KTRV Fox 12 Idaho Retailers Maxed Out By Credit Card Fees

Idaho Retailers Maxed Out By Credit Card Fees

Boise, Idaho -- Local businesses say credit card companies are costing them too much money.

Every time you pay with plastic, you're not the only one who gets charged.

"I would love to be able to get away from that expense, but there's just no way you can operate a business without it right now," said Miss Molly Shop Owner Shannon Lincoln.

Boise shop owners like Lincoln and Natalie Durham at Piece Unique depend on your business to earn a living. But when you pay them, they typically have to pay their due to Visa and Mastercard.

"Depending on how big a retailer you are, you might have an $800 fee one month. And then the next have it be all the way up to $1,500, depending on the type of credit card that your customers were using," said Idaho Association of Retailers President Pam Eaton.

Eaton says credit card companies like Visa and Mastercard collected $48 billion in fees. That's about three times what the figure was back in 2001, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that during times of slumping sales and low consumer confidence big fees hurt small business.

"It's a necessary evil, I mean we can't get around it. It does add up. It takes a lot of our profit. We all know that's how we all pay, even if it's a debit," said Durham.

"It's really difficult for us to do anything about it. And it's one of our major expenses every month. It's probably the second or third major expense, as far as from an operating perspective," said Lincoln.

Of the businesses we talked with, all of them agree figuring out just how much money they're expected to spend with credit card companies is a crap-shoot and never easy to understand. And if you think it stands to reason maybe fees would have eased up in the last year, you're wrong.

2008 brought one of the biggest rises in recent years as retailers pay the price for their customers' ease of payment.

"In this last year, they have really sky-rocketed. Businesses just don't know what to do. They're throwing their hands up, ringing their hands, don't know what to do about this. And they're very, very frustrated," said Eaton.