Merchants Feeling the Credit Card Pinch

[One Sweet World]

"Milton Milam estimates his Franklin retail store, Schakolad Chocolate Factory, sold $10,000 worth of Easter bunnies and other chocolates this past weekend to customers using credit cards.

Of that money, he expects to pay about $500 in fees for being able to accept plastic. That's 5 percent of Schakolad's weekend credit-card sales, more than double the percentage Milam remembers paying on the same volume of sales four years ago.

The increase in credit-card processing costs, including what are called interchange fees, has merchants such as Milam crying foul. Many want Congress to step in and give them some relief."

http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070408/BUSINESS01/704080362/1436/BUSINESS

[Donnachaidh]

1. Get in LINE merchants

I think those who are paying double digit charges for the use of the cards need help FIRST. :grr:

[CottonBear]

3. I'm sure many of these "merchants" voted GOP for lower small business taxes

Hey! Guess what? You got screwed just like your customers! That just goes to show you that you shouldn't vote against your own best self interest.

[meldroc]

10. Yep, the small business people make a mistake voting GOP

The GOP touts itself as business-friendly, but they only cater towards BIG businesses. They don't care about small business - that's why they push for allowing big business to be so damned predatory.

[SpiralHawk]

16. republicons like to pretend they are for small business

The same way they pretend they are 'conservative," the same way they pretend they are against Nation Building, the same way they pretend they are for ethics (Bwaaaa ha ha ha ha), and the same way they pretend they have served honorably in the military (Commander AWOL, 5 deferments Cheney, Hannity, O"Reilly, Limbaugh, and the horde of other republicon chickenhawks).

republicons pretend to tell the truth, too. Bwaaaa ha ha ha ha ha

[melody]

13. I don't know any small business people who voted GOP last time

And I do mean "any".

[CottonBear]

15. I do. There are many, many of them here in the suburbs of NE GA.

The blue college town where I live is ringed by mostly white suburban bedroom communities including one of the richest (if not the richest per capita) county in Georgia. These counties are chock full of Republics: lower middle class, middle class, upper middle class and wealthy.

[RB TexLa]

2. Easy solution for him, don't accept credit cards

He probably won't do that though, just keep whining.

[The Stranger]

18. The credit cards have a monopoly -- and that is illegal.

Save the whining about supposed whining.

[dflprincess]

4. This doesn't apply just to credit cards, but to debit cards as well

my hair stylist, who rents a chair at a salon, stopped accepting debit and credit cards because it costs her about $5.00 per transaction.

[Xenotime]

19. How do they stay in business?

I only use credit cards.

[dflprincess]

20. I think the shop itself still takes cards, but only the stylist who actually work for the shop

accept them.

My stylist and several of the other ones there rent their chairs and are actually self employed. She did put up a note 6 or 7 weeks before she stopped taking them so most her clients would know in advance. She still takes checks and said she so rarely gets burned on one of them, and if that happens, it's usually a new client, that she doesn't worry about that risk. But the $5.00 fee was hurting her. She works on a really tight profit margin, one reason being that she has many elderly clients who all come in once a week and haven't quite figured out that prices have gone up. She really low balls what she charges them because most of them are on fixed incomes (she even drives some of them to and from their appointments). She has one client who is "slipping" who pays her $10 for the work plus a $2.00 tip (when she remembers), though in that case the woman's son sends a check every month to make up the difference.

[Little Wing]

5. Most of the stores in my little podunk town only accept cash or local checks

For purchases like 10 dollars, they're charged a buck. So they just don't do it.

[walldude]

6. So he wants Congress to step in and help him out? Like they

helped out consumers with the Bankruptcy bill? :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: good luck with that one..

[Trajan]

7. Conservative Economic Policy ...

= Skimming by nonproducers .... Middle men horning in on little guys, like Tony Soprano offering 'protection' to the little bakery on the next block for a slight stipend ...

THIS is the beautiful Darwinian landscape they hath wrought ....

[Double T]

8. Financial Institutions and their credit card divisions are criminals.........

that require heavy regulations and oversight. They will continue to rape BOTH ends of credit transactions until Congress legislates limits, controls and penalties for consumer and merchant abuses.

[denverbill]

9. What? Business owners demanding regulations???

I thought regulations were what was killing businesses, and that Republicans were the party of deregulation. If we'd just get rid of all regulation of credit card companies and let the industry police itself, the free market would take care of all problems. :sarcasm:

[One Sweet World]

11. bring the groups together

I think the merchants want to be able to negotiate with the credit card companies when it comes to these fees. Charge the stores what it costs to process purchases. visa and mc are taking advantage of the stores and we're paying the brunt.

[onethatcares]

14. I would like to negotiate my fees and interest with my CC companies

but they don't want to hear it. Something about my signing a contract that allows them to raise interest rates for any reason they want to whenever they want to. If I decline to go along with them, the card gets cancelled and the payments resume at the current interest rate until paid off.

[melody]

12. Maybe big business will wake the f*** up and see what small business has for years

They're going to drown us all.

[donco6]

17. I applaud their outrage, myself.

These are what's called "swing voters", and we need every one we can get.

[BlueIris]

21. Could someone explain "intercharge fees" to me?

Thanks in advance.

[milkyway]

22. Credit card companies are the scum of the earth, preying on human beings

like bloodsucking leeches. Capitalism at its finest. A big thank you to Joe Biden and all the other Dems who do their bidding.

[fed-up]

23. most people are overloaded w/CC debt-shouldn't be buying so much crap nt