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Legal to charge a percentage fee for using credit card?

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genalewis

Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Indiana

My company used a credit card to pay for an item shipping from CA, and a 4% fee was added on as a "credit card charge" for using the card. Is this something they can legally do? I've read some conflicting information on this topic.
 


genalewis

Member
Here is some follow-up info. It appears that it is illegal in CA to impose a surcharge on CC transactions, but does that law apply to out-of-state purchases, such as ours?
 

swalsh411

Senior Member
What credit card? I know it's a violation of the Visa / Mastercard service agreement. People rant about it on Consumerist all the time. That's not per se illegal though.

Did the merchant disclose the fee before you made the purchase or just tack it on? If they didn't tell you then you should be able to dispute that portion of the charge.
 

genalewis

Member
Thank you for your response, swalsh411! It was a Visa, and I contacted Visa as well. They have written back to tell me that it was indeed a violation of the Visa merchant agreement. The company claims that this info was shared with my coworker before I took the call to provide the card number. However, I really don't think that my coworker would have forgotten to share this info with me.

I intend to file a merchant complaint with our card-issuing bank, as Visa suggested. Honestly, if the woman with the company hadn't been so rude with me on the phone today, I probably would not have pursued this further. A little phone etiquette can go a long way.
 

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