Originally Posted by
randian
Why would consumers be fed up? If the EU experience has proved anything it's that capped fees were never about consumers, who saw not a cent of reduced prices despite a media campaign attempting to convince them to believe that would be their benefit, but about catering to producers who wanted to increase their profits. This was easily foreseeable of course, in the same way that tax credits for electric cars and air conditioners always inure to the benefit of the producer, never the consumer. If the government introduced a million dollar tax credit for new home insulation I guarantee the very next day it would cost a million dollars to reinsulate your house.
If surcharging for card use ends up getting common and egregious enough, I can see consumers demanding some sort of action thinking that the surcharging might go away (or be dramatically reduced) if interchange dropped. The chances of that would probably be less if merchants actually followed the rules though (i.e. didn't surcharge for debit and stuck to the 1% max or whatever).