“If you are concerned about prices at the pump you need to be concerned about [credit card] interchange fees,” said Tom Robinson, president of San Jose, California-based Robinson Oil Corporation. Robinson testified May 15, 2008, before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee’s Anti-Trust Task Force on behalf of NACS.
Robinson said that high credit card interchange fees are devastating the country’s small businesses that dominate the convenience and petroleum retailing industry.
“The impact on my industry is incredible,” said Robinson, noting that convenience stores paid $7.6 billion in credit card fees in 2007, a figure more than double industry profits of $3.4 billion. “Every time you buy gasoline I ask you to remember this – the station you are buying it from is paying more than twice as much money in fees than it is making – and every time gas prices go up the card fees go right up with them,” he said. “These fees have simply taken over our industry.”
Robinson urged Congress to swiftly enact H.R. 5546, the Credit Card Fair Fee Act, which would provide an opportunity for merchants to negotiate reasonable terms with the credit card companies and their member banks.
Learn more about NACS and its advocacy for the industry.