Originally Posted by
Phantom707
Financial institutions that pass on this fee:[list of 5 more banks I've never heard of]
I could go on, but I think that suffices to prove the point that it's in the legal documents of a lot of places.
There are 6,799 FDIC-insured US banks (as of 2014). Firstly, 5/6000+ is an insignificant number. Secondly, only banks with rewards cards are really relevant here. Thirdly, even if the banks were relevant, these fees often vary by product, so blanket statements even restricted to one bank are meaningless. One bank can have some FTF-free cards and some that charge 3%.
Then there are these articles about MasterCard's known practice in doing this.
Ancient articles in a rapidly changing marketplace are likely to be irrelevant. In the past 5 years, there have been competitive changes and law suits. 5 years ago, even 1 year ago, some of the best rewards cards in the industry had hefty FTFs (e.g. SPG Amex). Much has changed.