Been thinking about credit cards

The other day I started to pay for a pound of shrimp and saw a hand-printed sign at checkout that read,"3% added if using a credit card." Later that day I went through a car-wash that only took credit cards for payment. Those two transactions started me thinking about what’s probably going to happen to customers in a few years.

The credit card transaction cost that a business used to pay will be passed on to you as an added fee. It will probably show up on the bottom of your bill as a separate line after taxes. What was a "cost-of-business" will be transferred to you…much like going through a line and cleaning up your table at a fast food joint. Businesses that add a fee for using a credit card want you to eat, or buy, there but are encouraging you to use a debit card, check or cash.

Businesses that will not accept cash for payment stick their finger in the federal government’s eye by ignoring the line on your paper money (Federal Reserve Note) that proclaims " This note is legal tender for all debts public and private." Those businesses that take only credit cards may be trying to prevent internal cash theft or other personnel/management problems but, in the future, could decide to pass the transaction cost to you. Those businesses will not have a separate line for the transaction cost, it will simply be buried in the bill.

Now I have changed my habits. I carry a bit more cash. Whenever I get a credit card bill to sign, I pay attention to the Botton Lines to see if there is a " TRANSACTION FEE." If there is one, I "round up" and deduct that amount from my tip and tell my server why. I encourage everyone to circle the fee and write a note to the manager on the "Merchant Copy." I hope that gets back to the manager and owner. If no tip is involved, like the seafood market, I pay cash. Any place that will not take cash becomes suspect and I pay more attention to who’s doing what and why.

Where all this is headed I do not know but I have a sinking feeling that it’s going to hit me somewhere in my wallet or my time. I already get to check myself out at the super market, pump my own gas, pay a dollar to put air in my tires and put garbage cans out on my special day. Why shouldn’t it cost me a little more to pay my bill with a credit card? It’s all about the bottom line.

When do I think this will become a fact of business life? Probably within the next eight to ten years. This has to do with CONDITIONING! Really old folks can remember when someone manned the pumps at filling stations, put air in your tires  and cleaned your windshields. Old folks can remember sharing telephone "Party Lines." I remember when my wife began to refuel her car. I remember my first trip through the automatic teller machine (ATM) at the credit union. Those changes in habits took a while, enjoyed a lot of conversations, but eventually become just another way of life…another cost-of-living in an America where the dollar has become our god…and where any cost-of-business that can be transferred to the customer will be!