lower price
to customers who pay for goods or services by cash instead of by
credit card is contrary to public policy and void.
The thing is people will, like this law addresses, likely get upset if they think the store is scamming them by charging a higher price than advertised. Also, the perception is that businesses likely won't reduce the price of everything in their store by 1.5% if they enact such a fee. However, people must know that their use of a credit card makes
all goods more expensive for everybody, and only serves to enrichen the bankers with an unpublished tariff on doing business coaxed with ad campaigns that credit cards should be used "everywhere you want to be".
I wasn't able to find much about the history of this law, since Google is flooded with results since it has been the subject of lots of lawsuits up to supreme court level about what it's prohibition on gathering customer information when taking credit cards (another pro-credit-card-company benefit) actually means for online commerce.