FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Christy Moran
(202) 355-6039
FLORISTS ASSOCIATION JOINS FIGHT AGAINST UNFAIR CREDIT CARD FEES
Washington, D.C. - May 31, 2007 - The Merchants Payments Coalition (MPC) today announced that The Society of American Florists (SAF), the national trade association for the floral industry, has joined the MPC's fight against hidden credit card interchange fees.
"We are very pleased that the SAF have joined our fight against unfair credit card fees. Interchange fees increase the price of everything our customers buy, even if they put away the plastic and pay with cash," said Mallory Duncan, senior vice president and general counsel at the National Retail Federation and chairman of the MPC.
Interchange fees vary with the type of merchant, transaction and card, but they add about two percent to the average credit or debit card transaction. The average American family is now paying more than $300 a year in hidden interchange fees.
Unknown to most consumers, interchange fees are never disclosed unlike all the other fees that show up on monthly credit card statements. The big credit card companies and their banks get together to fix interchange fees in secret and their non-negotiable rules make it virtually impossible for merchants to tell customers just how much they are actually paying.
Card companies claim that interchange fees pay for transaction processing, but even as new technology continues to drive down the actual cost of processing, interchange fees keep climbing. Visa and MasterCard collected more than $36 billion in hidden interchange fees last year alone, an 18 percent increase over 2005.
In fact, banks and credit card companies spend only about 13 percent of the interchange fees they collect to process credit card transactions. The rest of the money goes for rewards programs and direct mail marketing campaigns that fill mailboxes with unsolicited credit card offers.
"The credit card companies and their banks manage to pick petals from every bouquet of flowers purchased," Duncan added. The SAF represents 12,000 growers, importers, wholesalers, and retailers of flowers and plants. Last year SAF members and their customers paid more than $70 million in hidden interchange fees.
The MPC represents retailers, supermarkets, drug stores, convenience stores, fuel stations, on-line merchants, and other businesses that accept debit and credit cards. MPC member associations collectively represent nearly three million stores with approximately 50 million employees.
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