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"Retailers can now add a surcharge of up to 4% on credit card transactions, but that doesn't necessarily mean your next Amazon purchase will include the fee.\nThough Amazon hasn't stated whether it will levy the charge, David Robertson, publisher of The Nilson Report, a credit card industry newsletter, says that retailers in highly competitive industries are unlikely to include the fee. \"What inhibits surcharging is when you have two or more competitors,\" he says. \"You have to face the market reality of 'Can I get away with it?'\" \nAmazon reps could not be reached for comment. However, the retailer vies with various online competitors, including Walmart.com and Google Shopping. \nThe so-called \"checkout fees,\" which went into effect on Jan. 27, came after the biggest antitrust settlement in U.S. history. The suit, on behalf of a group of merchants, claimed that Visa, MasterCard and nine other financial services firms colluded to fix fees that stores pay to process credit card transactions. Retailers who opt to add the checkout fee have to disclose it with their customers.\nHowever 10 states \u2014 California, New York, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Oklahoma and Texas \u2014 have laws prohibiting the surcharges. If you're buying from an online retailer and they're based in one of those states, then you don't have to worry about the charge. Those states also contain about 45% of the U.S. population. \nRobertson says that the only retailers likely to include the fee are those that offer one-of-a-kind or must-have items that can be found nowhere else. \"These are merchants that know they'll have your business come hell or highwater,\" says Robertson.\nImage courtesy of iStockphoto, MarsBars"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2013/01/29/online-retailers-unlikely-to-levy-that-new-credit-card-surcharge/>