>unless the marketplace is less competitive now than before

I would say it probably is since Walmart, etc, al just won a class action lawsuit saying Mastercard and Visa were violating federal anti trust laws

http://www.nacsonline.com/Research/FactSheets/IndustryIssues...

Retailers said these actions caused merchants to pay excessive fees for credit and debit transactions. As a result, card companies settled the case and agreed to pay back damages, temporarily reduce fees and establish clear and distinct visual as well as electronic markers for identifying a credit from a debit card carrying a Visa or MasterCard logo.

>the fees that do exist are not necessarily passed on the consumer, but taken out of profit.

buhahaahaaaaha. That is so laughable.

Have you been to a gas station in the last couple years? There isn't a single one in a 2 mile radius of me (out of at least 5) that doesn't charge more for paying by credit card.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/2012/05/09/gas-station-o...

The card fees gasoline retailers pay are staggering. They are on average the second-highest operating cost for gas retailers (higher than rent on their stores). The fees were more than $11 billion last year – 87% higher than the entire industry’s profits. That makes six years in a row that the industry paid more in card fees than it made in profits. Those fees add an average of 7 cents per gallon to the price of gasoline sold in the United States and the fees have been exploding. Between 2004 and 2011 while the price of gasoline went up 80%, card fees increased 180%

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/20/business/an-easing-of-rule...

Currently, many businesses do pass on to consumers so-called “swipe fees” — which are said to generally range from 1 to 3 percent of the transaction — by building them into the price of the goods and services they sell. That means all customers pay, a system that some contend amounts to poorer consumers subsidizing affluent holders of premium rewards cards.

“To maintain the fiction that Amex and other issuers offer free rewards, retailers had no choice but to inflate the prices they charge to all customers,” said Gary B. Friedman, the lead lawyer for the plaintiff companies in the American Express case.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/56143496-82/fees-card-c...

Ask any business owner who accepts credit cards about swipe fees and you'll get an earful. Every time a customer pays with a card, up to 4 percent of the sale goes back to the banks and credit card companies. Considering that the average profit margin for most retailers is 1-2 percent, these fees drive up prices and make it harder for small businesses to expand, hire more workers or even stay in business.

Merchants can't comparison-shop or negotiate swipe fees the way they do for other expenses. It's a take-it-or-leave-it deal and every bank agrees to charge the same thing. If merchants accept cards, they have to accept the fees, which can be raised at any time.

In fact, credit card swipe fees have more than tripled in the last 10 years even with new technology that should be driving costs down. And, swipe fees in the U.S. are higher than anywhere else in the world, even though we have the highest volume of card transactions.

In 2011, merchants paid more than $50 billion in swipe fees. For many retailers, these fees are their fastest-growing expense and their second-highest operating cost after labor. Business owners have no choice but to build some of these fees into their pricing, making everything consumers buy more expensive no matter how they pay.

To make matters even worse, merchants have no idea what the fee will be on any transaction until their bank statement comes at the end of the month. Visa has more than 60 different fee categories, and Mastercard has more than 240, but the fee isn't printed on the card.

http://www.nj.com/times-opinion/index.ssf/2013/03/opinion_hi...

Opinion: Hidden credit cards swipe fees are costing consumers, businesses billions