Montana Businesses Can Charge You Extra To Use Your Card

What Does Montana Law Say About Card Fees?

With practically everyone using a debit or credit card these days, have you noticed Montana businesses adding a little extra to your bill when you pay with a card?

Sometimes there's a "processing fee," "card fee," or "surcharge" showing up at checkout, and honestly, I'm starting to wonder when this became normal.

Montana Card Fees Are Becoming Harder to Ignore

I get it. Businesses have costs associated with accepting electronic payments. That's nothing new. But I'm also old enough to remember when they brought that sliding machine to your table; it went "chu-chunk," you signed it, and that was it.

Today, Montana's Division of Banking and Financial Institutions says neither Montana law nor federal law outright prohibits merchants from charging consumers these "card fees" when they use plastic.

The state says payment processor agreements traditionally restricted those fees, but those restrictions have changed or are no longer being enforced in some cases.

There are still plenty of rules from the card companies. Visa says U.S. merchants can surcharge credit cards, but not Visa debit or prepaid cards. The surcharge also can't exceed the merchant's cost of accepting that card or 3%, whichever is lower. Mastercard also prohibits surcharges on its debit and prepaid cards and limits surcharges on credit cards.

Scott Olson, Getty Images

Why Not Just Include Card Fees In The Price?

But here's my question: Should we, the customer, have to pay extra every time we use a card?

With less of us using cash and nearly everyone using electronic payments these days, shouldn't accepting cards just be part of doing business?

Maybe the cost should simply be built into the price instead of showing up as a surprise at the register.

I don't think any of us mind knowing what something costs. It's why we all love having no sales tax in Montana. We like seeing a price on the shelf and knowing that's the price we're actually going to pay.