I don’t even try to read the 200 page book that is the fee structure, I do understand that tiny people like us get to pay way more as a percent of each sale, and since we’re extra crazy in only selling at the wonderful artsy-crafty event out in the woods, and we avoid charges for wireless terminals that communicate instantly with CC headquarters but keypunch it in later on an ancient terminal we got special permission to use, the payments that were taken out of my bank account without notice a month later were like 8% of sales — they do pay nicely, it’s in your account in 48 hours. If you actually wanted written records of all this, you’d pay like 10 or 20%.

Thanks, MsAnnaNOLA, for reminding us of the old ways still ongoing in NO. Most decent of those merchants to offer the option, still.

I never heard the term “deadbeat” for pay-in-full-on-time customers – but they were known as non-profitable. People who pay late, go overlimit, etc., etc., account for the profits. In training we were told not to waive too many fees (we had more discretion to waive then than we did by the time I left) because that’s where our raises came from.

Those “non-profitable” good payers would get irate about being a “best customers” because they never missed a payment etc. – having no idea that, in fact, that did make them undesirable.

I’m not sorry, by the way, to be out of that business. I kept trying to transfer to a less evil-feeling job, but I wasn’t good enough at it to be allowed to get out of it. For one thing, I waived too many fees, and I spent too much time explaining things until the caller actually understood.
We also got paid based on our talk time – how long it took us to complete a call. I never earned much at all, mostly nothing, that way.

I am really glad to see, according to the NYT primer on the new law that people under 21 can’t get cards in the future without a parent’s permssion. It is amazing how many students had no idea how credit cards worked, or what effect not paying them would have on their futures. Financial education in this country is obviously pitiful. It’s no surprise kids graduate with huge credit card bills. Thank dog such offers didn’t exist when I was in school – I had no more clue than today’s kids about money or credit.

Fight Unfair Credit Card Fees

The credit card interchange fee is the biggest credit card fee you’ve never heard of. Nearly $2 of every $100 American consumers spend using credit cards goes directly to the credit card industry through the interchange fee.

In 2008 alone, Americans paid over $48 billion in interchange fees, more than twice what was paid in credit card late fees and three times ATM fees. The average American household paid $427 in credit card interchange fees last year. Total interchange fee revenues have tripled since 2001.

But unlike credit card late fees or ATM fees, credit card interchange is set in secret – consumers don’t know they’re paying it through higher retail prices. What’s more, the same reckless, predatory lending practices that led to the sub-prime mortgage meltdown still prevail with credit cards. Fat interchange fees have created a perverse incentive for the big banks to abandon responsible lending practices in favor of maximizing fee income.