Talk:Pay-by-Plastic pumps up gas prices in U.S.

Gas stations have largely dismantled the infrastructure by which human beings were involved in the process of collecting cash (or running carbon paper over credit cards). This certainly cost *more* than the transaction fees under discussion here, even at minimum wage.

The rising use of credit cards, and automation, have benefited the consumer significantly. To suggest otherwise is ridiculous.


 * This article suggests there is a price to be paid for using plastic. The implicit criticism is that banks reap twice the fee for processing dollar transaction amounts that have doubled under rising prices. -Edbrown05 14:20, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

My $.02 worth
The technology improvements made by retailers (eliminating carbon forms) have indeed improved the cost structures, unfortunately, the retailer never received the cost benefit. Current average interchange rates for the major oil companies is about 1.75% ($.04 a gal @ 2.299), almost a half cent increase from the rate in 1998. That's just the interchange for the lowest fee transaction.

If you're like me and use Pay-at-pump, Visa and Mastercard add 10+ points and an additional transaction fee. It is supposed to cover the higher percentage of fraud and ticket retrievals. All fraudulant charges are sent back to the retailer to eat.

Add anywhere from $.03 - .06 transaction fee and now a 15 gallon fuel sale, done pay-at-pump cost that retailer about $.69, or 4.6 cents a gallon.

It is a cost of doing business. They could have kept there own Oil company credit accounts, but that was too expensive. We, the consumers, wanted the convenience of using one card everywhere. It made our wallets thinner, both physically and figuratively.

The discount for cash is already here. Look at Walmart, buy their prepaid car and save.