> They already force retailers to not give discounts for using cash.
The contracts actually say that merchants cannot add a surcharge for paying with a credit card. It's still okay to give a 3% discount off the final sale price for paying cash, or a 10% discount, or whatever they feel like. As far as I know these contracts are intended to mirror the laws about cash: you can't ask for 3% more because somebody wants to pay with cash, since cash is legal tender.
Not true since January. Part of a class-action settlement with Visa and MasterCard allows merchants to add a surcharge of up to 4% for paying with credit cards. The Dodd-Frank bill in 2010 banned prohibitions on the other terminology for the same thing -- cash discount. Cash discounts, credit surcharges, and minimums to pay with credit as low as $10 are all currently legal, and old merchant account agreement terms that prohibited them are void or unenforceable.
The contracts actually say that merchants cannot add a surcharge for paying with a credit card. It's still okay to give a 3% discount off the final sale price for paying cash, or a 10% discount, or whatever they feel like. As far as I know these contracts are intended to mirror the laws about cash: you can't ask for 3% more because somebody wants to pay with cash, since cash is legal tender.