WASHINGTON – A company perhaps known better for Slurpees than for credit card reform, 7-11 Inc. called on lawmakers Wednesday to help regulate what many business owners believe are unfair credit card transaction fees.
After delivering 1.66 million petition signatures to Washington – the largest ever delivered on a public policy issue – 7-11 franchise owners spoke out on a fee they say is dragging down profits: Interchange fees, or processing fees card-issuing banks pay other banks that handle debit and credit card transaction processes for the business in question.
Franchise owners, like Baljinder Sidhu, who traveled from Torrance, Calif., want to show Congress that 7-11 customers support the reduction – or removal altogether – of interchange fees for merchants.
“These are the actual voters and consumers who volunteered to sign petitions,” Sidhu said. “We can control other parts of our business but interchange fees are out of our control.”
Navdeep Bassi, president of 7-11’s political action committee, said interchange fees cost him about $28,000, or more than one-third of his total business, in 2008.
But those representing the credit and electronic payment industries see the situation differently. Electronic Payments Coalition spokeswoman Trish Wexler said consumers aren’t getting the whole story. In other words, someone has to shoulder the interchange fee charge, if not the merchant than the customer.
“It’s a lot of boxes,” Wexler said, studying the delivered petitions, “but I question the validity and the quality of the signatures.”
Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., accepted the signatures, and accused credit companies of abusing “monopolistic power.” Welch, along with Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., introduced the Credit Card Interchange Fees Act of 2009 earlier this year.
Visa spokeswoman Denise Dunckel said if legislation on the issue is successful, the end result could be a shouldering of the interchange fees from the merchant to customers in the form of surcharges.
“[Legislation] would take away consumer voice,” Dunckel said.
Joseph DePinto, the chief executive of 7-11, said he fulfilled a promise to business owners this summer to deliver the signatures to congress if customers spoke out.
“I hope they’ve taken notice,” DePinto said.