Pumptopper Campaign to Send Message to Congress
The nation’s 115,000-plus convenience stores will communicate their outrage over devastating credit card fees via pumptoppers that will educate consumers and Congress about the problem.
On June 27, 2008 NACS announced that it will make pumptoppers available free of charge to retailers. Pumptoppers typically contain promotional messages about the store but these will communicate the industry’s fight against sky-high interchange rates.
NACS is urging retailers to put these pumptoppers in their promotional signage plans from August 1 to September 6, when Congress is in recess and members will be in their home districts.
H.R. 5546, the Credit Card Fair Fee Act was passed by the House Judiciary Committee on July 16, 2008. The bill would grant the retail community with a limited exemption from anti-trust laws, enabling them to join together to negotiate with Visa and MasterCard regarding rates and terms of acceptance. The Senate version is S. 3086.
“The credit card fees that retailers pay are outrageous,” said NACS President and CEO Hank Armour. “Congress needs to see the pain that credit card fees are causing in their home districts,” said Armour. “In Washington, the credit card companies have used their outrageous profits at the pump to fund a massive lobbying effort to prevent fixing the broken system. It is impossible to match their virtually unlimited resources, so we need to take the message straight to where this pain is occurring – at the gas pump,” said Armour.
The pumptoppers that NACS has developed have two messages: “Tell Congress you want to know how much this fill-up cost you in credit card fees” and “That pain you are experiencing in part is caused by secret credit card fees.” Both ads encourage motorists to go to the Web site www.unfaircreditcardfees.com to send a message to their elected leaders. The artwork is available in a variety of sizes and can be downloaded at www.nacsonline.com/pumptoppers. For retailers who are unable to print the pumptoppers themselves, NACS has arranged a significant discount for retailers who want to order them from signage company GSP at www.popmanager.com/ccfees.html.
Please get your pumptoppers as soon as possible and encourage others to do so, this is a fight for every single store!