Credit Card Companies Getting Richer off Haiti Donations

As the tragedy in Haiti continues, Americans are generously donating millions of dollars to aid organizations by many different means.

But when they do so by the way of their credit cards, in most cases the credit card companies keep 3 percent of the donation as a “transaction fee,” even though that is considerably more than it costs them to process the donation.

There is a petition in the works to the CEOs of the major credit card companies demanding that they waive their processing fees for all charitable donations.

American Express is trying to get ahead of this story, announcing that they will temporarily waive the fees they charge on some Haiti-related charitable contributions for the next six weeks. That’s commendable, but not near enough.

The goal is to have all American credit card companies announce that they will waive ALL fees on charitable contributions, starting today, and in the future.

The credit card companies of course are not the only hyenas out there, trying to profit on the Haiti disaster and on the people’s good will.  As with almost any emergency situation, requiring charitable donations, all kinds of scams have cropped up all over the place.

Be careful how and to whom you send your contribution.

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Filed under: Charity • Cheating • Crime • Disaster • Haiti • banks • greed

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