Consumers, Merchant | featured news

Charge a fee to use your credit card? It’s legal for merchants to do that, unless barred by state law. Charge a fee to use your credit card? It’s legal for merchants to do that, unless barred by state law. Ten states already ban such surcharges – California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma and Texas – and more may join the list.

Starting Sunday, paying by credit card could get more expensive. Under the terms of a $7.2 billion settlement reached last summer between credit card companies and merchants, merchants will be free to impose a surcharge on customers paying by credit card.

Few seem terribly pleased with Bank of America’s decision to charge its users $5 every month they use their debit cards. BofA blames Congress for passing the Dodd-Frank Act, claiming the law’s new regulations are responsible. The law, which was implemented in June, restricts the fees that banks can charge merchants when customers use debit cards to pay, lowering them from 44 cents to 24 cents.

Consumers are wedged in the middle of a fight between bankers and merchants as the Senate stages a showdown vote over whether to limit fees that stores pay financial institutions...