[HM:250275] CREDIT CARD COST INFO

Credit Card Charitable Donations:

Imagine if you made a $10 charitable donation, but you later found out that some unrelated third party pocketed $3 of it. If you or I did that, it would be called theft. But when a bank does it, we call it a credit card processing fee. Nonprofit organizations agree to these fees for the same reasons that businesses do: Performing a credit card transaction is so easy (for both cardholders and recipients) that the fees are considered just a cost of doing business. When you charge money to your credit card, the processing network
and your bank earn a merchant fee, also known as a swipe fee. These charges tend to consume around 3 percent of
the transaction – even when it's a nonprofit accepting the funds. So how do you make sure that a charity receives the
most benefit from your donation? Follow these steps…

1. Consider other ways to donate. Every type of donation has its own inherent costs. For example, cash donations
require labor to accept and count it, security to store it, and transportation to deposit it in the bank. But a wireless
bank transfer is probably the least expensive way for a charity to accept cash, followed by checks, then paper
money.

2. Use your debit card. If you want to minimize merchant fees but still use plastic, try your debit card. Thanks to
recent legislation, debit card fees have been drastically reduced. This means that charities will benefit from lower
merchant fees, just as businesses have.

3. Donate via PayPal. PayPal processes donations for charity by charging them 2.2 percent – and 1.9 percent for
nonprofits that receive more than $100,000 a year. This is less than standard credit card merchant fees, and you can
use your favorite card.

4. Look for merchant fee waivers. Credit card processors have shown some recognition that their merchant fees
are impacting charities, but only when a major disaster makes worldwide news. For example, most credit card
processors waived their merchant fees during the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami and the recent
earthquakes in Haiti and Japan.

5. Use a card with lower merchant fees. Among retailers, it's well known that American Express charges higher
merchant fees than competitors Visa and MasterCard. As someone making a charitable contribution, you can at least
try to use the less costly cards to make sure that your chosen charity receives more of your donation. If you are a Capital One cardholder, you can make donations to your favorite charity without incurring merchant fees.

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T  H  A  N  K  S  ,  ,  ,

Sam.

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