Although Connecticut and New York are among the 10 states to prohibit surcharges on credit cards, retailers in most states are now allowed as of Jan. 27 to charge customers a checkout fee for using a credit card.
The fee is a part of a July settlement between Visa, MasterCard and nine banks, allowing store owners to pass along the cost of the transactions to customers. The fee can be up to 3 percent of the total purchase price and doesn’t apply to debit cards.
Many major retailers, including Wal-Mart, Target and Macy’s, have said the agreement is bad for both stores and consumers and isn’t a solution to Visa and MasterCard’s “unfair” fees.
