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Paying with Plastic Gets More Expensive
Credit card companies offer their customers a lot of incentives to use their cards--airline miles, cash back programs and even rewards for spending so much in a month and paying it off in full.

With options like that it's hard not to use your card at the pump, for groceries and especially for those big purchases items. Now consumers could be paying more for those purchases.

A settlement agreement between retailers and credit card companies now allows merchants to charge customers up to four-percent on any purchases made with a credit card.

Ben Stomberg, owner of Stone Alley Books in Galesburg, says even though he has the option to implement the charges he probably wont.

Stomberg tells WGIL the new surcharges create a gray area for small businesses and owners have to decided if they want to go down that road.

"There's a fine line between charging to recoup your costs on these things, such as the cost of a credit card, and charging customers more," Stomberg said. "To start recouping the cost of a credit card transaction, to balance that, you're talking about discounting your merchandise, so that you're not really taking more out of your customer's pocket than what you already are."

Stomberg says there's a good chance many small businesses will take advantage of the new charges that range from 1.5% to 4%.

He says many places have already been tacking on extra charges for some time with policies that allow the store to charge a surcharge for any purchase under a set amount.

When WGIL talked with other stores off of Seminary Street, most either didn't have a comment or were unaware of the new charges.
01 29 13 by Newsroom
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