Originally Posted by
JEFFJAGUAR
Many years ago, NY State had a law prohibiting credit card companies from charging annual fees. Citibank tried to get around it by charging 50¢ a month for producing a statement but the Court of Appeals threw it out.
Then came a lawsuit and it was ruled that the state where the credit card company has its headquarters, governs things such as this. Citibank moved its credit card operations to South Dakota (Chase to Delaware as I remember) and voila, they could then charge annual fees. NY eventually rescinded the law.
I suspect that when push comes to shove, if airlines really want to charge a surchargbe, they will get some kind of court decision that the location of their credit card processor determines whether they can charge a surcharge (don't we have the same thing already with foreign transaction fees where many of the foreign airlines process their mc/visa charges out of country and the banks tack on the 3% fee?)......always states with progressive governments that actually protect consumers are overriden by the feds.
That is a completely different situation. Under the National Banking Act of 1863, the supreme court ruled that states cannot regulate BANKS that are nationally chartered and based in a different state. However, the credit card surcharge is levied by the MERCHANT, not by the bank. (By the way, the case was on interest rate caps, not annual fees.)
Perhaps merchants such as Amazon will be able to sell to residents of California and New York and still charge a surcharge, claiming that they are not subject to state law because they have no physical presence in the state, just as they do with taxes. However, physical retailers will not be able to get around this law.