Form Object
www.MerchantReliefCouncil.org
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We, the merchants of The
United States of America, will no longer accept unfair interchange rates and
fees. We are petitioning the United States Congress to take action and put a
stop to unfair credit card interchange practices. We demand that the following
corrective actions be taken:
1) Prohibit Visa, MasterCard,
American Express, and Discover networks from giving perks to card holders and
then passing those costs on to the merchants.
2) Allow merchants
to pass along to the consumer the actual cost of the fees forced upon the
merchant in order to be able to accept credit cards.
3) Force
ISOs (Independent Sales Organizations, a.k.a. resellers of the service) to
properly indentify themselves as such and prohibit them from passing themselves
off as processors.
4) Force the Providers (Banks, Processors and
ISOs) to properly program terminals, thus reducing downgrade surcharges that
are passed on to the merchants.
5) Eliminate sidebar deals that
allow large merchants and special industries to receive lower interchange while
forcing the merchants who need it most, to pay full price.
6)
Standardize billing so that invoices are clear and concise. Mandate that all
processors and ISOs comply in order to eliminate the deceptive practice of
unknown terms and definitions (a.k.a. Mid-Qualified or undefined billing
numbers).
7) End unfair surcharges for lack of data. The
merchant is at higher risk of a chargeback when the transaction has less data
passed, and the networks use this opportunity to surcharge the merchant.
8) Enforce itemization and disclosure of interchange downgrades
in a clear and concise manner [i.e., EIRF (Electronic Interchange Reimbursement
Fee) is used for a Visa merchant (card present environment) not getting the
correct 1) street number or 2) zip code.] Each downgrade should be listed
individually, and the actual problem indentified, not lumped together. For
example, if a merchant does not enter the correct zip code on a keyed
transaction, the downgrade should be listed as "incorrect zip code," not EIRF,
which has no meaning to the merchant.
9) Eliminate the very
common, unethical practice of "Padding" (also referred to as "bill-back"). This
practice is used on over 90% of small to mid-sized merchants. Banks,
Processors, and ISOs (Providers) take advantage of and deceive merchants by
showing a lower base rate and then adding extra basis points to the downgrades.
And to make matters worse, there is no regulation nor consequences for
providers that force transactions to downgrade, giving them the opportunity to
steal merchants' profits. |
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