If you answered credit card companies you’d be correct.
As a massive human tragedy unfolds in Haiti, relief organizations are soliciting credit-card donations through their hotlines and websites. About 97 percent of these donations will actually make it to the designated organizations — but the other 3 percent will be skimmed off by banks and credit card companies to cover their “transaction costs.”
Thanks to this hidden fee, American banks and credit card companies are making huge profits — somewhere in the neighborhood of $250 million a year — off of people’s charitable donations, according to a Huffington Post analysis.
They are truly disgusting, and I’m all for regulating them to the point where they can’t use the bathroom without a permission slip from the government.
Add to this that some of “these fees [for charities] are far greater than the marginal cost of the online transaction.” No wonder everyone hates them. That said, I just might have to take Capital One up on one of their never-ending mailers since:
One notable exception to the rule in this country is Capital One bank. Through its “No Hassle Giving Site”, the bank waives transaction costs for holders of its Visa or MasterCard cards, so that 100 percent of people’s donations goes to their chosen charity.
As it should be.