Take the Pledge: I will Understand how Credit Cards work
When you use a credit card to buy a $100 item the store loses a certain percentage of that sale to the credit card company. $2, $3, $4, $5... it depends. (Walmart will pay a lower rate than a mom-and-pop store.)
This means that all non-card customers have to subsidize credit card customers.
In a sane world the store would offer a discount for cash. Why not? A cash purchase costs them less so why not pass those savings on to the customer?
Because they are not allowed to. Because credit card companies have threatened and colluded to force businesses to not offer discounts for cash. Any business that does so is not allowed to take credit cards.
A "charge for using a credit card" is actually a "discount for using cash" and visa-versa. I hope everyone understands that.
It is absurd that low % profit margin businesses like grocery stores and gas stations are forced, through card company collusion, to not differentiate between a sale where they make a 3.5% profit and a sale where they make a 6% profit.
You get $40.00 of gas and hand the clerk two 20 dollar bills. Congratulations... you just got one dollar less gas than the real value of what you paid! Your $40 cash is actually worth $41 of gas. The price of the gas has a 2.5% payment to the card companies built in... a payment you just paid for no reason.
The fact that you can use a card everywhere without paying for the privilege is not in the constitution. It is not a human right. It is not deserved or warranted.
It is a corrupt business practice promulgated by the credit card companies to promote the wider use of credit cards. Period.
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